Joy Hakim: Finding the Stories in Science and History
Educator's ForumNew Report from the Brookings Institute on the Importance of Classroom MaterialsAn April 2012 report from Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, called Choosing Blindly: Instructional Materials, Teacher Effectiveness, and the Common Core, by Matthew M. Chingos and Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, states:
"Students learn principally through interactions with people (teachers and peers) and instructional materials (textbooks, workbooks, instructional software, web-based content, homework, projects, quizzes, and tests). But education policymakers focus primarily on factors removed from those interactions, such as academic standards, teacher evaluation systems, and school accountability policies. It’s as if the medical profession worried about the administration of hospitals and patient insurance but paid no attention to the treatments that doctors give their patients. There is strong evidence that the choice of instructional materials has large effects on student learning—effects that rival in size those that are associated with differences in teacher effectiveness. But whereas improving teacher quality through changes in the preparation and professional development of teachers and the human resources policies surrounding their employment is challenging, expensive, and time-consuming, making better choices among available instructional materials should be relatively easy, inexpensive, and quick." For the complete report, visit: http://www.brookings.edu/newsletters/browncenter/2012/0410b.aspx Common Core State Standards endorses A History of US!
The Common Core State Standards, approved in 46 states, includes specific standards in Math and English Language Arts. The CCSS ELA standards cite A History of US as an approved informational text for 4th-5th grade students! Other approved texts in this category include:
Discovering Mars: The Amazing Story of the Red Planet, by Melvin Berger (1992) Hurricanes: Earth's Mightiest Storms, by Patricia Lauber (1996) Horses, by Seymour Simon (2006) Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea, by Sy Montgomery (2006) (These are all wonderful books. Sy Montgomery is a friend, her books, taking readers on scientific adventures, are page-turners. A History of US and The Story of Science are unique in this group in attempting to make connections and bring the breadth of history to physical science and American history.) Commoncore.org has also cited A History of US as an approved informational text. Commoncore.org creates curriculum maps for teachers and schools pairing literature and informational texts with state standards in education. For more, visit: http://www.commoncore.org/ A History of US is cited as an exemplary nonfiction text in the Common Core maps allied to the K-12 Common Core state standards. Learn more at commoncore.org.Welcome to the Readers' Page: intended as a site for teachers, parents, and students to talk to the author and each other!
Texas Teacher of the Year for 2002 Barbara Dorff (left) and me at The White House
Word from master teacher Chad Pavlekovich in Salisbury, MD: "We are finishing year two of our STEM academy, which has been a great success in both the county and the state. At the beginning of this coming school year there will be three STEM academies in our county, each school is using your Story of Science books based on my experiences and methods of using them in the program. Our academy (Salisbury Middle) will be using your history series as well with our students this coming fall. On a personal note, I was selected as our county's teacher of the year and am now in competition with the 23 other TOYs from the state for that title, which will be decided in October. If you go to our school website or Google me you should find the articles and pictures. It's good for me, but I think the messages that I am conveying about the importance of science and 21st century skills that our students need to master is what is really important." Hooray for Chad, who deserves the acclaim. He is, as his students will tell you, a Jedi teacher. The Story of Science meets all the Maryland standards requirements for middle school science. *Please include your name with any comments you leave below. A HISTORY OF US SAMPLE LESSON PLAN below by teachers Barbara Dorff and Tamala Grikpingo.A History of US Book 2, Making Thirteen Colonies Lesson Plan (418.0KB)
Lesson Plan by Barbara Dorfff and Tamala Grikpingo Wherever I go I meet superb teachers, I see them as national treasures. I'd like to celebrate them on this website: Click and type in a question or comment Sixth grade teacher James Bentley is one of those treasures. Here’s a story from his classroom: District authorities turned down a request from Foulks Ranch School, in Elk Grove, CA, for a running track (new schools had tracks to promote student fitness). Bentley, working with Project Citizen (a civics education initiative) guided his students when they decided to take on what they saw as an unfair distribution of school funds. That meant researching health issues, studying school budgets and district funding, and articulating their case before legislators. The quick story: initially the students were turned down, but they didn’t give up. They not only got a running track for their school, but also for 17 other old elementary schools that didn’t have one. -Joy Do you have any teaching ideas you'd like to share with your social studies or science peers? Any thoughts on the use of A History of US? The Story of Science? Click and type in a question or comment I absolutely LOVE AHofUS and have been using these books in middle school and high school so far. And yes, I even purchased a few of them to give to my niece Grayson for her elementary classroom, and now she's a history buff in the making. The story about how the early English didn't bathe hardly ever, and she was hooked :) In my classroon, since these books read like a short continuous story, I have them pre read a chapter, and then they get in groups and act out the story to help learn it, as well as teach it to each other. They love the chance to be actors and actresses and I get a kick out of watching them learn, and have fun at the same time. What would you like to see change in history and science curricula? Click and type in a question or comment Joanne Manaster (known on YouTube as The Science Goddess), a lecturer at the School of Integrative Biology at the University of Illinois, talks about her favorite science books. |
Biology's iconic Carl Woese and me at The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I'm currently writing books on evolutionary biology and Woese has probably done more for the field than anyone before (and, yes, I do know about Mr. Darwin). Note the license plate. By studying RNA, Woese discovered that the microbial world includes two very different forms of life: archaea and bacteria. That changed the long accepted tree of life, turning it into a three-branched bush. We now talk of life having three domains: bacteria, archaea, and eukarya.
Juliana Texley is the author of this terrific teacher guide for Einstein Adds A New Dimension. It's available from NSTA.
History Helps Make Sense of ScienceRecently I read a scholarly article by Canadian Marcus Kumala (published online by Springer Science, Oct 8, 2010) titled "The Never-ending Story––Using the Narrative as a Fundamental Approach to Teaching Biology and Beyond."
Kumala asks how concerned educators and professional scientists can teach science better. He answers, "Perhaps by giving students and teachers a conceptual lifeline, by teaching science––biology in particular––as the context-driven history courses they were meant to be." Of course I agree. Right now I have two biology books in progress, each approaches the story from a different perspective. More details to come. Common Core
If you have a magnifying glass you can see A History of US with some fancy company in this Common Core logo.
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