Reviewing the year we will soon be leaving behind, here are the Top Five Most Read Posts from Facing Technology:
1. How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do: An Introduction to Stereotype Threat
Facing History educators explore the impact of stereotypes in many of the histories we study. In personal stories, we can see how stereotypes impact the decisions individuals and communities make, and the effects those decisions have.
2. Diigo and Evernote: Helpful Tools for Online Learning
Hedrick Ellis, Director of Program Technology at Facing History and Ourselves, shares two of his favorite tools for keeping track of what he learns online: Diigo and Evernote.
3. How to: Flipped Classroom Exercise for Teaching Holocaust and Rescue
There has been a great deal written recently about the value of a using a "flipped" classroom approach to teaching. (For context, see this helpful article on the New York Times Opinionator blog.) While the method is still too new for us to know the long-term impact on students and on our teaching practice, we do know one thing: the "flipped classroom" approach creates opportunities for personalized learning, helps teachers use classroom time more efficiently, and allows us to incorporate technology into homework as well as classroom exercises.
4. New Resource from Teaching Tolerance Features Diverse Readings on Identity and Action
Facing History and Ourselves often partners with the wonderful educational organization Teaching Tolerance to share resources and best practices that help educators, young people, and communities have safe conversations about tolerance, identity, and difficult moments in history.
5. Two Flipped Classroom Exercises to Teach To Kill a Mockingbird
Do you teach Harper Lee's classic To Kill a Mockingbird? Check out these two flipped classroom exercises that can help engage students in the issues central to the novel—and their own lives—including race, class, gender, justice, and moral growth. The first exercise activates student thinking about “stereotype threat,” or how stereotypes can negatively affect us in our daily lives. The second sets the historical setting of To Kill a Mockingbird. These exercises can be done independently or together as you introduce the novel to your students. And students can complete them on their own for homework, or you can introduce them as part of a class activity.
