History teachers: want to help students understand the central role of chronology in historical thinking, using the Montgomery Bus Boycott as a case study? Listen up. a short🧵 Here’s the story many will bring to class: Rosa Parks refused to yield her seat on December 1, 1955 & spontaneous protests broke out, leading to the boycott.

Google's "3 dots" will save your students much grief by making @lateralreading simple. Have you noticed the 3 dots to the right of each result? 🧵 1/4 Press on them and a new panel pops up

With Thanksgiving coming up, let’s talk about formative assessment (There’s a connection..stay with me for a sec). 1/15 You’ve heard the term: “Formative assessment”-- it’s a buzzword of sorts. What is it? 2.

Tomorrow's lesson for students on the mechanics of disinformation. A smoking gun video allegedly showing ballots being wheeled to Detroit's counting center during the wee hours of the night. The video's been viewed a million times (here & elsewhere). 1/10 It gets amplified by YouTube amplifiers with an agenda to cast doubt on the integrity of the election. (at 7:12) Notice the ominous framing

Here's an easy (& timely) lesson for your kids tomorrow. Let's start with this tweet. What's the difference between mis- and disinformation? It's big. 1/11 "The media doesn't select the president," with the headline President Gore. As we know, there was no Pres. Gore--it was Pres. Bush (you'll have to fill in some context for kids). Then, you'll need to discuss a) who is Tim Murtaugh, & b) why would he want to push that message now?

Expect an avalanche of misinformation (& the confusion that follows) in the next few hours. We educators have our work cut out. See our latest in today's LA Times. @nadavsziv @SHEG_Stanford latimes.com/opinion/story/… Looking for useful activities to do with your students today, no matter their politics? See cor.stanford.edu for free, research-tested lesson plans.

Why Learn History:
A brief respite from election jitters: How textbooks whitewash anti-Blackness. (A threaded tweet easily adapted as lesson plan, with accompanying materials) #sschat 2. Boston Massacre: I’m sure many of you show students Revere’s piece of “fake news” (see the good visual interactive here, ap.gilderlehrman.org/resource/paul-…

The article below has about the same credibility as POTUS's claim that the Coronavirus would disappear by Easter. It's an embarrassing piece of misinformation that flies in the face of piles of evidence. axios.com/gen-z-is-erodi… @Mantzarlis The best evidence for GenZ's ability to make sense of misleading content is a recent national survey of 3,446 high school students who were tested using a live internet connection. 2/8

"How I made my peace with Zoom -- but not in the way my University's 'be great at digital' told me to." 1/10 "Use Padlet! Use Jamboard! Use Hypothesis! Use PollEverwhere! Do polls in Zoom (warning--buy a 6-pack first and keep it next to you if you try this last one)." Yes, I was seduced with tech possibilities! 2/10

Before you don sackcloth and ashes over the latest NAEP history results, take a deep breath. Consider the baleful warnings from the first History-Civics NAEP in 1987-88

“If it’s in the book it must be right."

An exercise on historical thinking for middle school students (also works for high school too).

[Episode 5, I think, of "Doing worthwhile things with your students during a tough time"] 1/16 This is an exercise about Mrs. Rosa Parks’s heroic decision to hold her ground when she boarded a bus on a fateful day in December, 1955, in Montgomery Alabama.

A simple factual question: where on the bus did Mrs. Parks sit? 2/16

Why is teaching about historical context so hard?

(thread, followed by exercise for AP & college students) 1/21 Lots of reasons. For one, language.

Not a foreign language. One's own. 2/21

What’s historical thinking? What’s “context”? A quick but worthwhile exercise for your high school and college students. 1/ Seeing words that evoke associations, but pausing long enough to think about the context in which they were uttered, ain’t easy.

History teachers, from high school to college: Worthwhile things to do in the history classroom, Episode #1.

Assessment. I know, it’s dreaded word. Bad reputation well-deserved. 1/14 I’ve long been a critic of multiple choice tests. Wrong answers are called “distractors.” I didn’t become a teacher to distract kids. But that’s a story for another day. (I have written about it, however) 2/

Teachers, now that kids are online every hour of the waking day, how do we protect them from the virus of misinformation? A few quick tips. @SHEG_Stanford 1/13 Background: a friend who teaches in Seattle told me that the day before schools closed, one of his best students told him she didn't have to worry about the coronavirus. "Why," he asked. "Because it doesn't affect Black people," she said. 2/13

Important piece by @DanaGoldstein on differences in states' approach to national history

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1216424622951948290

a quibble, based on my own experience as author of major textbook series. Often authors have little say in the ultimate decisions of content. 2/8

What does web savvy have to do with historical thinking? Lots. Here's a meme that came across one of my social media feeds. 1/8 I have innumerable gaps in my historical understanding, but 20,000 free Black people who died in a Union guarded "concentration camp" after the war? That's serious. How come I've never heard of it? 2/8

1/8 If I hear "we will only solve the disinformation campaign by teaching critical thinking" one more time, I'm going to go berserk. 2/8 It's like saying, we will only reduce traffic accidents by first teaching people how a catalytic converter works.

Wikipedia: it's unreliable, your students should never use it for research, 'anyone can change it,' right?

Guess what? 1/7 Professional fact checkers, at the nation's leading outlets, often turn to the very site many educators tell kids they should avoid (like the plague). papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… 2/7

1/13 Last week I attended a convening by @icivics that deliberated on how to strengthen democracy. I was given 2 minutes to address the audience & tried my best to be brief. Several people have asked for my remarks. Here they are. (Beware: a long thread). 2/13 Months before the 2016 election @SHEG_Stanford assessed nearly 8000 middle, high, & college students’ ability to judge material from the Internet. Findings were released right after the election. We were swept up into the media maelstrom. wsj.com/articles/most-…

1/ historian and blogger @adamlatts came across this picture 2/He was "flummoxed" that believers would make this equation--The Donald with the Lord. He thought it was a fake.