HUMS staff blog update September 29, 2019

If you need a connected laugh - take a minute to view this.  Its is worth it.
  ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsPyNItiC_4

ITEMS: 
1.  October Meetings

October 1 -  Faculty/LC  - Wellness Center update

October 8 -  Shared Staff

October 14 - HUUSD All Day In-service

October 15 - TA Meetings 

October 17 - LT/DH Meeting (Thurs)

October 22 - Faculty/LC - Student Class Evals/METIC 20 mins

October 29 - Dept /ELO-X planning

2. Please note that I is out on Friday, Oct 4th and the Monday Oct 7th. I will be traveling in Canada. I will be checking email, but not available via phone.

3. HUMS LC meeting on Tuesday - We will have our HUMS meeting on Tuesday. Agenda will be sent out on Tuesday morning. Please let me know if there are items for discussion.

4. I will place posters on the doorway to the locker areas reminding students of the times for accessing them. Hillary and I will continue to monitor.

5. ELO2 times - I will use the enriching students for sign up for this coming Thursday.

6.  Being Selective with Online Materials

            In this article in Social Education, Jennifer Gallagher (East Carolina University), Katy Swalwell (Iowa State University), and Elizabeth Bellows (Appalachian State University) remember being told, when they were social studies teachers, to “beg, borrow, and steal” curriculum materials and not feel they had to create every lesson from scratch. Lots of teachers follow this advice, scouring the Internet (Pinterest, Teachers Pay Teachers) for resources they can download or adapt for their classrooms. 

There’s lots of good material out there, say Gallagher, Swalwell, and Bellows, but with little quality control, “these sites can act as turbocharged conduits for bad ideas disguised as ‘cute’ lessons… If we are not careful, teachers can inadvertently send problematic and mixed messages about the social world through curriculum from all different disciplines.” Teachers need “critical literacy habits” to pick material that is high-quality, multicultural, and justice-oriented. Here are the authors’ suggestions for critically appraising online curriculum materials (Yes, Maybe, or No for each, with comments)

• Purpose:

-   Does the activity, resource, or idea support my inquiry question, standards, or learning objectives?

-   Is it appropriately challenging for my students? Does it require critical thinking?

-   Does it purposefully support students becoming global, democratic citizens?

-   Is the learning goal commensurate with how much time and resources it will take?

• Reliability:

-   Is the content accurate? Can it be corroborated with other credible sources?

-   Does the author have expertise in the discipline, in pedagogy, or in my context?

-   Are the representations of people and communities authentic and nuanced?

-   Is the content up to date?

• Perspective:

-   Does the content reflect my students’ cultures or contexts?

-   Does the content give my students windows into new cultures or contexts?

-   Does it help my students question dominant ideas about what is normal or good?

-   Am I sure that this activity, resource, or idea will not harm students – especially those with marginalized identities and/or backgrounds?

“‘Pinning’ with Pause: Supporting Teachers’ Critical Consumption on Sites of Curriculum Sharing” by Jennifer Gallagher, Katy Swalwell, and Elizabeth Bellows in Social Education, September 2019 (Vol. 83, #4, p. 217-224); for NCSS members at https://bit.ly/2maMq1n; the authors can be reached at gallagherj17@ecu.edu, swalwell@iastate.edu, and bellowsme@appstate.edu.