I'm currently putting the finishing touches on a presentation I'm giving this week at the New York State Council of the Social Studies Annual Conference this week and I realized that I hadn't posted too much here about my experiences last summer at the Library of Congress Summer Teachers Institute.  Bad Dawn!!!
     One of the lessons that I did early on the year was my own take on the Library of Congress' Connecting with Primary Sources activity.  

In my activity, I used maps!  It was a great way to introduce a wide variety of topics to my US History students because I chose traditional maps as well as infographic type maps which covered topics from colonial times through present day.

      The students walked into the room and chose a map that was of interest to them.  Then I reviewed the process of studying the maps (see above) as well how to use the Primary Source Analysis tool which was created by the Library of Congress (see below).

     I had a horrible time limiting myself to just 25 maps and ended up selecting over 35 maps (see below)!

     After completing their Primary Source Analysis (PSA) tools and answering any of the questions the students had, the students moved on to their next task.  They then had to locate the students who had maps which fell in to the same category as their map.  This was something that I needed to help them out with a bit and eventually I told the students what the categories were and they were then better able to find their matches.  See categories below.

     Lastly, as a group, the students shared their maps and discussed what they found interesting about their maps or the questions that they had.  Then the groups created a headline that would summarize the significance of their maps.  This was an eyeopening part of the lesson for me since the students had a very difficult time summarizing!  It helped me to understand why essay writing is so difficult for them, particularly document based questions.
     Overall, I really liked this activity and really like the idea of doing something like this as a way to either pre-assess student knowledge at the start of a unit or to use as a post assessment.  It's much more informational for me than a multiple choice assessment.

     This past Saturday I attended the Hudson Valley New York State Association for Computers and Technologies in Education (NYSCATE) Conference.  NYSCATE is an affiliate of ISTE.
     One of the best sessions was about implementing Genius Hour.  This is something that I hope to implement myself.  I’m a very cautious teacher and it’s difficult for me to just dive into something new.  This semester with my fully implemented flipped mastery classroom, I am dipping my toe into my very own version of a 20% Project.  The plan is to go all out in the fall or even next spring.  I want to do it right.
     I love the idea of students getting to pursue their passions.  But, the idea of no parameters is too much for me.  Is that wrong?  Maybe, but I am who I am.  That is why I loved the ideas that were presented by three teachers from Arlington Central School District (Kathy Bellino- @kgbellino, Julie Jee- @mrsjjee, Katie Nixon- @smilingIrish215).
     English teachers Julie Jee and Katie Nixon have based their projects (Project Inspiration and The Passion Project respectively) on literature and informative texts.  The students are connecting the curriculum to their passions and vice versa.  It’s truly genius. 
     Kathy Bellino is a social studies teacher who uses 20% time in her Civic Action and Leadership course.  This course is an alternate for the NYS required Participation in Government graduation requirement.  The theme of her Project Action is for students to answer the essential question of: "How can the average citizen bring about positive change in their community?" This warms my social studies heart!
     What I love about all three of these teachers’ projects is that they have created a loose structure for their students so that they can be successful but still be very free to follow where their passions lead them.  I love that they have worked to get students who say that they do not have a passion to discover that they really do after all.  I especially loved that they brought two former students with them to the presentation to give the all-important student perspective of what it was like for them to learn that they are capable of more than they thought that they were.
     All three teachers said that success was due in large part to meeting with students individually to discuss their ideas rather than just having them fill out a form stating what their intended project would be.  They also talked about how student buy in was important to making the project an overall success. 
     Julie Jee has graciously agreed to allow me to share the link to the Livebinder resources used in the presentation. Be sure to check it out and be inspired to reach towards genius status! 

     Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of my flipped life.  I started my spring semester Psychology classes at the beginning of February.  This was probably the worst month to try to get students into any kind of regular routine.  We had two snow days and two 2-hour delays and a four day weekend.  Also, I missed a day visiting flipped mastery in action with Tom Driscoll and a half day assisting with special education annual reviews.  Oh, and I almost forgot, I was “kicked out” of my classroom at one point because a new SMART Board was being installed.  I’m really happy that I’ve got this great technology but it’s still not hooked up yet and thus I haven’t been able to make use of it.  As you can tell, continuity was difficult to come by this month.
     My introductory chapter lasted a lot longer than usual because this time, it included an introduction to flipped mastery and the technology that we were going to be using this semester.  I created a “choose your own adventure” type assignment to introduce the students to the basics of Schoology (our LMS), Weebly (our blogging platform), and other resources they might find useful throughout the semester such as Cel.ly. 
     The students spent a lot of time customizing their Weebly sites (you can see them here) which I knew was going to happen.  It’s actually why I chose Weebly because it is easy to customize and has a ton of options for layouts.  I like pretty things!

     Some students also spent a lot of time trying adjusting to the fact that they had choice as to what to do in class every day.  Some would ask me “what do I do now?” and we would look at their Unit Objective sheet and talk about what they had completed and what might be the best thing to work on next based on the amount of time they had left in the class period.  It was pretty obvious that many of my students don’t have much of an idea about time management or prioritization.  I think that this concept alone will be a valuable one for them to learn throughout the semester.

     Other students breezed through the unit.  Those students were the happiest.  They expressed that they really loved the format of the class and that they finally felt that their time in class was well spent as opposed to being wasted with waiting on other people to finish writing when taking notes or dealing with classroom disruptions.  They are the students that feel comfortable with technology and are able to self-monitor their progress.
     I have been constantly asking the students for feedback throughout the month.  Prior to going to see Mr. Driscoll’s classes, I asked the students what they wanted me to ask his students.  The big fear that my students expressed was that flipped mastery would take away their opportunity to have class discussions or to ask for help when they needed it.  Their biggest fear was that our class would become impersonal. 
     I was sure to talk to Mr. Driscoll and his students about how they were able to keep student/teacher connections.  Mr. Driscoll’s format includes a ten minute discussion time at the start of each class period.  He might give the students a quote, political cartoon, or have them watch a video clip.  The students then reflect on their Daily Learning Journal handout (see below) and then engage in a class discussion.  I like this idea a lot and have been implementing it in my classes as well.

     Also, instead of having the students watch a documentary on the brain independently, we watched it together as a class.  That helped the students who were feeling disconnected too.  I created a “parking lot” on one of my free whiteboards where students could write questions and comments anonymously on post-it notes.  The students are just starting to post things here and I imagine it will be used more as the class progresses.
     I was feeling pretty good about everything until the last day of the month.  One of my students came up to me at the end of the class period to tell me that he was dropping the course.  He is an all-around nice kid, smart, hardworking, thoughtful, the whole nine yards.  I was devastated!  No one has ever dropped my class before; not like this.  He literally said “it’s not you, it’s me”!  He said that the format of the class was just too impersonal and that he thought that there was going to be more discussion.  I told him that we are really just getting started and that there is tons of discussion to come!  I told him that we will be having all kinds of activities that we wouldn’t have had time for using a traditional teaching model.  I asked him to hang with it for another week and see if I could change his mind.  He said that he needs to drop now, before the end of the 5-Week progress reports. 
     I truly thought for a minute that I should completely throw out this whole experiment and go back to my regular way of teaching.  Then I remembered that I have a wide PLN who has experience I can use to get me though my crisis of flipping faith.  I posted on Schoology that I needed them to talk me off of the ledge and they did just that!   I also made a point to talk to my students who I have for both Psychology and US History.  Those students know me well and have no compunction about being brutally honest.  They reassured me that the class is going well and that they truly enjoy it.  When I said I was thinking about doing a unit of US History as a flipped mastery experiment, they were excited.  They said what many teachers have said when talking about implementing a flipped classroom---it’s all in how you sell it to the students.
     I’m thankful that I have a great PLN, wonderful students, and this blog to reflect on my teaching practices.  I think that reflection might be THE most important component to improving as a teacher.  Thank you for being a part of my reflection process and for making me the best teacher possible for my students!

The snow has not been friendly to me recently.  It has be wreaking havoc on my teaching plans as well as my blog posts!  I’ve been waiting to write this particular post until I had a bit of time with my students to experience the flipped mastery.  I also wanted to be able to talk about my experience with Digital Learning Day.  Mine was delayed due to one in a series of blizzards we’ve had this month.  Now, finally, everything has fallen into place!






     As I mentioned in my previous two posts, I began experimenting with flipped learning almost a year ago.  I have researched, conducted trials, solicited student feedback, researched again, and went back to the drawing board.  
     As I started this school year, I still believed that the flipped mastery model would not work for me and my students.  I teach inclusion classes and I didn’t think that the students could manage working their way through unit objectives on their own, I didn’t think that my students would have enough support to be successful, and I didn’t think that my students would be able to learn everything that they need to enable them to pass the Regents exam in June.
     But assigning video notes for homework wasn’t working because too many of my students weren’t watching them. They weren’t doing the regular homework either.  The students did feel like the videos were beneficial and they loved that they could watch them at their own pace during the times that I had them watch them in class.  I loved how much time I was able to free up to do other activities and to work on skill building.
     I came to the conclusion that if I wanted have my cake and eat it too, I would need to give up my reservations and try flipped mastery.  Because I was still a little nervous about the prospect of trying something so radically different, I decided to only use a flipped mastery model for my Psychology classes.  Psychology is a semester course, an elective, and does not have a Regents exam.  I figured that I couldn’t screw things up too badly!

These are the things that I use to produce flipped videos and to enable my students to view them.

• Logitech Labtec Desktop Microphone 600 (when I purchased this it was $15) This was my original mic and it served me well.
  
• Yeti USB Microphone (currently $98) I got this for Christmas from my husband.  It’s a real upgrade in sound from my original microphone but not truly necessary to be able to produce screencasts.  It sure is nice though!
  
• PowerPoint
  
• Screencast-o-matic Free or $15 for a year.  Uploads to youtube or screencast-o-matic or even better save to your computer
  
• YouTube- my channel 
  
• Weebly-  My website to post links to videos
  
• Schoology - Starting in October our school district now uses this as our LMS and I now post videos here.  I download my screencasts as MP4s from Screencast-o-matic and then upload to Schoology. Then I don’t have to worry about them being blocked at school!
  

What's on my list to get next:

• Camtasia
  
• A video camera to attempt green screen recordings!

     Flipped mastery has begun for the second semester of my Psychology classes.  We have just begun our second unit.  I have to say that I am quite pleased and that my students are happy also.  Here’s what I’ve noticed so far:

• I learned the students names a lot quicker than I normally do
  
• Some students like choice and independence while others are completely confused by it (this has been improving daily)
  
• Some students shine that in other classes just put their heads down 
  
• In my foray into student blogging, I have learned that I need to teach writing and plagiarism (these were not topics that were big in this type of class previously) 
  
• There is a learning curve for both my students and me with this very different method of learning.  The way that I sell it to the students is that we will be working as a partnership.  So far the feedback from the students is that they are feeling empowered.  
  

     After visiting Tom Driscoll’s classes (@Mr_Driscoll) and talking to his students, I feel like I have made the right decision to pursue this new method of teaching.  His students were regular students, just like mine, and they were independent, knowledgeable, engaged, and learning!  I gained quite a few tips to smooth out some of the bumps that I have encountered so far and will be putting them into place immediately.  He also gave me a lot to think about for the future, particularly the addition of a gamification element to the course.  My co-teacher was so excited after learning about how successful Tom Driscoll has been in flipping his classes that he wants to get started with flipped mastery prior to the end of this school year rather than waiting for the fall as we had talked about previously!  I have to say that I’m extremely excited as well!!!
     I will be cohosting a Twitter chat for Psychology teachers with Melissa Schaefer (@MT_schaef) on March 12th at 9pm EST if you’d like to join in discussing our experiences with Flipped Learning.  Additionally, I will be presenting at the New York State Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Albany (March 27-29) about screencasting and curating videos for a flipped class.  I will also be posting updates here as the semester progresses to give you the play-by-play of what is working and what I have needed to modify.  

As I mentioned at the start of my last post, I am a planner and a list maker.  I like the research process and seeing all of the possibilities.  My husband and I are notorious for our vacation planning down to which restaurants we’re going to try out while we’re in a new place.  The problem is that sometimes you can become crippled with the planning process.  Sometimes, you just have to jump in and try something and make changes as you go.  I’ve worked hard to make my path towards completely flipping all of my classes equal parts research, application, and reflection.  If you’re in the research portion of your journey, here are some of the resources I have found useful along the way.

Books:

• Flip Your Classroom: Reach every student in every class every day-  I think this is my 3rd time mentioning this book!
  
• Flipping 2.0 - Very, very highly recommend.  Extremely practical advice and real world applications.
  
• *I plan on getting this as soon as it’s available in June 2014- Flipped Learning: Gateway to Student Engagement
  

Twitter Chats:

• #flipclass (Mondays at 8pm EST)
• #sschat (Mondays at 7pm EST)
• #psychat (Wednesdays at 9pm EST)
  

EdCampNYC

• If you haven’t been to an EdCamp, do yourself a favor and check one out!  I’ve been to EdCampNYC twice and it has changed my educational life!
  

Websites/Apps:

• Flipped Learning Network and Ning 
  
• EducatorsTechnology.com
  
• Edudemic  
  
• Zite- With this app you can make your own categories and Zite will bring you information from around the web and then cater it to your needs/likes.  I use this app almost daily to keep up with what’s new in education.
  

Blogs:

• Flipped History- This is the blog that is guiding me most in the mastery portion of my flipped adventure. 
  
• Flipping My Spanish Classroom  
  
• Flipping with Kirch 
  
• US History Educator Blog- The focus of this blog isn't flipping but it is sometimes discussed as well as educational technology.
• Not Another History Teacher- An awesome educational technology blog with a focus on social studies.
  
• I recently just stumbled upon the following: A Flipped Approach and Student Centered History 
  

LMS Groups

• Schoology Flipped Classrooms
  
• Edmodo Flipping Your Classroom 
  

YouTube:

• Hip Hughes History  
  
• Katie Gimbar’s Flipped Classroom FAQ   
  

Hopefully some of these resources will be useful to you also as you make your own journey towards a flipped classroom.  Stay tuned for my final installment of my flipping story---how I decided to move to a flipped mastery model for my Psychology classes!

I’m a goal setter and a list maker.  Last spring, I set the goal to transition my classes to a flipped learning model.  This week I was finally able to implement a full, flipped mastery model to my two psychology classes.  How it will work, how much my students will learn and enjoy it, and what changes will need to be made all remain to be seen.  For now, I can tell you the process which led me to where I am today.

The Beginning:

It started with Twitter and Twitter Chats.  The two I engaged in the most last year were #sschat and #psychat.  People mentioned flipped learning and I was intrigued and decided to read up on it.  My research started online and then moved to the book Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams.  Initially, I found the book very useful but I decided that Flipped Mastery would not be something that I could do with my students.  I didn’t see how I could get through the curriculum or how they would be able to achieve mastery.  I also felt like it would mean me giving up on the instructional side of my teaching which is something that I love and feel that I am good at.

After a bunch of reading and research I dipped my toe in to flipping in April of 2013.  I figured that I couldn’t mess up too much at that point in the school year (we end in June) and I did some in class flips for my US History and Psychology classes.  I made sure to get a lot of feedback from my students along the way.  It helped me to fine tune my videos (shorter!) and to give me more goals to set in the future (put me in the videos, maybe even green screen).

Since it was the end of the school year, I didn’t get the opportunity to assign too many flipped homework assignments.  I did, however, make 13 Regents review videos for my US History students.  When I asked them just before the exam what were the most effective review methods for them, my review methods were highly rated.

Making Adjustments:

As the new school year started this fall, I had the goal of flipping one lesson each week for both US History and Psychology classes. 

This did not work out as planned for US History.  The students weren’t watching the videos and thus were not learning the material.  Instead of giving up entirely, I made videos as test reviews and for each vocabulary list I assigned to better explain the material and to help the students to review for our vocabulary quizzes.  The students have been making good use of these resources but I still want to get back to my initial goal of flipping more of the class instruction. 

In my psychology classes, my goal has been working out pretty well! I didn’t flip every single week but I did create flipped lessons regularly.  To increase students’ likelihood of watching the videos I did several things.

1. Put the videos on flash drives and DVDs for the students with limited internet access.
   
2. Posted the videos on both YouTube (with the links on my website) and Schoology (which is not blocked at school).
3. Gave the students ample opportunity to watch the videos; not just one or two nights.  I assigned the videos on Monday and made them due on Friday.
   
4. On the Friday when the videos were due, I held class in the computer lab.  I assigned fun activities for the class like taking personality tests or completing memory exercises.  The students loved them!  The students who hadn’t watched the flipped video for the week, however, had to watch the video prior to being able to do the fun activity.  
   

Using these methods, all students watched the videos whether at home or during class time.  Class time was freed up to do more engaging activities, have more discussions, and delve deeper into the material.  I was quite pleased and so were my students.

In my next post, I’ll discuss what technology I have used to flip my classes and some of the specific places where I have learned about how to flip effectively.  In a third post I’ll let you know the steps I’ve taken to move from a weekly flipped lesson to a fully flipped mastery model for my psychology classes.  Stay tuned!

     I am a good teacher; or at least I think I am using the typical teaching metrics.  I have good pass rates on the Regents exams, my psychology elective is fully subscribed, and I have a good rapport with my students.  But here’s the question: am I doing the best I can for my students?  Am I teaching them to think critically, use reason and logic or am I just teaching them to pass a standardized test? While attending the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institute  I decided that I need to up my game.
     At the LOC Summer Teacher Institute, we learned a variety of methods to encourage students to think critically.  After each demonstration I thought “Why am I not doing this with my students?”  I learned that although I am teaching them enough to pass tests and to have a general knowledge of the subjects I teach, they are not learning as much as they could (or should).  Basically, it’s all about putting the students’ learning and critical thinking process first above my teaching.  
     You would think that this would be easy for me to swallow and to put in to place but it’s proved to be difficult.  I think that a large part of the problem is me. It’s that whole “sage on the stage” thing.  It’s what I grew up with and was taught to do in college and what I have done for the past 13 years.  I have a difficult time giving up how I have always seen my role in the classroom.
     I am diligently working to remedy this situation.  I have begun gradually flipping my classes in the hopes of filling class time with more meaningful activities.  That really hasn’t been enough of a change and so the first week in February (the start of the new semester) I will be moving to a completely flipped Psychology class using the mastery model.  I am extremely excited and anxious as well.  I hope that my students will be willing to accept a really big change from what they have experienced for the past 11-12 years of schooling.  I hope that I will be able to retire my sage role and become the “guide on the side” that I know my students need.

     I have spent the school year so far reading like a fiend---all kinds of books, blogs, and articles about putting students at the center of learning. I have done a number of mini experiments with my classes which have moved both me and them out of our comfort zone.  I have used sites like ZooBurst to have students create children’s books on abolitionists and apps like Viddy for students to illustrate answers to review questions for Psychology.  I have had students organize themselves based on the documents they were assigned to analyze and had students search out their own supplemental information on the topics we discuss in class.  At every turn I have asked for student feedback and have used that to modify future trials.  Luckily, my students are very willing to provide constructive criticism!
     I will be attending three conferences in the next two months which will also help me in reaching my goal to provide my students with the best learning environment possible.  I will be using my Psychology classes as my model to move to a flipped mastery model for my US History classes for the 2014-2015 school year.  I truly believe that the move to flipped mastery will foster inquiry, creativity, and critical thinking on the part of my students.  I also believe that it will help to put my students on an equal footing in terms of access to technology, extra help, and the biggest item---it will eliminate homework.  
     So, here’s to my year as a teacher.  The teacher my students need me to be.

     A lot of good things have happened for me professionally this year.  Being selected to attend the APA/Clark University Workshop for High School Teachers and the Library of Congress Summer Teacher Institute were certainly high points.  Being allowed to host two Twitter chats (#psychat 9/4 and #sschat on 11/4) are icing on the cake!
     My Twitter PLN (lovingly called my tweeps) already know the value of Twitter for professional development.  Many of my Facebook friends and school colleagues, however, still need some convincing or at the very least a starting point as to how to make the best use of Twitter. 
     One note before we formally get started----I only use Twitter professionally.  I don’t talk about my non-school experiences, politics, friends, food, etc.  I also do not use Twitter with my students although many teachers do.
     Thus, I now present: The Clemens Twitter Guide to Professional Development! *Please imagine a curtain being lifted and roaring applause at this point.
     First: Sign up for Twitter.  You can do this online or via an app on your smart phone or tablet.  Be sure to choose a good user name.  This is important because this is how you will be known in the Twitter Universe.  If you can’t use your real name, use something that is representative of who you are professionally.  Basically, don’t choose a handle such as @sexybeast, people won’t take you seriously.  
     Also, be sure to put something descriptive of you professionally for your profile.  Mine says “I'm a hs social studies teacher (USH & Psych this year), VP of my local teachers union, and follower of all things education especially tech.”  You should add a picture for your profile as well because often times spammers just have the egg as their profile picture. 
     Second: Follow some people.  My best advice is to first follow someone with the handle @cybraryman1.  This is Jerry Blumengarten who is a retired social studies teacher from NYC but basically knows everything there is to know about educational technology.  His website, http://cybraryman.com, is chock full of information on all areas of education for students, parents, and especially teachers.  After you follow Jerry, go to his page of PLN All Stars and follow people from the subject(s) you are interested in.  That will give you a great start.  You might even want to take a look at who some of those people follow and follow even more people!  The way I use Twitter, following more people means I get more information from a diverse set of people.  You can look at who I follow to get some ideas as well.  I have mine followers broken down into lists such as Social Studies Teachers, Psychology Teachers, Teachers who Flip, etc.  
     Third: Take part in a chat.  Chatting is the best way to dive in to Twitter.  You will see how everyone formats their Tweets, meet new people to follow, and most important learn a ton!  I typically end up with 20-30 additional browser tabs open during a chat due to all of the information that is being shared! It’s amazing and a little bit overwhelming when you first get started but it is easy to get the hang of and an invaluable resource.   You can find a calendar of Twitter chats here.
     Let’s take a minute to discuss how to chat most effectively.  Trying to chat on the Twitter website or using the Twitter app will most likely be impossible.  The chats just move too fast and are too difficult to follow that way.  There are two good options for chatting: TweetDeck using a computer (available as a website or as a Chrome App) and HootSuite (available as an Android and iPhone/iPad app).  I prefer using TweetDeck because it updates faster and because I am constantly getting links that I need to open tabs for.  Both work well and are the main ways that people take part in chats.  

     Above is a screenshot of my Tweetdeck.  As you can see, I have several columns going.  Twitter works via hashtags (#) and so my columns are hashtag based.  When participating in a Social Studies Chat (#sschat) I can follow only the discussion taking place in the chat by following my #sschat column.  The chat is still fast paced and I might still miss something, but I will get the majority of what’s going on there.  Most chats have their discussions archived for future use such as the Social Studies Chat Ning which houses the World History and World Geography and U.S. Government and Civics chats as well.  That way, even if you miss something or miss the chat altogether, you can still get all of the information.
     Fourth: Don’t become fixated on missing stuff.  Twitter is worldwide and thus people are tweeting 24/7.  You have a life, you are going to miss stuff----it’s okay!  You can make sure that when you are looking for information that it is easier to find.  Even though a chat normally only takes place once a week, people use the chat hashtag to post information about a topic all of the time.  It’s another way that you can get great professional development.  For example, one of my posts was about the NY Times Learning Network: 14 Ways to Use The Learning Network This School Year http://zite.to/14nNIBr  via @zite #sschat.  Adding #sschat tagged the post so that people following that tag could easily find it.  For a list of popular Twitter hashtags go here.

     There are two great ways to keep up-to-date on Tweets.  You can use your TweetDeck columns to scroll back and see posts you missed when you weren’t online.  This is not my preferred method but if you don’t have a tablet it may be the best option for you.  Since I have an iPad, I use Flipboard which is available for both Android and iPad.  I love Flipboard because it turns your twitter timeline into a magazine!  You can view all of your twitter followers’ tweets as a whole or search just by hashtag or just by a particular person! It’s handy and easy to then either retweet, email to yourself, or open on the internet.
     There are many resources on the internet that are geared towards assisting teachers with getting the most out of Twitter as a professional resource.  I can only say that it is thrilling to meet your tweeps in person after talking to them for months online, it’s exhilarating to have people to discuss ideas with who share your passion, and it’s amazing to see what is available outside of your everyday experiences.     *By the way- taking part in Twitter chats is a great way to fulfill Domain 4d on the Danielson Rubric for  Participating in a professional community and 4e Growing and developing professionally.  I have been keeping track of my participation in chats for our district's required Artifact!

     Over the summer I read a book that many other teachers read as well: Teach Like a PIRATE.  This book has been the talk of the town for a while making the rounds at conferences and water coolers.  One of the biggest venues to discuss the book is via twitter chats.  You can now find subject specific chats in addition to the general #tlap chat (Mondays from 7-8pm Eastern Time).  There’s #tlapmath, #ELAtlap, #sstlap, and #SCItlap (for science).  I’d say that the twittersphere’s response is a pretty good endorsement of how influential this book is!
     This book interested me before I even knew that Dave Burgess is a fellow high school social studies teacher.  Honestly, the pirate thing was the biggest draw for me.  Who wouldn’t want to teach like a pirate?  I wanted to be the teacher who would hold the students captive to my educational awesomeness and the idea of being a bit of a quirky peg-legged, eye-patched, friend of parrots was a definite incentive for me to read the book.  Finding out that the author teaches difficult to motivate students US History was only icing on the cake!
     So, I’ve decided to put my own spin on the pirate lifestyle for my classroom this year.  I loved Dave’s idea of selling the class to the students.  I made my class handouts resemble advertisements and even had endorsements from last year’s students.  I decided to break away from my regular first few days of class where I went over the rules day one and dove into the curriculum on day 2.  Like I said, I did my own spin on the pirate life so on day one for US History I did an activity called History in a Bag  and for Psychology I did the Marshmallow Challenge. 

     Next week I will be doing activities where the students will be up and moving in both classes.  Both activities are inspired by my summer conferences.  My US History classes will be doing an activity I learned about at the Library of Congress Summer Institute involving maps entitled “Connecting with Primary Sources” (more on this later).  My psychology classes will be taking part in a Values Walk.  
     I truly believe that using the PIRATE methods in addition to my own general zany character will really make my class an exciting place for my students where they feel motivated to learn.  Coupling this with my move towards gradually flipping my classes and integrating more technology overall will make this even easier for me to accomplish.  My goal is to have more class time to engage my students and really help them to connect with the content.  So far I’m feeling extremely energized and very excited to teach my lessons.  One student has already said to me “You can tell you really like your job”.  What a great endorsement two days into the school year!

I was going to talk a little about this lesson and how I came up with it...maybe I still will...but I wanted to be able to share it with my #sschat tweeps right away!