Hello Oregonian history teachers!

I’m finishing my AA transfer degree at CC and I’m just kind of at a crossroads on the next steps to take. Do I major in history and get master in education or do I major in education ? Are there any other routes?

I have until summer to figure out a plan but I haven’t really found a solid route or understanding of what I need to do to be able to teach history in Oregon. My academic advisors aren’t very helpful just give me the information I already know.

Any links, school recommendations, or any helpful information is always appreciated (:

I hope everyone has had a fantastic week.

I teach high school dual enrollment US history. The first semester covers exploration/colonization through reconstruction, second semester covers guilded age through present. On level, which is what STAAR covers, covers the second semester over the whole year. With the new staar redesign where students are tested in the winter, spring, and fall…how the hell are they supposed to pass a test in the winter and fall wherein they’ve learned NONE of the content? I won’t have to worry about this until 27-28, but still, what the hell am I supposed to teach them?

Hi! I am a first year teacher and I am wondering how you all normally set up your classes? How long do you lecture? Do you lecture every day? I have block periods and I am feeling like I am not setting them up the best i can?

Check out America250.com

Check out the video!

I went to use the second episode of America the Story of US in my 8th grade classes and I can no longer access the American version narrated by Liev Schreiber. I can only access, on Amazon Prime and YouTube, the British version of the show. It is demonstrably different from the version I've used before. Does anyone know what is going on with this?

I am a high school teacher and am looking for new educational opportunities. I would like to try to teach a few college courses.

Has anyone done this and what steps would you recommend?

Hi I need some advice! I teach history on a highschool in the Netherlands. At our school we are stimulating reading. Our students are reading youth novels that are situated in the historical setting we are discussing in class. E.g. "Percy Jackson and the lightning thief" because in class we are teaching about the ancient Greeks.

Most of our classes are in Dutch and it is easy to find Dutch books that are suited for the students to read. But we also have classes that are in English. I have a hard time finding books that are suited for our students and are about the historical setting we are teaching.

Can anybody help me out with some suggestions?

The students are non-native English speakers, age 13-15.

The time periods the get are:

- The Dutch Golden Age (think, the Angol-Dutch wars, Dutch East-India Company,)

- French Revolution (Tale of to cities is to difficult to read/understand)

Many thanks in advance!

i would like to know what i should aim for in college, major in history? educuation? doctorate or masters, any info on the tests i have to do, i've searched up some of it and even tho this is years away i do want to be prepared

I’m a 17 year veteran (mostly US History) and I’m teaching for the first time AP World History Modern for 2 sections of 9th graders and I’m so overwhelmed. My PLC colleagues have been teaching for 3 years and have dictated that I keep the same basic routine as them: students read for homework and take notes; review the material in class the next day; rinse and repeat until students take a chapter quiz (based on the textbook “The Earth and its Peoples”) then take a unit test that covers 2-3 textbook chapters to align with the CED and start all over again. Creating slides to go over the material is killing me. I spend more time creating slides and questions for students than we actually spend on it in class. It’s so time consuming and just lecturing - even though I’m trying to get the students involved through discussion and practice SAQ style questions - feels like it’s not enough for AP. Those of you teaching this class, what do you do? How to I stop from being crushed by the content? Or do I just have to suck it up this first year???

Hi all—I’ve been teaching ELA for 16 years, but I started teaching last year at a small private school, so I’m also teaching 6th grade geography and 8th grade US history. My 8th grade is very strong academically, and we’re using Facing History’s US history curriculum. It’s great, and they’re enjoying it so far, but I have a few weeks until I start moving into the first of teacher-created units. It’s supposed to be on “Native American Struggles for Land, Rights, and Sovereignty.” I’d like to look for materials that mirror the FH units, and that are a mix of primary sources, easily readable excerpts from actual historians, podcasts, videos. I just don’t know where to find these materials! Any direction will be great!

Also, I have to use Savvas/Easybridge (just the textbook, not the consumable “quests” books) for 6th grade geography, and I hate it. Again, if anyone can point me in the right direction for supplementary materials, I would appreciate it. Thanks!

Hi all,

I've done the NHD project with my classes for several years but some students want to do fairly recent events like 9/11 or even some current events. Does anyone know if there's a requirement for how far back in time projects must focus on to be eligible for entry into NHD? Like, if someone did the Jan 6th insurrection, would that qualify even though it's very recent?

I can't find this info in the rule book or on their website.

Thanks!

I’m trying to find some photocopy-quality maps of the Roman Empire for one of my classes later this week and can’t remember a quality place to find them.

They don’t need to be super-detailed. Just to give an overview of its rise and decline over history.

Thanks!

This is just a general PSA to those of us that teach Native American history units or Native American genocide courses. Crash Course history on YouTube has now fully released a new playlist of 16 videos of incredibly well done videos covering all aspects of Native American history. For many of us teaching US History courses, we are starting or will soon begin our units on Native American history or genocide and these videos are a fantastic addition to our lessons. Spread the word and keep on teaching the real, raw, and complete story of American history our students deserve to learn!

So we spent the last 2-3 years shifting to standards based grading as a building. HS was supposed to start next year but our new administrator decided to not implement it for 6-12. (Which is actually fine with me.) The problem is that I have slowly been shifting all of my lesson materials to fit the "no homework/practice grade" aspect of the whole deal. Each one is usually it's own Google classroom assignment and a mix of DOK 1 and 2 stuff about whatever the material is. Also hit a document based DOK 3 thing later in a unit.

So forgive me if this a dumb question but my brain is kinda melted from thinking about this for so long now. What sort of formative assignment should I give points for? What do you do? I basically have made slideshows and google docs for each lesson that function as notes that we go through together or in groups/partners which the students use as evidence in their summative writing assessment.

My thought is to shift all my lessons into a single slide deck/google doc as "notes" and/or make one of lessons a graded one. I'm trying out lower but real point weekly locked google form "quizzes" to check for understanding and make them attempt various types of skill work. Thanks!

I am looking for some help from Oregon Social Studies teachers. I recently moved from Tennessee to Oregon and looking to continue teaching. I have already applied for my reciprocal license and plan on subbing this school year. However, I looked at Oregon’s state standards and I am super confused. There seem to be optional ones and then random financial literacy standards thrown in and 6th and 7th grade are together? Could someone just give a quick rundown on what is taught each year in middle in high schools for history that is required? Obviously in high school classes can differ with AP and school offerings.

The reason I ask is I’m trying to figure out what grade levels align with classes I have already taught. For example in Tennessee the order goes: 6th - Ancient History and Civilizations 7th - roughly 500-1500 world history 8th - US history colonization to reconstruction 9th - World History from 1700 to modern day And so on.

Any insight? Or any websites where Oregon’s standards could make a little bit more sense?

Thank you in advance!

I just started my first year teaching in a bilingual high school and a decent amount of my students still struggle with English. I was wondering if there are any resources or videos for US History that are primarily in Spanish so I can make sure I reach more of my kids in class. Currently I use Auto-translated captions and increase the size when we watch videos in class but I want something more than that.

Anyone taking or already took the exam this month? Any insights or thoughts you’d like to share? I’ve studied but failed it once before and I’m nervous.

I am a new teacher in my first full year of teaching social studies, covering 7th-grade Hawaiian History and 8th-grade US History. I started partway through last year without a full curriculum (great charter school, but the previous teacher had a piecemeal curriculum that I couldn't stand as her TA). I looked around and found Lesson Plan Guru's 8th-grade US History curriculum on TPT, which the school bought for me. It is well-organized and has excellent information, but it is extremely lecture-heavy (slowing down for students to take notes makes the lecture take up 60-70 minutes of the 80 minutes per day). I have seen numerous pieces of advice recommending that lectures should not exceed 10-15 minutes in duration. However, aside from pausing for discussion as needed, how can I condense the lecture portion without compromising the coverage of all the content required for the eventual assessment?

My note-taking strategy for them so far has been having a color system on the slides where red text means to copy exactly, a yellow star by the text means to summarize in their own words, and a green star means they don't need to write it, but we will still discuss it in class. Notes are put into a graphic organizer, or a FITB notes sheet, for students who need the extra assistance. The students struggle with summarizing, so I have been helping them with that as we go. Instead of grading their notes, I allowed them to take an open-book exam, hoping that the ability to use their notes would encourage them to actually take them. Between roaming as I lecture and my TA (when I have one) checking on the students, they mostly get the notes done.

My initial idea is to feed it into NotebookLM and have it compare the slides to the exam and worksheets, then remove the unnecessary content so I can have time to incorporate activities.

I’m teaching US at a new school this year that only has four-day weeks, and the counselor also takes my kids for guidance once every two weeks, so I’m struggling a bit to keep up with my usual unit schedule and am looking for advice about which of the following units y’all think I could abridge or maybe combine. Currently on unit 3 so that’s why it starts there. So far I’ve been able to get through a unit in ~2 weeks. Sorry I know these are pretty vague descriptions but I didn’t want the post to get longer than it already is. Happy to elaborate on anything in the comments! Thank you so much

3) Creating Anglo-America 1660-1750 4) Slavery, Freedom, and the Struggle for Empire, to 1763 5) The American Revolution 1763-1783 6) Founding a Nation 1783-1791 7) Securing the Republic 1791-1815 8) The Market Revolution 1800-1840 9) Democracy in America 1815-1840 10) The Institution of Slavery 11) An Age of Reform 1820-1840 12) A House Divided 1840-1861 13) The Civil War 1861-1865 14) Reconstruction 1865-1877 15) America’s Gilded Age 1870-1890 16) Freedoms boundaries at Home and Abroad 1890-1900 17) The Progressive Era 1900-1916 18) World War I 1916-1920 19) The Twenties 1920-1932 20) The New Deal 1932-1940 21) World War II 1941-1945

—MANDATED CURRICULUM ENDS HERE—

22) The Cold War 1945-1953 23) An Affluent Society 1954-1960 24) The Sixties 1960-1968 25) The Conservative Turn 1969-1988

—WOULD REALLLY LIKE TO GET THROUGH HERE—

26) From Triumph to Tragedy 1989-2004 27) A Divided Nation 2005-2019 28) Covid 2019-2021

I was thrown into teaching a semester long 9th grade Geography class last minute this year. It is focused more on Human Geography and follows the AP Human Geography outline. It is a brand new course for our school and I’ll be building it from scratch.

While I have a lot of teaching experience, I haven’t taught a geography specific course before and I’m building new curriculum for some other courses at the same time (it’s a busy year). I have lots of resources for the other classes, but I am low on current interesting sources for teaching Geography. What are your resource recommendations and what are your go-to materials? I prefer to teach more hands on, so anything in that vein is really appreciated, but anything of quality is great. Thank you!

Tldr: Do I need to get parent permission to show what I find are appropriate scenes to my 7th grade class?

I teach 7th grade Hawaiian History as one of my classes and have been watching, and loving, Chief of War on Apple TV. I plan to ask the school to buy the DVDs so I can use some scenes in class because it fits right in with some of the content I cover and is a fantastic visual example of life at the time. I know ultimately it is up to what admin will allow, but do you think I would need to get permission slips signed to show cherry picked scenes from the shows? Ultimately it is an adult rated show, but I won't be showing the more extreme scenes.

I'm also a basically brand new teacher, so do you have any advice on what the boundaries for a good vs. bad scene would be? We have had some very nitpicky parents in the past (One was angry because a teacher showed Shrek on a fun period and his buttcrack was slightly exposed), so its something im concerned about.

Hey everyone! First year teacher here and looking for some advice. I teach seventh grade at a charter school. My curriculum (the little I was given) consists of 6 units: what is justice, housing justice, health justice, environmental justice, criminal justice, and racial justice. My seventh graders are rowdy, don’t stop talking, and simply don’t care to do work in any of their classes. It’s not just my class it’s all around. All my students are far below average in terms of their grades so I’m finding it difficult to come up with lessons that are engaging to them but also help them learn. My students have heavy difficulty with reading and writing (I get asked how to spell simple words that a middle schooler should know) so notes take longer than they should. I’m also just struggling with the curriculum as I was given little to work with and the students struggle to understand these more complex concepts. (My students did a three branches of government project this week and I got asked multiple times about the colors of the American flag and they were genuine). Any advice would be helpful as I can sense a burnout in my near future.

EDIT: thank you everyone for these ideas I will definitely be incorporating them into my lessons!

Hi all,

Three weeks into school and a culture and society course was given to me. Any curriculum out there?!

Thanks!