One of the most challenging things to teach in history is not content—it’s thinking. How do we move students from simply seeing something to actually understanding  what it tells us about the past? I designed a lesson for my Grade 10 Ancient History class on “What is a Civilization?” in an attempt to do this. Below is the lesson. Starting with a Simple Question Rather than beginning with definitions, I started with a task. Students were given a set of images showing differen

One of the ongoing challenges in teaching is finding the right balance between intellectual challenge and accessibility. This tension became particularly clear to me while teaching a lesson based on Jared Diamond’s The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race , an article that presents a provocative and evidence-rich critique of the Agricultural Revolution.   The article is powerful, but it is also demanding. It contains dense academic language, unfamiliar disciplinary

A couple of weeks ago, I organized a field trip to an Indian restaurant in Ningbo, for high school students from Grades 9 to 12. On the surface, it was a restaurant visit. But in practice, it was a larger project that used food as a lens for history, geography, culture, and human connection.   I’ve always loved food — not just eating it, but thinking about it. When I lived in Bogotá, I even started a small business focused on Indian food. It involved catering, delivery, and c

As teachers in international schools, we know that many of our students are learning content and language at the same time. This is where...

A serious concern I have with education today is that it often fails to show students how the content being studied and the skills being...

One of the most rewarding parts of teaching is designing activities that help students make meaningful connections between the past and...

Displays from Sanxingdui Last week, our high school students had the opportunity to visit Ningbo Museum for a special exhibition on the...

As teachers, we are always looking for ways to make learning more engaging. One method I’ve been experimenting with recently is the use...

As a child, I loved reading Choose Your Own Adventure  books. They were exciting ways to take control of a story and discover how...

The website Our World in Data has a fantastic population cartogram that I printed out as a large poster and hung in my classroom. As a...

In today’s world, being able to interpret information presented in visual forms—such as graphs, charts, maps, and infographics—is a vital...

There’s no doubt that the development of farming was one of the most consequential moments in human history. It allowed for an...

My teaching philosophy is grounded in the belief that I should build positive relationships with my students. I try to do this through...

In a previous post , I shared a lesson introducing students to the complex nature of geography and how it combines both physical and...

Teaching an introductory unit on geography to middle school students can be challenging because geography is such an interdisciplinary...

When I worked at the British Council in Bogotá, we held weekly meetings where a member of the teaching staff would share practical...

I have been using a lot of resources from the OER Project this year. It has great material to teach history in a way that develops real...

This past month, I had lead a project that combined history, art, and storytelling with my Grade 6 students in social studies class. In...

In continuation to my series of lesson plans based on the article “ Technology over the long run: zoom out to see how dramatically the...

Summarizing is an essential skill that enables individuals to identify main ideas while filtering out less critical details. This skill...