Artifacts
This collection of artifacts from my graduate studies are aimed at supporting teachers, administrators, and curriculum developers in considering and adopting ways to augment curriculum.
Fall 2023
Young Historians: Using the Inquiry Design Model to Learn About Race
In this podcast, I share about Inquiry Design Models (IDMs) and how to develop them, particularly around race. This resource will be most valuable if you follow along with the example Learning For Justice IDM, "How did Slavery Shape My State?" (pictured on the left) found here.
Additional resources:
Learning For Justice's "Let's Talk!" guide here.
IDM Blueprint Template and At-A-Glance documents here.
A transcript and references can be found here.
A Usable Past? How History Can Help Us Reform Our Schools
This memo to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona outlines the history of American assessment practices, the problems that current practices pose, and how we might go about solving them. The history of assessment relates significantly to the problem of narrowing curriculum, thus this artifact largely serves to illustrate the problem, as well as some more assessment-related solutions beyond the curricular practices laid out in my recommendations.
Spring 2024
Power to Playtime: The Process and Impact of Project-Based Civics Education to Improve School Recess Policies
This is a summary report of the project-based learning unit that my Expanding Civic Opportunities for Youth classmates and I put together to outline the context, theoretical backing, methods, results, and future questions related to the semester-long experience.
"Is George Washington a Good Person?": Using Classroom Discussion to Complicate Dominant Historical Narratives
This case analysis of classroom discourse takes an in-depth look at different potential teaching moves during a complicated moment of classroom discussion. The photo on the left exhibits the conflicting feelings that my students felt about George Washington and his relationship with enslavement ("I no [sic] he did not do the best things but he was still a good man"). In looking at different ways to approach the dilemma of how to discuss the United States' first president, the theory and practices of classroom discourse come together.
Artifacts Drawn from Practice
Leveled Adaptation of a Primary Source
This is an an adapted primary source that I used with my 3rd and 4th grade students during the 2022-2023 school year. We were researching the history of Wisconsin and I wanted to incorporate a primary source about the role of government in removing Native peoples from their ancestral lands. Through the Wisconsin Historical Society, I found this letter from a white Wisconsin man, Cyrus Mendenhall, to President Zachary Taylor asking him to reconsider the removal of the Ojibwe people from the shores of Lake Superior. The language was complex and the letter was in cursive, which was not ideal, so I transcribed the letter, added some historical context, and made flaps with more 3rd/4th grade-friendly language (while preserving the meaning and intent of the text). See the "Harnessing the Power of External Sources" section of my conceptual framework for more in-depth information on adapting historical texts.
Project-Based Learning: The Voting Process
This is a project-based learning unit that I did with my 2nd grade students in the spring of 2022. Students acted as campaign managers and voters in a class election for a historical figure to honor at a school assembly. I outline the unit framework, the process of each lesson, and the results both in terms of the election itself and student engagement.
Artifacts From the PhilWP ISI
