Below you will find both my philosophy of education and additional class resources that I designed.
Here are some resources I designed that could help your classroom. Feel free to use them with attribution.
History
I am a big fan of project-based learning (PBL). One way I bring this too the classroom is through “Museums” in my US History course. I have two examples below from our Immigration Museum and our Sectionalism Museum. If you find this intriguing, I have a step-by-step guide that I made for my presentation to the Illinois Council for the Social Studies Conference. It is the third link below.
Immigration Museum Instructions and Worksheet
Early1800sIndependentResearchProject
Museum Lesson Planning Worksheet
Space Race History and Context UbD UDL Lesson Plans AndrewLevin
The link below is to the Space Race and Civil Rights race presentation associated with a lesson plan above. As this PowerPoint is a conversion from a Keynote document, a few slides may need a few tweeks before use.
Civics
Studying the Kennedy-Nixon Debate and the Presidency
The link below is to all the Candidate Statements for Cook County during the Spring 2015 Election. During non-election semesters, you can use this resource in order to simulate how your students can research candidates in local elections using candidate statements. They then find other resources such as the Daily Herald and Facebook groups that can further explain what the candidates stand for. With information in hand, the class holds a mock election. The class ends with a discussion about what makes a good candidate and whether they should consider voting for candidates who did not submit a statement.
Given Harper’s location, we used the Schaumburg Township Library District Board race as our example. This race was competitive (5 candidates for 3 positions) and most submitted candidate statements. You are welcome to use that race or choose a race more relevant to your students.
Andrew Levin 