Week in Review: November 16-20

American Studies: As we complete the first trimester, the students should be feeling good in general about their effort and engagement in American Studies. They have pushed themselves to do more than memorize facts. Being critical readers and analyzers of information has been a big part of their skill set.

We are now in the middle of the Civil War unit looking at the events leading up to the war. Students are seeing all the compromise that went forth leading up to the war.


IB History: We completed the unit on Germany leading up to World War II. Our focus for the next few weeks is World War II. We will look at causes, major events, effects and how the world changed after 1945. The seniors are working on their Internal Assessment historical investigations. With plenty of practice on their Extended Essays, the IA should come very easily to our seniors.

Week in Review: November 9-13

American Studies: The critical reading and note taking skills were assessed in an in class essay. Students used their notes, brainstormed and wrote an outline, gave each other feedback and then they started writing on the topic of:

In what ways did the United States expand (grow) economically and geographically in the early to mid-1800’s? How was some of the economic growth connected to the geographic expansion? Support your answer with specific examples focusing on Economics and Technology and Geography.

A major goal for all the teachers is to help our students become independent learners confident in their skills and curious, ready to ask questions and learn. I push my students to engage by being responsible to themselves and to each other. Collaboration is central to learning.

IB History: Speaking of collaboration, the seniors continue to push back against collaborating via Web 2.0 tools like Google Docs and Mindmeister. However, they do work together in class when they are asked to share their research and analysis on the two main topics of the Germany unit. We have been focusing on building knowledge about the Weimar Republic and the Rise of the Nazis. The students are making the connections between what happened economically, socially, politically, religiously, the arts and technologically to understand the rise and downfall of democracy in Germany before World War II.

As the seniors continue to become more independent learners focusing their learning around inquiry, it is important to validate their efforts. So do ask to see your child's mind maps of their research and the question listing all the students put together in a shared Google Doc.

Week in Review: November 2-6

American Studies: I really enjoyed reading the student blog posts this week on Moroccan political parties and the students possible immigration once they complete university one day. The historical connection is to the development of the first political parties in American history (Democrat Republicans and Federalists) and to the question of why people move (westward expansion of early pioneers).

Looking at the coming week, we will work on note taking skills from my lecture and from the textbook. It is one more step in the development of the students to work with various information sources and to be able to organize it in a meaningful way.


IB History: With the seniors staying home most of the week, they had the opportunity to work through their reading, outlining and written proposal for their Internal Assessments. As our class uses online learning tools like Google Docs and Mindmeister, it was not difficult to switch to a virtual classroom. It offered an opportunity for the students to push themselves to become more independent learners as they will have to be next year in university.

Speaking of being independent learners, the guideline for the Internal Assessment with its timeline can be found at the Edline course page. The students have a very clear, step by step framework to guide them to complete their papers.