History Teachers Club dan and caitlin

This episode is all about NCSS, National Council for Social Studies, and how joining NCSS or your state organization can be so helpful in your growth as an educator by connecting you with other amazing educators and organizations!Dan & Caitlin were just back from the national NCSS conference in Nashville when they recorded this and spoke about their experiences there including both of their presentations.Dan presented on "History Labs: Bridging Historical Thinking with 21st Century Litera...

We are relaunching one of our favorite episodes jam packed with creative and fun activities you can try out this Halloween season!In this episode Dan and Caitlin share some fun things they have done for US and world history for Halloween and even some local history things you could do as well. From learning about the history of Halloween, 'haunted geography', slimy sources (thats a winner!), and making tombstone epitaphs and graveyards for historical figures, we tried to include as many fun a...

Get ready for many more great ways to start class, no matter what course you teach! In this episode, we pick up right where we left off in the last episode and share fun activities to do with historical images like "Meme Mondays" to kick start curiosity, wall and desk graffiti, spiraling & skill building tasks to help students review previous lessons, and much more.We also share some grading hacks for bellwork so you don't have to spend your precious time grading bellwork while still givi...

The most important three minutes of class are those first three minutes!In this episode, Dan and Caitlin share their favorite ways to start class in order to transition students effectively, get them interested and excited, and kick-start their curiosity!Sharing very practical strategies on how to set up an effective 'start of class' routine, bellringers that will not just get students focused but also get them to 'lean into the lesson', and how to make sure 100% of students start with a win!...

100% or Nothing Quizzes, a historical thinking Get-to-Know-the-Teacher activity, gamifying routines and procedures and much more! 🤩This episode picks up right where we left off as we go over how we create a community of passionate learners in the first week or two of school! We talk about being your authentic self, how we carefully teach procedures & routines and how you can gamify it to help students master it, how to set high expectations for students so they know learning is serious bu...

Building cardboard historical sites, being silly with Play-Doh, on day one, 'living' in a world without history, and many other crazy ideas for an amazing first couple of weeks of school are found in this episode!In this episode, Dan & Caitlin share many strategies, activities, and policies that help them set up an amazing school year. They discuss great ways to get students excited about class with unique first-day activities (yes, we ditch the syllabus and get into some cool stuff right...