Lessons Learned

Transition and change can be a large part of one’s life as an international educator. Taking the first step to leave one’s home country to live and teach in another country leads to many more steps of transition. International schools vary in how fast paced they are and how much change is going on at any one time. But change is often a common theme with new teachers and administrators coming and going bringing new ideas and energy to their schools.

I bring up this topic of transition and change because my wife and I made the decision that after many years in Asia, we wanted to make our next move to a small school either in north Africa or Europe. Morocco had been on our radar so we made the leap to Casablanca American School this past August.

It has not been an easy transition to a developing nation especially balancing the needs of our two middle school sons with our new jobs, housing, transportation, etc. efforts. I am teaching IB history for the first time which offers a pretty steep learning curve especially coming from a very constructivist, technology integrated curriculum at my last school.

Thankfully we are settled in now and finding ourselves in a very close and supportive teaching community. The wonders of Morocco are now accessible as we get to enjoy incredible travel and cultural opportunities.

I mention these topics because they are what Jeff and I will be talking about in the first three episodes of the Shifting Our Schools podcast as we kick off our third season. We will continue to have guests who bring their expertise to the essential questions that drive our discussions. We also hope to expand the conversation by having listeners call in.

Here is the schedule hopefully starting at 8:00 PM Bangkok time for each episode:

Episode 28: November 18

EQ> From Morocco to Bangkok: How goes it?

Episode 29: December 2

EQ> How can the IB curriculum be shifted?

Episode 30: December 16

EQ> How to recruit to be an international educator?

In a blog post that I wrote about international recruiting, one of the big questions for readers who contacted me was about taking their children overseas not only to new countries but new schools. I plan to share our family experiences in the November 18th show and hope to have listeners call in to share their insights. With IB being so new to me, we definitely will need listeners from IB schools to add to the conversation about their experiences. As it is the start of recruiting season, we hope to provide some insights for those new to international teaching and maybe to veterans who have not recruited in some time.

We have several ideas for our shows in 2010 but welcome listener questions and guest requests. Please let us know what you are thinking.

A portion of “learning” IB history is memorizing people, places, and dates. As I am not in the Core Knowledge camp but do believe in some level of cultural literacy, I do realize my students must have a certain amount of content for their exams. Thus, I am working to be creative in coming up with helpful content attainment practices that are fun for students to do.

Playing the American baseball angle, I have my students creating history trading cards that resemble baseball cards. The person, place, event, date, etc. is listed on one side with the other side filled with pertinent information. Here is an example of a homework assignment, class lesson and follow up homework for the Interwar years.

Before class homework description:

Trading History Cards: You are to research and write down on small index style cards information about the following topics. Some have been covered in your presentations so this will be review. Try to find paper that is a little thicker than regular paper. On one side you write the topic in large letters and on the other side you are to answer the following key questions: What/Who?, When?, Why Important? and Any Connections to other key topics, events, or persons? Your cards cannot be any larger than 9 cm by 9 cm. Do include a drawing, map, etc. if you can. 

We will have a little competition in class to see whose specific cards you would like to trade for the most. Each student/player will have to ask for and review a trading card from as many classmates as possible on all the topics listed below. When we meet and have our trading session, each student will be allowed to ask for 7 cards in total from other players. You will also write down on your personal scorecard how well you know each topic and who has the best card for each topic. We will count how many requests the top players have at the end of the game.

In Class:

Trading History Cards: You are to have your cards ready with the listing of the topics on one side and on the other side you are to answer the following key questions: What/Who?, When?, Why Important? and Any Connections to other key topics, events, or persons? You are to use your Score Card handout to walk around and ask as many players as you can to see some of their trading cards. You must see cards for all the topics listed on your Score Card and you are to not see more than two cards from one player. We will have a little competition to see whose specific cards you would like to trade for the most. Each student/player will be allowed to ask for 7 cards in total from other players. You are to tear off a request strip from the second page of your handout and give it to the person whose card you want. Go to your Score Card to write down the name of the person you requested the card from listing his/her name in the “Golden Glover” column. Even after you hand out all 7 of your requests, continue to list the name of the player who did the best job for each topic.  We will count how many requests the top players have at the end of the game to see who the top three players were. And at the end of the activity, take a few moments to self assess. Are you “hitting” above .300 signifying that you really know the topic or are you batting below .300 which means you need to do some more work to understand the topic?

Homework: You are to take the topic list from today’s exercise and voice record your explanations for each one. You hopefully have new material in your minds beyond what was there when you made your trading cards. You will come back to these recordings as you prepare for the exams in the spring.

I have written in a few venues about using voice recording software like Audacity or GarageBand to support learning. Working with my 12th grade IB history students, I discovered a new strategy to fit the needs of these students who have to document their learning to study for the external exams and to help them have one more way to construct their understanding.

I am having my students take the topic list, essential questions and unit questions for our study of the Interwar years and have them voice record their current understanding of each. This should especially help those students who struggle getting their ideas down from their minds through their fingers into Word documents. It should also offer another modality to support their efforts to take notes and outline. What I will be interested to survey is when they students review for their external exams to see how helpful it will be for them to listen to their sound files.

I keep reminding them that with six area exams, they will be on information overload trying to put two years of learning into their minds this Spring. The more they can hear their own calm, confident voice recordings before they take their exams, the more I think they will quickly remember and connect to their past learning.