Cantu, Chapter 3

Creating lesson plans is one of the jobs that will never end- even if you have a set of units that you must teach on a yearly basis, the students that you have in your classroom are always going to be different, thus you will need a different skill set and plan of attack for each new group. One of the most important parts of being an educator is keeping up-to-date in all arenas of teaching: popular culture, technology, new research in your field, and the culture of your school. In order to stay ahead of the curve we must be constantly learning ourselves- this is how we attain the best results.

While lesson planning, it is clear that we are going to have to adhere to common core standards. It is argued in this chapter that these standards are necessary, but are also merely a compass. Once we find true north, it is on us to maintain an engaging environment that not only targets state standards of education but also captures the imagination and potential of our students. In order to do this, we must target every level of Bloom's Taxonomy as to maintain  diverse curriculum. I feel that lower levels of the Taxonomy are definitely more targeted towards state tests and standards- simple knowledge base questions and rote memorization are very much "to the test". I believe it is important to insert the general knowledge into curriculum, but it is far more important to explore the higher order end of the spectrum. Questioning beyond the norm forces students to actually think about what they're learning and apply it to themselves- by creating an exciting world of discovery in the history classroom, students will WANT to discover where they came from, how they are going to fit into the bigger picture that is history, and develop a legitimate interest in a subject that maybe once was the most dreaded part of their day.

As a future educator, I plan on working simple knowledge based questions into general teaching, but assessment will definitely revolve around more than just multiple choice tests. I think that it is great to challenge students with projects and papers that test their research skills and give them a chance to be creative and maybe disagree with history instead of simply accepting it as something that happened for a change. Overall, while lesson planning I will remain conscious that I am creating a blueprint for the success of my students and will make the plan as diverse as possible- games, papers, technology- the works! My only question- how do you stay on track as far as timelines go when you are trying to fit in all the higher order thinking alongside state mandated curriculum? When I have been in classrooms, the one consistency between every school I have been at is that time flies by and teacher's are always forced to edit so that enough information is covered each unit. I want to ensure that student's have time to both learn AND challenge themselves so that history is something they think about even when they leave my classroom at the end of each day.

The following link speaks to the technology geek in all of us- apps for smart phones and how they apply to the different levels of Bloom's! Bloom's Taxonomy on Your Phone