Dana Pattison

Dana Pattison is an eight year veteran teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area and a founding member of the Facing History Teacher Leadership Team. Her passion for social justice and equity education have led her to create new courses at her site to encourage empathy and action amongst her students. You can find her on Twitter @pattisondana.

Recent Posts

Use Tailored Learning Approaches To Show Students They Can Succeed

Posted by Dana Pattison on December 4, 2017

We’ve all had that student who takes one look at an assignment and shuts down. They sit and stare. They develop a sudden and pressing need to go to the bathroom. They start to talk and distract others. They oh-so-sneakily check their phones. They employ any method of avoidance they can conjure to serve as a defense mechanism against failure. If students lack the confidence and sense of self-efficacy needed to be successful, they will choose to do nothing rather than try and fail yet again.

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Topics: Teaching Strategies

Questions Matter

Posted by Dana Pattison on December 5, 2016

So often my best teaching comes when I don’t give any information. A well-crafted question can provide far more information than the best slideshow presentation in the world. This is something that drew me to Facing History and Ourselves one fateful summer three and a half years ago when I went to a Holocaust and Human Behavior seminar. I liked that the session I attended often raised more questions than it answered and challenged me to complicate my thinking. When offered an opportunity to join the Facing History Leadership Academy, a group of educational leaders who have an in-depth understanding of the organization’s teaching framework and resources, I jumped at the chance. I was excited to expand my ability to question.

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Topics: Professional Development, Teaching, Teachers, Holocaust and Human Behavior, workshop

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Welcome to Facing Today, a Facing History blog. Facing History and Ourselves combats racism and antisemitism by using history to teach tolerance in classrooms around the globe.

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