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.