This workshop will focus on creating CAST style common assessments. These can be used to formatively assess your students and provide information to guide your PLC conversations.
This workshop will focus on creating CAST style common assessments. These can be used to formatively assess your students and provide information to guide your PLC conversations.
Hexagonal Thinking is a collaborative strategy that helps students visually connect key concepts, evidence, and themes within a DBQ. Each hexagon represents an idea or document, and students arrange them so that touching sides show meaningful relationships, such as cause and effect or similarity. This process promotes critical thinking and academic discussion as students justify each connection. When used with DBQs, Hexagonal Thinking bridges document analysis and essay writing, helping students organize claims, evidence, and reasoning before drafting, ultimately deepening historical understanding and argumentation skills.
A Document-Based Question (DBQ) is an inquiry-based writing task that asks students to analyze a set of historical documents to answer a central question. Students examine primary and secondary sources—such as maps, letters, charts, and images- to gather evidence, identify points of view, and draw conclusions. The goal of a DBQ is to develop a clear, evidence-based argument supported by reasoning. This process builds critical thinking, reading, and writing skills while helping students think like historians, analyzing sources, forming claims, and constructing well-organized essays.
Creating center activities involves designing small group learning stations where students rotate through tasks that target specific skills or concepts. Each center should have a clear purpose, detailed instructions, and materials that guide students toward independent or collaborative learning. Activities might include reading and analysis, vocabulary development, problem solving, writing, or creative projects. This approach promotes engagement, differentiation, and movement in the classroom while allowing teachers to provide targeted support. Centers help students take ownership of their learning, build collaboration skills, and apply knowledge in multiple meaningful ways.
Hexagonal Thinking is a collaborative strategy that helps students visually connect key concepts, evidence, and themes within a DBQ. Each hexagon represents an idea or document, and students arrange them so that touching sides show meaningful relationships, such as cause and effect or similarity. This process promotes critical thinking and academic discussion as students justify each connection. When used with DBQs, Hexagonal Thinking bridges document analysis and essay writing, helping students organize claims, evidence, and reasoning before drafting, ultimately deepening historical understanding and argumentation skills.
A Document-Based Question (DBQ) is an inquiry-based writing task that asks students to analyze a set of historical documents to answer a central question. Students examine primary and secondary sources—such as maps, letters, charts, and images- to gather evidence, identify points of view, and draw conclusions. The goal of a DBQ is to develop a clear, evidence-based argument supported by reasoning. This process builds critical thinking, reading, and writing skills while helping students think like historians, analyzing sources, forming claims, and constructing well-organized essays.
Focused Note-taking is a structured process that helps students engage deeply with content and retain key information. Based on AVID strategies, it involves five phases: taking notes, processing them by identifying main ideas and questions, connecting learning through collaboration and reflection, summarizing key insights, and applying the knowledge to new tasks. When paired with DBQs, focused note-taking helps students annotate documents, extract evidence, and organize ideas for writing. This method promotes active learning, critical thinking, and comprehension across disciplines while reinforcing academic habits essential for historical inquiry.
Hexagonal Thinking is a collaborative strategy that helps students visually connect key concepts, evidence, and themes within a DBQ. Each hexagon represents an idea or document, and students arrange them so that touching sides show meaningful relationships, such as cause and effect or similarity. This process promotes critical thinking and academic discussion as students justify each connection. When used with DBQs, Hexagonal Thinking bridges document analysis and essay writing, helping students organize claims, evidence, and reasoning before drafting, ultimately deepening historical understanding and argumentation skills.
A Document-Based Question (DBQ) is an inquiry-based writing task that asks students to analyze a set of historical documents to answer a central question. Students examine primary and secondary sources—such as maps, letters, charts, and images- to gather evidence, identify points of view, and draw conclusions. The goal of a DBQ is to develop a clear, evidence-based argument supported by reasoning. This process builds critical thinking, reading, and writing skills while helping students think like historians, analyzing sources, forming claims, and constructing well-organized essays.
Focused Note-taking is a structured process that helps students engage deeply with content and retain key information. Based on AVID strategies, it involves five phases: taking notes, processing them by identifying main ideas and questions, connecting learning through collaboration and reflection, summarizing key insights, and applying the knowledge to new tasks. When paired with DBQs, focused note-taking helps students annotate documents, extract evidence, and organize ideas for writing. This method promotes active learning, critical thinking, and comprehension across disciplines while reinforcing academic habits essential for historical inquiry.
Creating center activities involves designing small group learning stations where students rotate through tasks that target specific skills or concepts. Each center should have a clear purpose, detailed instructions, and materials that guide students toward independent or collaborative learning. Activities might include reading and analysis, vocabulary development, problem solving, writing, or creative projects. This approach promotes engagement, differentiation, and movement in the classroom while allowing teachers to provide targeted support. Centers help students take ownership of their learning, build collaboration skills, and apply knowledge in multiple meaningful ways.
Hexagonal Thinking is a collaborative strategy that helps students visually connect key concepts, evidence, and themes within a DBQ. Each hexagon represents an idea or document, and students arrange them so that touching sides show meaningful relationships, such as cause and effect or similarity. This process promotes critical thinking and academic discussion as students justify each connection. When used with DBQs, Hexagonal Thinking bridges document analysis and essay writing, helping students organize claims, evidence, and reasoning before drafting, ultimately deepening historical understanding and argumentation skills.
This professional development session explores how educators can collaborate with AI to design cross-curricular history lessons that boost student success on i-Ready assessments. Ideal for elementary and middle school teachers, the session demonstrates deconstructing the familiar i-Ready reading format. Teachers will learn to use AI tools to generate grade-appropriate historical texts, adapt primary sources, and build targeted, scaffolded assignments. This approach seamlessly blends Social Science content with crucial ELA reading comprehension standards. Participants will leave with practical AI prompting strategies to build cognitive stamina, deepening historical understanding while accelerating overall reading proficiency.
Focused Note-taking is a structured process that helps students engage deeply with content and retain key information. Based on AVID strategies, it involves five phases: taking notes, processing them by identifying main ideas and questions, connecting learning through collaboration and reflection, summarizing key insights, and applying the knowledge to new tasks. When paired with DBQs, focused note-taking helps students annotate documents, extract evidence, and organize ideas for writing. This method promotes active learning, critical thinking, and comprehension across disciplines with language arts and science, while reinforcing academic habits essential for historical inquiry.
Creating center activities involves designing small group learning stations where students rotate through tasks that target specific skills or concepts. Each center should have a clear purpose, detailed instructions, and materials that guide students toward independent or collaborative learning. Activities might include reading and analysis, vocabulary development, problem solving, writing, or creative projects. This approach promotes engagement, differentiation, and movement in the classroom while allowing teachers to provide targeted support. Centers help students take ownership of their learning, build collaboration skills, and apply knowledge in multiple meaningful ways. This session is appropriate for elementary, secondary, and special education teachers.
Hexagonal Thinking is a collaborative strategy that helps students visually connect key concepts, evidence, and themes within a DBQ. Each hexagon represents an idea or document, and students arrange them so that touching sides show meaningful relationships, such as cause and effect or similarity. This process promotes critical thinking and academic discussion as students justify each connection. When used with DBQs, Hexagonal Thinking bridges document analysis and essay writing, helping students organize claims, evidence, and reasoning before drafting, ultimately deepening historical understanding and argumentation skills.
This professional development session explores how educators can collaborate with AI to design cross-curricular history lessons that boost student success on i-Ready assessments. Ideal for elementary and middle school teachers, the session demonstrates deconstructing the familiar i-Ready reading format. Teachers will learn to use AI tools to generate grade-appropriate historical texts, adapt primary sources, and build targeted, scaffolded assignments. This approach seamlessly blends Social Science content with crucial ELA reading comprehension standards. Participants will leave with practical AI prompting strategies to build cognitive stamina, deepening historical understanding while accelerating overall reading proficiency.
Focused Note-taking is a structured process that helps students engage deeply with content and retain key information. Based on AVID strategies, it involves five phases: taking notes, processing them by identifying main ideas and questions, connecting learning through collaboration and reflection, summarizing key insights, and applying the knowledge to new tasks. When paired with DBQs, focused note-taking helps students annotate documents, extract evidence, and organize ideas for writing. This method promotes active learning, critical thinking, and comprehension across disciplines with language arts and science, while reinforcing academic habits essential for historical inquiry.
Creating center activities involves designing small group learning stations where students rotate through tasks that target specific skills or concepts. Each center should have a clear purpose, detailed instructions, and materials that guide students toward independent or collaborative learning. Activities might include reading and analysis, vocabulary development, problem solving, writing, or creative projects. This approach promotes engagement, differentiation, and movement in the classroom while allowing teachers to provide targeted support. Centers help students take ownership of their learning, build collaboration skills, and apply knowledge in multiple meaningful ways. This session is appropriate for elementary, secondary, and special education teachers.
Hexagonal Thinking is a collaborative strategy that helps students visually connect key concepts, evidence, and themes within a DBQ. Each hexagon represents an idea or document, and students arrange them so that touching sides show meaningful relationships, such as cause and effect or similarity. This process promotes critical thinking and academic discussion as students justify each connection. When used with DBQs, Hexagonal Thinking bridges document analysis and essay writing, helping students organize claims, evidence, and reasoning before drafting, ultimately deepening historical understanding and argumentation skills.
This professional development session explores how educators can collaborate with AI to design cross-curricular history lessons that boost student success on i-Ready assessments. Ideal for elementary and middle school teachers, the session demonstrates deconstructing the familiar i-Ready reading format. Teachers will learn to use AI tools to generate grade-appropriate historical texts, adapt primary sources, and build targeted, scaffolded assignments. This approach seamlessly blends Social Science content with crucial ELA reading comprehension standards. Participants will leave with practical AI prompting strategies to build cognitive stamina, deepening historical understanding while accelerating overall reading proficiency.
Focused Note-taking is a structured process that helps students engage deeply with content and retain key information. Based on AVID strategies, it involves five phases: taking notes, processing them by identifying main ideas and questions, connecting learning through collaboration and reflection, summarizing key insights, and applying the knowledge to new tasks. When paired with DBQs, focused note-taking helps students annotate documents, extract evidence, and organize ideas for writing. This method promotes active learning, critical thinking, and comprehension across disciplines with language arts and science, while reinforcing academic habits essential for historical inquiry.
