DESIGN AND MAKING IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: AN MAET AND CEP811 REFLECTION

The Social Sciences, and history in general, are notorious for boredom. Two cliches are often represented in the history classroom: the boring old teacher whom no doubt was related to the teacher from Ferris Buller’s Day Off or some athletics coach. Indeed, History is right behind Math in courses student’s seem to love or despise, […]

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6 REASONS WHY SOCIAL SCIENCE CLASSES NEED TO “MAKE”

Making is deep in our DNA. Indeed, is not the process of making, playing, and improving something how we naturally learn? My first encounter with a hammer and nails, a rope and make-shift pulley system came to us while creating a fort high in an olive tree grove next to our house. Through trial and […]

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Vetting “Fake News” with Flipboard and Flipgrid

21st-century technology demands a 21st-century approach to teaching and learning. The ways things worked in the past will no longer work. It is not so much that students have changed (as the disgruntled teacher down the hall complains. Our society has transformed thanks to the internet and compact computing devices, like smartphones. How we consume […]

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TRANSFORMING THAT DUSTY OLD MAP: CHIBITRONICS, PAPER CIRCUITS, AND INTERACTIVE MAPS

At Aquinas High School (the school at which I teach) has a saying: “turning today’s students into tomorrow’s leaders.” Yet I wonder, what world are our students stepping into? It seems like something out of a sci-fi flick, but this year’s freshman will graduate High School in 2022. Of that group, the four-year college-student will […]

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