"As I prepare to teach social studies for the first time, I am going through a lot of the material from my teacher education classes that I took seven years ago. One book that I knew I wanted to re-read was "Do I Really Have to Teach…"

"Thanks Kristi! I really like this idea; I will just have to roll it around in my head to see how I want it to work as this is my first year teaching middle school social studies. The responsibility points I mentioned are something another middle…"

"Kristi, do you do this instead of individual "responsibility" points? I like this idea of doing it on a class-wide basis which makes it kind of fun and you seem to have had success with it! Could you give me more specifics on how you…"

"A1: While I have not done a PBL unit on my own, I have worked closely with a group of teachers planning/helping them do PBL in their class. It is not something that we have done all the time, but once or twice a year. I happen to be a strong…"

"I teach in an affluent suburb where our high school is dubbed "The University of Arrowhead". While we do have some non-involved parents, we also have the problem where sports and extra-curricular activities are seen as more important by…"

"I am no expert, but yes, the whole topic of fair use and what it encompasses is so important as we move to publishing online, and the amount of material available online. All kids use YouTube and many contribute to YouTube, so it is also an…"

"I just came across this article that talks about how beneficial it is to specifically teach vocabulary, note-taking and inferencing skills. I have been planning on incorporating all of these skills into my class, but wasn't definite on…"

"Thanks Kimberly. I forgot to add that I did that also. Content wise, they wanted a really good understanding of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, along with history through the Reconstruction. Skills wise, they wanted reading complex text,…"

"John, I really like your idea of bringing in Apartheid. I didn't even think about that. I have been thinking about bringing the civil rights movement closer to home as Milwaukee has some good history with that and today is considered one of the…"

"John, I love this idea - it is simple and effective! I will have to try it out next year."

"Kimberly, your idea to use something gross/hard to believe etc reminded me that I had heard of a middle school social studies teacher that taught the whole year around the theme of the toilet and bathroom habits of each period of history they were…"

"Bill, last year we started teaching our fourth and eighth graders about hyperlinked writing so that when they write they can focus on answering the larger question rather than providing lots of details for the readers. The readers can just click on…"

"I am hoping to introduce primary resources and learn to model my thinking with the students. As I mentioned below, I am teaching middle school social studies for the first time, so I am not sure how this will go. I remember helping my daughter with…"

"A1: When I read the paragraph that includes the above sentence, I started thinking about cognitive work and how my middle school students have different abilities to think abstractly. I found this with my own children and again when teaching middle…"