2025

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Future-Proofing Learning: Preparing Students for an Uncertain Tomorrow

A Principal's Reflections

" The future doesn't need us to memorize its answers; it needs us to master the art of asking better questions." The future won't wait for us to catch up; it will demand that we've already anticipated its needs, making future-proofing learning not a luxury but the very oxygen of survival. Recently, on my podcast Unpacking the Backpack , I discussed this topic in detail after revisiting a blog post I wrote in 2021.

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How to Do a Close Reading Lesson in Any Subject

Cult of Pedagogy

Listen to my interview with Jen Serravallo ( transcript ): Sponsored by Wix Tomorrow and Brisk Teaching This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. If you click these and make a purchase from Amazon, Cult of Pedagogy will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. As I considered how to introduce this post, I started by looking for statistics that could paint a picture of where modern-day students are with their reading skills.

Pedagogy 269
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A Message of Support

NCHE

Hello teachers. Im reaching out today as a fellow educator and historian, and as Executive Director of the National Council for History Education, to affirm your professionalism and the importance of your role as history educators. As you know, history is not the past its the study of the past. We, and our students, make sense of individuals, groups, and events by studying primary sources and the work of scholars.

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A Global Guide to WWI

World History Teachers Blog

The Guardian has a terrific interactive site about the global nature of World War I. It has interactive maps, original news reports, and videos exploring the war and its effects from many perspectives. Ten historians give a brief history of the war through global lenses in a video that takes the viewer through the war. My colleague and I put together a hyperdoc that takes students through the site and helps them understand the global nature of the war.

History 200
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Top scholar says evidence for special education inclusion is ‘fundamentally flawed’

The Hechinger Report

A trio of researchers argues that it’s unclear where students with disabilities learn the most and recommends that teachers and parents focus first on interventions students need. Credit: Getty images A prominent professor of special education is about to ignite a fierce debate over a tenet of his field, that students with disabilities should be educated as much as possible alongside their peers in general education classrooms, a strategy known as inclusion.

Education 145
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A Reading Expert’s Case for Rethinking Fluency

ED Surge

Reading fluency the ability to read accurately, automatically and with appropriate expression remains a critical yet often overlooked component of literacy development. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 68 percent of U.S. students are not reading at proficient levels. By fourth grade, students transition from learning to read to reading to learn.

Teaching 141
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AP Government Videos for Enhancing Review

Passion for Social Studies

All teachers would probably agree that adding some strategically placed videos to your lessons can really enhance the experience for your students. Short, to-the-point videos that are seamlessly integrated into a lecture or activity can have a huge impact. This is especially true in AP Government , where students face dense content, abstract theories, and a mountain of required cases and documents.

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25 Reading Strategies That Work In Every Content Area

TeachThought

Reading strategies useful in every content area include Questioning the text, Visualization, and using Context Clues to infer meaning.

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How Heavy Metal Fuels Indigenous Revival in Patagonia

Sapiens

An anthropologist plunges into the world of Patagonian heavy metal music in Argentina to explore how the genre relates to language and cultural revitalization. I FIRST HEARD Patagonian heavy metal on a cold winter night in Esquel, Argentina. The song roared to life with guitar riffs and drumming resembling a U.S. or European thrash metal record. But around the 35-second mark, unfamiliar wind instruments grabbed my attention.

Heritage 129
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Is there a legitimate role for Artificial Intelligence in large online Anthropology Courses?

Teaching Anthropology

Sherry Fukuzawa, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada Artificial intelligence (AI) has become the elephant in the room in every classroom. However, this is even more of a concern in online courses. Unlike in-person assessment methods, it is difficult if not impossible to control student reliance on AI to support (if not write) online assignments and tests.

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The Professional Development Paradox: Why Good Intentions Go Astray in Schools

A Principal's Reflections

Who doesn't look forward to PD days? While some educators do, I have the feeling that many of you cringe at the thought. Recently, on my podcast Unpacking the Backpack , I discussed the pitfalls of professional development (PD) after revisiting a blog post I wrote in 2021. Listen on Spotify or wherever you access your favorite podcasts. You can also read the original blog post HERE.

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Three Ways You May Be Cognitively Overloading Your Students

Cult of Pedagogy

Listen to my interview with Blake Harvard ( transcript ): Sponsored by Boclips Classroom and Brisk Teaching This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. What’s the difference between Amazon and Bookshop.org?

Pedagogy 238
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5 Activities for Early Finishers in Social Studies Class

Thrive in Grade Five

It’s a fact of life, when you assign work or projects in social studies class, you’ll have early finishers. What should you do with them? Let them hang out and talk? Ummm, no, that’s just asking for classroom management nightmares. When you fail to set procedures for students, they’ll create their own procedures 100% of the time, so make sure students know what assignments they must complete and what they are able to do once finished with their required work.

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Using Images to Understand the Interwar Period

World History Teachers Blog

Atlantic Magazine published 45 black and white stunning black-and-white photographs of the interwar period around the world. Among the 45 images are Hitler and Mussolini shaking hands in Germany, Japanese aircraft carrying out air raids over China, Chinese General Chiang Kai-shek sitting with the chairman of the Yunan provincial government, and four Italian soldiers taking aim in Ethiopia in 1935.

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TEACHER VOICE: Instead of assuming kids won’t read novels anymore, build a curriculum that showcases books’ worth

The Hechinger Report

By now, you may have seen the recent spate of articles bemoaning the plight of the novel, that outdated 18th-century technology that adults have long forsaken and that some schools are beginning to shrug off. The best case against novels goes something like this: Theyre long, students dont read them outside of class, and they should make way for other aspects of instruction.

K-12 138
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Teachers Believe That AI Is Here to Stay in Education. How It Should Be Taught Is Debatable.

ED Surge

One of the perks of Angie Adams job at Samsung is that every year, she gets to witness how some of the countrys most talented emerging scientists are tackling difficult problems in creative ways. Theyre working on AI tools that can recognize the signs of oncoming panic attacks for kids on the autism spectrum in one case, and figuring out how drones can be used effectively to fight wildfires in another.

K-12 139
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Teaching Nixon

Passion for Social Studies

Students learn about such a wide range of politics in high school history classes. While some courses are about foreign countries, others focus on what is happening in the United States. This means students learn about important leaders and policies that have drastically shaped the United States into the country it is today. For example, teaching Nixon is a crucial aspect of American history due to his leadership, insights, and evolution of politics.

Teaching 130
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Los Angeles Wildfires Are NOT a Natural Disaster

Zinn Education Project

The climate crisis is not in some distant future. It is being felt around the world with heatwaves, floods, and most dramatically with the wildfires in Southern California. Our hearts go out to the residents who face the tragic loss of lives, homes, and entire communities. #TeachClimateJustice : Invite students to listen to news about the fires and come up with their own terms for the disaster, such as fossil-fueled disaster or climate change disaster.

Teaching 131
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The Week That Was In 234

Moler's Musing

This week in 8th-grade social studies, we brought history to life with engaging EduProtocols that helped students dive deep into the Early Republic and key moments like the Whiskey Rebellion. From Sketch and Tell-O activities that broke down complex ideas to Progressive Sketch and Tell timelines that visualized historical events, we kept creativity at the forefront.

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The Vanishing Traces of Our Earliest Ancestors in Indonesia

Sapiens

A paleontologist journeys through Indonesias Riau Archipelago in search of Homo erectus remains, but uncovers how environmental devastation has erased much of the regions history. FROM THE AIR, endless rows of palm trees swallowed the topography as we flew over Bintan Island in the South China Sea. On the ground, an occasional fallen palm tree and piles of red palm fruit scattered along the roadsides.

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The Emic Perspective of Generative AI

Teaching Anthropology

Chloe Beckett, M.A., Nightingale College, South Dakota, US As I grade my Cultural Anthropoloy classs Emic and Etic Perspectives of Halloween essay, two things strike me: 1. How often I write the comment Capitalize proper nouns, and 2. How the Turnitin AI scores keep creeping higher and higher. For anyone who has been teaching anthropology over the last two years, the latter will be of no surprise to you.

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The Multilingual Cradle: How Babies in Ghana Absorb Up to Six Languages from Birth

Anthropology.net

A World of Languages from the Start For decades, research on infant language acquisition has been dominated by studies conducted in what scientists call "WEIRD" societies—Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. These studies have shaped the prevailing notion that infants primarily learn language through direct one-on-one interactions with a primary caregiver, often in a single language.

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Small Changes to Make Your Classroom More Neurodiversity-Affirming

Cult of Pedagogy

Listen to the interview with Amanda Morin and Emily Kircher-Morris ( transcript ): Sponsored by Boclips Classroom and Brisk Teaching This page contains Amazon Affiliate and Bookshop.org links. When you make a purchase through these links, Cult of Pedagogy gets a small percentage of the sale at no extra cost to you. What’s the difference between Amazon and Bookshop.org?

Pedagogy 215
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How to Teach Social Studies in 30 Minutes or Less

Thrive in Grade Five

If you need help teaching social studies in 30 minutes or less daily, you’ve come to the right place. Of course, having such limited time to teach social studies is not ideal, but sometimes, this is a teacher’s reality. Social studies is a critical subject that should be given at least an entire class period daily. We all know that social studies instruction provides the essential background knowledge and nonfiction literacy skills that create excellent readers.

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MIT's Visualizing Cultures: Opening Japan, Opium War

World History Teachers Blog

This MIT site " Visualizing Cultures ," is a great resource for World History and AP World when studying imperialism. The site includes outstanding visual narratives on which curriculum units are based. Most of the curriculum units ask students to analyze various images. Some of the units include the rise and fall of the Canton Trade System and the First Opium War.

Cultures 192
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Hundreds of thousands of students are entitled to training and help finding jobs. They don’t get it

The Hechinger Report

Theres a half-billion-dollar federal program that is supposed to help students with disabilities get into the workforce when they leave high school, but most parents and even some school officials dont know it exists. As a result, hundreds of thousands of students who could be getting help go without it. New Jersey had the nations lowest proportion roughly 2 percent of eligible students receiving these services in 2023.

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What Will Districts Do With All Those Empty School Buildings? Some Look to Fill Them With Younger Kids

ED Surge

Several years ago, Oklahoma City Public Schools shuttered more than a dozen of its school buildings. It was part of a realignment process in the district to right-size student populations within schools some were overcrowded, others were underenrolled and to make the school experience better and more consistent for students across the city. But what to do with all of those empty buildings?

K-12 124
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27 Simple Ways To Check For Understanding

TeachThought

Whether you're using data to personalize learning or refine curriculum, the ability to easily check for understanding is critical to your teaching.

Teaching 317
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Teaching the Legislative Branch

Passion for Social Studies

The laws of our country are the foundation of our democracy, safety, and prosperity. Without laws, there would be no protection for citizens rights and freedoms. There would also be no framework of laws to maintain order in the country. As such, citizens and their rights would be in grave danger and the nation could fall into a state of chaos. Thats why teaching the Legislative Branch and its importance to students is so crucial.

Teaching 130
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The Week That Was In 234

Moler's Musing

When I think of teaching the Early Republic, I think about political parties, presidential decisions, and how those decisions shaped the federal government. I think about how the first five presidents kept us out of wars, expanded federal power, and navigated political tensions. I think about how political parties influenced those choices and how the nation evolved under their leadership.

Economics 124
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Tracing Roti’s Pasts, Presents, and Futures

Sapiens

The Roti Collective, a community-based research project, explores the layered histories that brought a flatbread from the Indian subcontinent around the world. THE PERFECT BITE Roti, an unleavened flatbread, originated with ancient peoples of the Indus River Valley on the Indian subcontinent. Known by many names, including chapati and parotta, roti and the practice of roti-making has traveled the globe to become a culinary mainstay across many foodways in the Global South.

Cultures 126
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Mentorship in motion: Student perceptions of experiential learning in forensic anthropology

Teaching Anthropology

Cristina Abbatangelo, Brendan Newton, Ellie Wan, University of Toronto, Canada The experiential learning course FSC485: Professional Opportunity in Forensic Science at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) provides upper-year students a unique opportunity to engage in self-directed professional forensic experiences that enhance their career readiness.

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An Ode to Jonathan Marks, or How I Became a Marksist

Anthropology 365

I met Jon Marks in 2015, when I enrolled in the Masters program in anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I had just finished a Bachelors degree in anthropology and philosophy at East Carolina University, full of ideas but unsure where they might lead. I was lucky to have been mentored by Linda Wolfe at ECU, a biological anthropologist with sharp instincts and a habit of cutting straight to the point.

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6 Ed Tech Tools to Try in 2025

Cult of Pedagogy

Listen to this post as a podcast: Sponsored by Alpaca and Brisk Teaching Every January for the last ten years, we have chosen a small collection of tech tools we think are worth checking out. That will be the same this year. But something else will be different: Traditionally, when we put out this list, we do it to coincide with the release of our annual Teacher’s Guide to Tech.

Pedagogy 210
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NCHE Partners with the Library of Congress

NCHE

The National Council for History Education (NCHE) is excited to announce a new partnership with the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program (TPS). As of February 2025, NCHE serves as the director of one of the Librarys newest regional granting entities, the Great Plains Region. The Great Plains region is one of six across the country whose role is to provide subgrants to organizations seeking to include Library resources in their educational programming.

Library 130
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Cold War Stations Activity

World History Teachers Blog

Here is a Cold War Stations activity that I use with my AP World students when we cover the Cold War. One of my colleagues developed it years ago. It includes seven stations, each with cartoons, documents, or photographs for students to process. I printed it out for seven different stations, but students could also work on it online. Here's a google link to the handout that students complete.

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One state tried algebra for all eighth graders. It hasn’t gone well

The Hechinger Report

This story about eighth grade algebra was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter. BRAHAM, Minn. It was fourth-period Basic Algebra 8 class on a gray October morning at Braham Area High School. Teacher Rick Riccio had assigned an exercise on converting large integers to scientific notation, but fifteen minutes in, some students had lost focus.