Supporting Student Reading

Teaching Advanced Placement history necessarily involves supporting student textbook reading. Although I am continuing to make all of my classes more constructivist, I do work to support student mastery of basic content in AP European History in order to prepare students for the content heavy AP Exam.

One way to balance these objectives is to move some information presentation online to allow class time for discussion. I created the screencast at right for students to preview and/or review the main ideas of a textbook chapter. Watching before hand exposes students to the main ideas; students watching after reading the chapter could make connections between the main ideas. Students could also review using a Moodle quiz.