Future of History / Project Based Learning
by Sarah Cooper · Published 07/13/2020 · Last modified 07/14/2020
Once Sarah Cooper’s 8th graders have finished their research papers on historical reformers, she has them to work in project groups to imagine which current cause their reformers might realistically support. Unexpected match-ups include Huey Newton and Sandra Day O’Connor!
Future of History / History & Current Events
by MiddleWeb · Published 06/29/2020 · Last modified 08/12/2020
The antiracist protests occurring across the country since the killing of George Floyd have led Lauren Brown and Sarah Cooper – two white female middle school social studies teachers – to consider even more deeply “how best to teach U.S. history.” Join the conversation.
The authors of the Social Studies Teacher’s Toolbox have constructed a research-based “honest, human guide” to helping students understand and care about what they learn. You will dig through and dog-ear it, and your students will be the richer for it, writes Sarah Cooper.
Future of History / Pandemic Learning
by Sarah Cooper · Published 06/14/2020 · Last modified 10/19/2022
With her eighth graders’ online history podcast project now complete, Sarah Cooper shares six takeaways that have helped her imagine not only how to improve this assignment in future iterations, but how she can continue to grow as a teacher facilitating remote learning.
Dr. Lindsay Portnoy’s sound research, detailed checklists, and illustrative classroom stories in “Designed to Learn” will inspire you to fine-tune or jump-start your design thinking approach to instruction, writes teacher, author and curriculum leader Sarah Cooper.
In response to the sudden shift to remote learning, history teacher Sarah Cooper has jettisoned her usual fourth-quarter Civil War unit and launched an opportunity for her 8th graders to create podcasts on challenging events in US history. Here’s the project in process.
Design thinking allows students to own the knowledge they’re acquiring by connecting content in meaningful ways to their homes, the activities they engage in, their reasons for learning, their transformative life experiences, and their special attributes. Dr. Lindsay Portnoy explains.
Now that her interaction with students is limited to a two-dimensional screen, Sarah Cooper is experiencing what many middle school teachers must feel each day of virtual learning – she misses the physicality of her kids’ messy, evolving, nonlinear growing-up process.
Recently Sarah Cooper did two lessons with her eighth grade history and civics students that afterward made her stand back and ask: Why did that work out so well? Here she analyzes the women’s suffrage lessons to uncover the key elements of success for future reflection.
Future of History / Writing in Social Studies
by Sarah Cooper · Published 02/10/2020 · Last modified 03/23/2020
Writing a letter to a politician is about as “civic” an assignment as we can do within our classroom walls, and it feels so relevant in our polarized political climate. After 3 years of tweaking her project, teacher Sarah Cooper shares tips to boost the response rate.
