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Teaching Strategy: Planning a Documentary
Helping students to decide the relative importance of different factors, events or changes Students plan a documentary by deciding how much time should be allocated to given topics. Students imagine they are planning a one-hour documentary. The teacher gives them a list of topics that need to be included. They plan by labeling and shading…
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Skitch: having a quick sketch to improve history learning
Quite often in my class I want to draw on top of a source, or onto a bit of writing I have on my whiteboard. I cannot quite work out how the complicated interactive whiteboard pens work. That was where Skitch came to the rescue. Skitch is a free iPad or Android app that allows…
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Human timeline for developing chronological understanding
Helping students to develop their chronological understanding Using students wearing paper tabards as a human timeline to demonstrate sequencing and change over time. By being a human timeline the teacher can test students understanding of key historical terms. The students can more easily understand sequencing. They can also see change and continuity over time. By making…
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MindMup: An effective digital tool to support historical thinking
One day as a home assignment I set my students the task of creating a mind map. Next day during the lesson one student said that she had found a really useful online tool for mind maps. She shared it with us and now I am sharing it with you. It’s called MindMup. Why should…
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Hot Air Balloon Disaster
Helping students to make judgements about relative importance All of the important figures in history are in a hot air balloon whose engine is broken. Who do you throw out first to ensure the rest survive?! History is full of people and a key skill is to get our students to think about the relative importance…