As I walk down my hallways, I gaze at my students’ Black History Month posters that cover the walls and I realize how I’ve changed since my early years. This month my school’s hallways are decorated with beautiful images that celebrate singers from Cab Calloway to Summer Walker, athletes like Gabby Douglas and Doug Williams, […]
The first time I encountered inquiry I was immediately hooked. As a novice teacher, I knew that I wanted my curriculum to be relevant, responsive, and sustaining, and I knew I wanted to attend to those resource pedagogies through asking questions. I knew that I needed to plan my course backwards, starting with big ideas, […]
I learned about the Inquiry Design Model and C3 Framework as a first-year teacher. At that time, I was working with MaryBeth Yerdon and she brought up the IDM, C3 Teachers, and the C3 Framework at a department meeting. MaryBeth learned about inquiry the previous year at a district-wide professional development. Her enthusiasm about inquiry […]
“We inherit our history.” It was a phrase I often used to begin my year in the hopes of sparking student agency and making history relevant. But as an early teacher in social studies and ELA, misconceptions about the importance of authentically investigating history filled my brain. I knew I wanted my students to engage […]
When Inquiry Hits a Nerve I recently read Isabel Wilkerson’s bestselling book, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents. I found Wilkerson’s argument intellectually stimulating and began to think about how I could incorporate her book into social studies curriculum in central Kentucky. There are many challenges to incorporating modern scholarship into secondary social studies. Will […]
November’s annual Native American Heritage Month and the national holiday of Thanksgiving are times when many educators across the country turn their focus to lessons about Native peoples. At the National Museum of the American Indian, we receive many requests during November from teachers and parents looking for advice and resources to help them teach […]
As I opened this school year, I decided to take stock of old procedures I follow, as well as my long term plans for the year around inquiry. After spending 5 days this past summer working on inquiry design in both a C3 summer institute and at the district level, it occurred to me it […]
As social studies teachers, we have dozens of tools and models in our portfolios to try and create engaging and meaningful lessons. The C3 module, when done well, is by far the most valuable method at our disposal. Last July, I designed a C3 Inquiry Design Model (IDM) investigation as to what allows for the […]
The critical issue of student motivation continues to drive teaching strategies and reward programs in K12 education. With increasing technology advancements it seems that a student without a device in their hands is essentially bored. As a teacher in the middle of his ninth year in education, I increasingly see the glazed over looks of […]