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Welcome
Hello, I am Teaven Barnum the District Instructional Specialist for Secondary Social Studies. I'm excited to help you in any way that you need. You can reach me at teaven.barnum@killeenisd.org, text at 254-446-2873 or call my desk phone at 254-336-0253.
Suggestions/Classroom Connections
Hot Spot questions focus on images, recognition of objects, and whether students can tell one object/location from another. For social studies the likelihood that these images will be maps is extremely high. The functionality of the question will be easy for students to interact with as many of them engage in digital games frequently. I would focus on ensuring students understand how to read maps (both labeled and unlabeled) and have opportunities to see and interact with a variety of maps throughout the year.
➡️ Consider whether your students have been introduced to a 🗺️ map reading protocol. National Archives uses document analysis worksheets that follow the same progression each time for all primary sources and allows students to become comfortable with a process they can do themselves on test day. There are worksheets for novice students as well as intermediate students. The worksheets for novice students include visual supports and are simplified. I would encourage you to use the novice version, modeling the process through a think-aloud, moving towards usage of the intermediate version by the end of the year. The intention of the protocol is to help students understand that maps are to be used as historical evidence.
Suggestions/Classroom Connections
This has to be one of my favorites of the new item types. So many of your hands-on classroom activities translate to the drag and drop question type. Think card sorts, timelines, T-charts, Venn Diagrams and more!
The Teacher Toolkit describes Card Sorts as a strategy that gives students the opportunity to work with vocabulary, terms, and concepts. Students sort cards with the terms and concepts into categories based on meaning. Sorting the cards gives students a structure to talk meaningfully with one another about content and helps teachers check for understanding. <<VIDEO LINK>>
➡️ Consider how you are having students manipulate content physically within your classroom. One new strategy that many teachers are using to increase cognitive lift and engage students in discussion is Hexagonal Thinking. Cult of Pedagogy describes hexagonal thinking as a method for considering the connections between ideas and finding the nuances between those connections. Check out here blog post HERE.
STAAR Practice Test (To include new item types)
Please make sure that if you have not already taken the practice test that you do so. This will help give you the perspective the students will have. The test can be found at www.texasassessment.gov
Lowman Product
As you remember, we had Lowman Education come out and present. While we loved their free resources of the frequency charts and the framework, I heard a resounding desire from all of you to purchase more. When looking at what product could give us the biggest bang for our buck, I decided that the warm-ups and the assignments would be the best decision. These products were purchased and a big shout out to Dr. Buckley for pushing it through!
Who can use the products?
Lowman only has their products available for 6th, 7th, 8th and 11th (U.S.) grades.
How do we accesses the products?
Go to LOWMANEDUCATION.COM
CLICK ACCESS PRODUCTS
CREATE ACCOUNT (claim campus)
LOGIN WITH EMAIL AND PASSWORD
DOWNLOAD ANY ITEMS LABELED "OPEN"
Now most of you will already have a login because you created one during Job-alike.
Why should I use the product?
Lowman has created these warmups and assignments based off the frequency of tested TEKS. They also have new question item types. However, these resources are not interactive. For example, students would not actually drag and drop an item on the drag and drop questions. These products are available to you through word and PDF, so they do not have interactive quality. However, they do explicitly explain to the student what question type it is. If you would like to make them interactive, you could take those questions and plug them into Schoology or TFAR. I believe the purpose is the same because we want to focus on the skill of how these new question types are tested.
If you have any questions please let me know.
SOS INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGY FROM DISCOVERY ED
- Select a video segment from Discovery Education. Preview the video and select points to pause for students to take notes.
- Distribute AEIOU graphic organizers, or have students create their own on a blank piece of paper. Explain the meaning of each vowel for the purposes of this strategy.
- A = Adjective: List a word or two that describes something you saw or learned.
- E = Emotion: Describe how a particular part of the video made you feel.
- I = Interesting: Write something you found interesting about the content/topic.
- O = Oh!: Describe something that caused you say “Oh!”
- U = Um?: Write a question you have, or what you want to learn more about.
- Have students watch the video segment. At each pause point, direct students to complete one or more of the five categories.
- Provide additional time to allow students to complete their AEIOU connections.
- Have students share their responses.
8th Grade Intervention
A Schoology course has been created to help spiral high frequency TEKS and concepts to our 8th grade students. There will be one lesson a week posted in Schoology to be delivered through the intervention period. The goal is for the lesson to last no longer than 20 minutes and be completed without the need of a content expert. If you are interested in helping contribute to this effort, please contact me for more information.
