World Teach

Here are FOUR awesome episodes of Throughline that are ideal for World History. The first one compares the life of Simon Bolivar to that of Hugo Chavez, who died in 2012. The second episode traces the conflict between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam while the third episode outlines the origins of the split between North and South Korea in light of President Trump's overtures to Kim Jong Un. The last episode examines the assassination of the popularly elected Iranian leader, Mohammad Mossadegh. The two hosts do a great job of tying the historical event to current events. El Liberator  compares Venezuela's Chavez to Simon Bolivar War of the Worlds  explores the Sunni Shia split The Forgotten War   reviews the Korean War How The CIA Overthrew Iran's Democracy In 4 Days  outlines the assassination of Mohammad Mossadegh and its reverberations today.

Here is an excellent video clip from Edutopia that shows what a student-centered blended learning class looks like. It shows how students at different learning levels can master skills and content at their own pace.  Instead of listening to a lecture, students usually start class with a video and take notes.  They then move on to an actual lesson assignment and then to an exit ticket to show mastery. Some students have to listen to the video a couple of times while some might need to listen only once.  Consequently, students are often working on different lessons.  The teacher circulates and helps students as needed. This sounds great but seems to require a big investment in planning multiple lessons each day.  While one student works on lesson two, another might be working on lesson four, which means teachers have to have a lot of lessons on tap each day, if I understand the concept correctly.

The Cornell University Library has an awesome collection of "persuasive maps" like the one above.  The collection, which comes from Cornell's rare maps division, includes maps great for both American and world history. The purpose of the maps is to influence opinion and would be great for students to practice their sourcing skills. The maps employ different persuasive tools like allegory and satire.