And the half of the American Federation
of teachers and share my last like
12 and everyone stays web and are a
more perfect union on civics games.
Yeah, a writing activities.
My name is Emily Kaplan.
I'm assistant director in educational.
In the educational issues
Department of the interior of
the next generation teachers,
before we begin,
will watch a short video on cow.
Hello and welcome to the share
my lesson Virtual Conference.
This is Kelly booze, director of the
American Federation of teachers.
Share my lesson with a few
housekeeping tips to keep in
mind during the presentation.
First, we want this web and
are to be interactive.
An engaging at the bottom of your
audience console are multiple widgets
that we will use throughout the
web and R to interact with you.
These include our group chat widget.
Please open the group chat widget
and tell us who you are and
where you are tuning in from.
And let us know how you and your
students are adjusting to the new
distance learning environment.
Your moderator has already
posted an introduction.
We will use the group chat
throughout the web and R.
Feel free to chat and share your
ideas with other registered
participants an presenters.
Next,
if you have questions during this
web and are you can use the Q and
a widget to ask questions to the
presenters at your moderator will be
facilitating a question and answer
session at the end of this webinar.
If you have any technical issues,
please submit your technical
issue questions through the QA box
rather than using the chat box and
we will type of response to you.
The most common issue is missing
sound or frozen screen.
If this happens,
please try refreshing your browser.
We will also be live
tweeting during this web and are
you have a Twitter account you can
connect your Twitter account within
the platform and tweet along with us.
A copy of the presentation,
slide deck and any additional materials
are available in the resource list
at the top left of your screen.
Now we know a number of you are here
to get professional development
credits for your participation today.
To access a PDF for your
web and our participation,
you must attend at least 35 minutes
of the presentation and respond to at
least two pull questions that will pop
up on your screen throughout the web.
And are, you will only be able to download
your PD certificate from a laptop or desktop.
If you were on a smart phone or tablet,
you will be able to log back in at a
later date to access your PD certificate.
If you miss a poll question, that's OK.
You can also come back into the platform and
complete a poll question at a later date.
We will send you an email approximately
one hour after the live event
with a link to access your web and
R and certificate on demand.
Your certificate is available up to a year
after your web and R follow your districts.
Polisy is to determine if web in our
participation will be accepted for credit.
For educators in New York state,
we've applied for CTLY approval.
If you'd like CTLE credit for
participating in this webinar,
please email your completed PD certificate to
affiliates@sharemylesson.com.
That's affiliates at share my lesson. Com
AF FILIATES at Sharemylesson.com.
Once we receive your approval
as ICT Ellie sponsor,
we will send back the appropriate
documentations for your records.
Finally, thank you again for joining us.
During these extraordinary times.
We are here to support you as you navigate
through this unchartered territory.
In addition to these 42 webinars
from our 2020 conference,
we have hundreds of webinars on
demand and over 400,000 free resources
for pre k12 educators and parents.
If you haven't joined our coronavirus,
edgecator and parent community yet,
please be sure to
joinsharemylesson.com/coronavirus/remote.
We're adding content around the Clock to
help with the move to distance learning.
You can upload helpful resources to
share with the community and participate
in an active discussion board where
educators and parents are asking questions
and sharing ideas on best practices.
We're all in this together.
Please let us know how we can
continue to help and provide you
with more supportive resources in
content and more importantly,
please stay healthy now.
Let's turn it back over to your
moderator who will put up a sample
poll question for you to try.
Thank you for listening and we
hope you enjoy the web and R.
OK, and here we can show you
the sample full question.
And then we want to let you know that well,
that it's possible that our chat
box near each it's 500% limit.
As you can imagine with having multiple
Joyner, I've got even more levels.
We are unable to get into the chat.
Please consider sharing ideas
with a few and about four through
better using the hashtag XML TV.
Be encouraged Twitter.
Thank you.
At fearful result there we go
and now it is my great pleasure
introduce our adventures today off,
and I figure we had were disalvo,
Taylor, Davis and.
Thanks baby is an option for you.
So welcome everyone.
Uhm were so grateful that you are
here with the icivics team today.
As was mentioned in the video beforehand,
we know this has been a very
stressful weeks for everyone and
we hope to really use this next
hour to recenter you with some new
ideas and ways of collaboration.
So let's take our mind off the craziness
a little bit and learn together.
So welcome to a more perfect union.
One civic schemes connect with
a writing activities.
So we were already introduced,
but as folks who know icivics,
these are bubbles are avatars,
so we wouldn't be introducing ourselves
without giving you a view of what
we look like in the icivics world.
So first that my name is Alien Mcclendon.
I'm the senior marketing manager, I civics.
And my name is killer David,
'cause I'm missing your curriculum
developer and I said it.
And I'm lower desalvo, the
curriculum associate it icivics.
Great. So today's agenda?
Uhm, so we're going to start by
just taking a brief moments you
share with you all how I civics
is responding to school closures
and adapting to distance learning.
At this time.
We know that this is impacting all of you,
so we want to make sure that we
cover that and then also provide
an introduction to Icivics.
For those of you that are new to us.
Welcome, we're really glad to have you.
Then, Laura Ann Taylor will take us into
leveraging elections in anelay classroom,
and then Laura will share some tips
to collaborate with colleagues and
different Department switches.
Really fun, um?
And then will close with what
to look for a civics,
an election year and some other
resources we have that might
be useful to you at this time.
So let's dive in.
As I mentioned,
we know that the past few weeks
have been hectic as an educational
organization made up of former teachers.
We truly feel the changes you're
experiencing very deeply and our
curriculum team has spent the past.
Our whole organization has spent the
past week and a half really talking
to our educators on social media
through email on webinars like this.
To really hear what your concerns
are and pivot our offerings at
this time to make sure that we're
addressing those concerns so you will
care if more from my civics in the
coming weeks on what we're creating.
To start,
we have put a school closure
toolkit on our home page.
You can find it at icivics.org backslash
toolkit but also on our homepage as well.
And for those of you that are new to us,
we really suggest starting with.
Our games are games are a really
great way to give your students a
break from the headlines right now,
which we know all of us are
overwhelmed with but also add some
excitement and motivation to their
day and also keep the learning going
which we know is a big concern.
Our games.
All take 30 to 45 minutes to play and are
geared for students in grades six through 12.
And if you have English language learners,
we do have four games,
five almost.
We have one coming out in 2 weeks that
have a Spanish Glossary and translation.
So definitely check those out and see
if they are fit for your students.
We also have provided instructions
on how you can access our games are
students were at home without Wi-Fi,
which we know is also a big concern as well,
so be sure to check out those instructions.
And see if that is also fit for you.
Um, you know.
And apart from the resources we had,
I civics really want to hear from you.
So if you have concerns,
if you have ideas, if you have needs,
please reach out.
We've put our support email here.
Do not be shy and we would love
to hear
from you and know that we are here for you.
So turning to icivics quickly
just to give you an overview
of what we have and who we are.
So we were founded in 2009 by
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Today is actually her 90th birthday.
So happy birthday to her and what a way
to honor her this afternoon together.
But we were founded to create
educ educational video games
and classroom resources to help
students learn civic knowledge,
skills and dispositions so they can
be active members of their community,
but also our larger democracy.
So today we have 20 games.
That cover a range of topics from
managing your own presidential campaign,
which is really timely right
now to news literacy.
Also really timely right now to how the
Supreme Court works and also managing
the three branches of the US government.
Through our game,
students really learn by doing.
They get put in a roll of the judge or a
member of Congress or community activists,
or even the president,
and they get to really do that job
and experience it an engages them at
challenges them an it really makes
civics relevant to their lives so our games.
Please start with them.
They're really one of our greatest resources,
but games are all we have so we
do have over 200 plus resources
including infographics, lesson plans,
webquests A digital tool that feature is.
Document these questions and primary sources,
so all of these resources are free
with an I civics edgecator account and
I'll talk through how to do that shortly.
But I do also want to recognize that
in this time we've heard from a lot of
you that you're overwhelmed with resources.
There's so much being thrown out there
at this time, so if you come to us,
which we hope you do,
please start with our games.
We won't.
There are a great place to start
and also they we do have activities
around them that help structure
pre and post play activity.
So how to get access to all of
these resources so you can go to
ourwebsite@icivics.org to create access?
Log in to create a free edgecator account.
Once you're logged in,
you can learn about each of the
resource types that I just described
at our get started page,
so it should be the first page
you hit when you log in.
This will just help you get
acquainted with the different types
and what the offerings are.
As I mentioned with games we do
have extension packs with every
single game that we have,
so it'll help you teach around the gay man,
reinforce key concepts so if
you are working with a student.
Home or sending a game home.
These will help you structure
gameplay to make sure that there's
some Learning Center around it.
Alright,
so enough about us going to turn
it over to Laura to kick us off.
Alright, so let's talk about
elections in the ELA classroom.
To do that, we've got a couple of
WH questions for you, two in a row,
so get your clickers ready.
Here we go. Our first poll question.
How interested are your students
in the election process or
anything about the election?
A very extremely.
Be couldn't care less.
See somewhat interested.
DI have to make the connection for them.
If you could click on the answer
that comes closest to your situation,
I know we've had a few distractions lately,
but think back to your classes were
students to talk about the election,
uh, where they talking about certain
candidates towards certain issues.
In fact, if you go in the chat box
and you want to let us know what the
biggest issue was for your students,
what they were most concerned about or
what they were talking about, the most,
that would be great to get an idea
of what was going on in your classes.
All right?
And it looks like wow.
OK, so we seem to have a
combination of answers here.
Some 22% it very extremely.
Uh, see someone interested.
Looks like that's in first place.
Well, it's nice that couldn't
care less comes in last.
That's fantastic, right?
Especially for students like in high
school as they're getting closer and
closer to becoming voters themselves.
So that's good news,
excellent.
All right?
So our second poll question.
How many of you feel
confident teaching elections?
A I've got this, no worries.
BI can hold my own.
See I can get through it,
but not with confidence.
Indeed, not so much or E nada.
Nothing, don't got it. So.
Put your answers in there and just be honest.
For some of you,
you know teaching the elections
is not your wheelhouse,
and that's OK.
We actually commend you guys for
even thinking about putting the
elections into your curriculum.
It can be a challenge.
We've all been scared of getting
that question that really
hard question that we don't
know how to answer or there's
that expectation that use the
teacher should know everything.
All right, and let's look at
some of our answers here.
So it looks like B is coming in
first I can hold my own good news.
See coming in second.
I can get through it,
but not with confidence, OK?
And I'm looking at your chats and talking
about some of the issues discovered.
19 is see some gun control,
uh, voting, voting rights,
excellent. All right?
So if you answered A or B to
the previous poll question,
then you're ready to roll and we're
just going to give you some suggestions,
some tips for extending your lessons.
If you answered CD or E,
please know that you are not alone.
OK, there are a lot of teachers
out there who don't feel
confident teaching the elections.
Uh, maybe for how to civics
class or if they did,
it was years ago and they don't remember.
It is a difficult thing to teach
if you don't know it that well
and it's something you are going
to worry about getting it right.
You want to make sure you get it
right and so that's where we come in.
I civics is here to help you.
I'm are games in the support of
materials that go with them are made
to be off the shelf and ready to go.
You do not to plan out a whole unit
or even plan out in factory lessons.
Done that so there there good to go.
The lessons come with step
by step directions if.
Classroom to take you through
the less without having to do
too much background information.
An in this day and age when I know
you guys are scrambling for quick,
straightforward online lessons as
alien was saying in the beginning,
you can assign one of our games and
assign a writing assignment two to it.
Afterwards,
you know a reflection on what
you learned during this game.
Boom, you've got an assignment
and you're ready to go,
so it's something to think about.
We have two games that focus
on the elections.
One is called Castro vote and
this is where the player has
to evaluate candidates based
on their stance on the issues,
their personalities,
their answer to questions,
that kind of thing,
and then at the end they actually
do cast a vote for a candidate as
well as two referendum questions.
Which is a good experience for them.
Our second game is called when the
White House where students have to
run their own presidential campaign.
Uh, and both of these games.
Seems like you can develop writing
assignments that go into a bunch of
different directions based on you can
do a candidate profile writing speeches,
focusing on issues,
etc.
There are hundreds of different ways
that you can approach these games.
So for today's webinar,
we're going to focus on when the White House.
It's one of our more popular games.
As I said,
that challenges the student to run
their own presidential campaign,
which means they have to raise funds
they have to create media ads.
They have to manage and win
the Electoral College,
and it goes through all
these processes for them.
and I know you're not playing the game,
so we're going to watch little trailer,
so you get an idea that just
what's involved in the game.
And then when we come back from the trailer,
Taylor is going to.
Talk you through some ways to use
this game in your LA classrooms.
So let's go.
The team that brought you the
2016 blockbuster election game.
When the White House is back,
learn where the rubber meets the
road during election season when
the White House puts you in charge
of your own presidential campaign,
create a candidate,
pick a slogan and get ready
to jump into the primaries.
Do you know where you stand on the issues
updated for the next election season?
An beyond pick issues that matter to
you an add them to your campaign.
Travel in style as you raise
funds for your campaign efforts,
whole states to see your level of
support and what issues have traction.
Make personal appearances and run media
campaigns to capture voters attention.
Breaking
news. This party is on a roll
gain momentum flip States and keep
an eye on the electoral vote tally
as the decision day draws near.
Can you win the White House?
All right, so we're going to talk a
little bit about what your students will
encounter when the White House from what
you just on the trailer looks like.
A few of you in the chat are
familiar with 15 year student.
Played it before and some others
are new to it.
Suggested County gives you a broad overview.
The goal of this game is really to
simulate the campaign process by putting
students in the driver seat and allowing
them to make the decisions of their campaign.
We're going to walk through
several steps for the game.
Both start at the primary debate.
They move their primary elections and
then finally they learn about the
importance of the Electoral College
through 10 rounds of campaigning
in the space of your choice.
One of the really cool things about
when the light houses that we have
just updated it to the 2020 election,
and you'll notice that the issues
that are reflected in the brain are
issues that students they must be.
Mostly that's left in the campaign
to go watching play out right now.
Some of those issues include health care,
immigration and also gun right?
And there is an issue guide that
goes along with the game.
It's downloadable it like all
of our resources.
It's free and I believe that you
should have access to it in your
view of the presentation as well.
So if you don't go through with
chocolate question in the Q&A
video directly together that is.
Also,
students are going to learn
all about the campaign process.
They get to choose their slogan,
basic, your funding.
They decide what kind of campaign
ads to put out begin,
and most importantly determine what
states are going to visit to offer
the biggest beach their campaign.
Answer the window most electoral votes.
This game is all about strategy.
We wanted to feel like a real election.
Wanna simulate that process for student,
and so they're going to see how
expensive and it's Champagne?
Is they also see how hard it is
to win the White House and how
long that process takes.
Let's talk about how you can leverage this
game in your classroom on the special.
If your DLA teacher or if you're
supposed to turn it into branchial layer,
writing activities into your class
if you were one of the people who
answered CD or even more question
on the whole question about,
you're not quite sure about
how to teach elections.
Maybe you don't feel quite
as confident about it.
Don't worry,
these activities are especially
for you and I also want to remind
you that on our site Icivics Dot
we have tons of lesson plans that
also include student readings.
There are really great place
to gain the content knowledge
you might be looking for.
To teach about the election.
So we could take a creative
writing activity like this one.
Have you students play when the White House?
They're going to learn all about the
electoral process simply by playing the game,
and so that frees you up to live in.
Focus on writing skills,
specially if you're at DLA teacher
as a teacher teaching clearly,
I taught middle school and high school
toa before I would device today.
I probably wouldn't have been that
comfortable teaching elections
if someone had asked me cute,
but I would have been very comfortable
teaching writing skills and so I
would say for an activity like this,
focus on where you can.
Teach those riding skills such
as organization and structure or
crafting a strong central idea.
You could focus definitely an
audience with their writing,
a dictator, concession,
speech,
and also voice and tone before
starting an activity like this,
I would probably start with vocabulary.
Students will either win the White
House or they won't,
but they may not know what the
word concede or concession means,
and so that's a great place for you
to bring that into your classroom
and then also an activity like this
is going to bring in discussion.
Have your students talk about
who they think is actually going
to win the campaign this year.
Why do they think that?
Against high it back to the game,
they're going through the electoral process.
They're seeing Kansas wind States
and talking about electoral votes.
So ask them habitat person they think
is going to win the election this year.
How they're doing in the states,
according to the polls,
make that connection for them.
Another really cool activity
to do is persuasive writing.
You can see from these pictures
and I talked about a little bit.
The game does focus on campaign ads,
but as you can see there
a little bit lackluster,
they don't really have the content in demand,
so this is where your students
could really leverage the game.
They could focus on persuasive writing
techniques, and you could also focus
on skills like ethos, pathos and logos.
Have your students write 3 to 5 positive
or negative campaign ads. Again,
start by showing them real campaign ads.
Have them analyzed them.
Where do they see?
Beat those pinkos and logos at play.
Were those techniques affected?
Have been evaluate that because
your students are seeing really
great examples of campaign ads,
they're also going to have a really great
idea of what they should do for their own.
If you have access to technology or
your students have access to a phone,
that could of course record
those ads like a television ad.
They could also write a script such
as the television at or radio ad,
or they could do it.
Mark something up on paper.
This could be for online or footprint.
And we're going to predict
the 2nd if you could in the
chat box if you take a second.
Just to answer this question,
we hope that were sparking some
ideas for you that you could see
doing in your actual classroom.
And so if you'd answer what other
election theme writing activities
could you plan for your students?
Really think about what the game teaches.
So again, campaign funding
is one of those things.
Could your students write a
persuasive essay about what they
would say to an audience that
they read a fund raising events?
You can think about can get BIOS,
thinking about what the issues
in the platform that candid are,
what kind of experience they bring to
the table, what their back story is.
Have you students use that
to make a campaign website?
That's another writing
activity they could do.
You could also ask him to play
and just simply asking how well
do they think the game teaches
the process of elections.
Let them reflect on that.
They could write about what they
think the steps to winning an
election are based on the game and
also based on what they're seeing
play out right now in real time.
There are so many great
ideas coming in the top box.
This is great. Everyone. Great job.
And you want to help you.
While they're flying so fast. Yeah, uh, maybe
we can grab a few and come back to it again.
This is awesome everyone.
This is creating a great Bank of ideas.
So debate, like not with
potential council and it ran away.
You know there was a question
about what grade level?
I'm not sure if we want to start go back
to that to just answer that question.
I would definitely say,
especially if you're in Ely.
Teacher, you know your standard.
You know the skills that you have to
teach your students and so eat those
pathos and logos may not be a school
that you're covering in six grade,
but it may be one that you're covering
in 8th grade or 9th grader 10th Grade.
I would kind of judge my
activities based there.
The election is something that
all of your students can work on.
Whether there in middle
school or in high school.
We want all students
learning about the election.
We want all students really leveraging
this teachable moment in our history.
And so I was focused,
not so much on the content of the elections.
There we focus on what are your
skills that you're looking to teach?
Alright, let's talk a second about research,
so of course we can pull this game.
We can do some writing activities.
You could also call this game
and do some research activities.
This is a screen capture from our game.
Before you play, you actually choose
what your issues are going to be.
Again we mentioned there isn't issue
guide that goes along with this game.
You could have your students research
one of these issues and the reason
that I would do this is because you
want them thinking about why do we
vote for a particular candidate.
And if you think about that.
Some people vote along party lines.
We really want to just thinking about
is how the candidate is responding
to issues that they care about.
How would they evaluate that?
And so I have students research
those issues with people.
Pick one issue that really that matters to
them and then look at what the issue is.
Lie is an issue with the history
of it in our country.
I'd also have them focus on its effects
and let the party stances on it,
or candidates recommendation
for how they can to tackle it.
After since research,
those points have been way in after
what they think about candidates
plans and the solution.
Ask them with their research told them.
I mean, I really,
really great thing about our games
is that he tried to empower students
back heading into the driver seat.
I would definitely carry that out
throughout into your classroom.
And another way you can do that is
by asking students what they would
propose the country with you if they
were elected president about that issue.
Everything of course doesn't
have to be about writing.
You could have your students
research and showcase what they've
researched by hosting unlock debate.
Again, they'll see this
process play out in the game.
We hope that they are also watching it on TV.
You could bring it into your
classroom to show them as well,
but have them research to stage that debate.
Just give him a really great
opportunity to see why good research
pays off and would it pays off.
So we talked about writing,
talked about researching,
let's talk really quickly about the reading.
The election is all over the news.
It's going to continue to be
all over the news and this is a
really great time to bring it
into your Elliott classroom.
Also into your social
studies classroom as well.
Again, you use the game as a starting point.
Talk about the role the media plays an
elections and then think about skills that
you can pull from your ELA curriculum to
incorporate with the constant of the game.
One of those skills of characterization.
You can pull a news article and have your
students evaluate how the candidates for
being characterized in that article.
You could also focus on bias and pull a
couple of different articles and have
your students analyze how a topic or how a
candidate or how an issue is being portrayed.
If you're looking for a source to pull
articles from, especially to show bias,
I'd recommend a website calledallsides.com.
It features articles every day,
one from the write.
Once in the left and one from the
centre insignificant.
Use that in.
Compare again how issues are being covered.
This brings in ila skills like
word choice and tone is something
you could cover and bias as well.
Fact and opinion is another great way
to pull reading into the elections.
Do your students know the difference
between fact and opinion?
Probably they do depending on their grade,
but also can they spot it in journalism and
that's what we really want to focus on here.
I would break out news articles.
I would break out opinion pieces and talk
about what the differences in those.
And then finally we can pull
a little bit more on news,
literacy and the role of the media by
focusing in on miss and this information.
We have a unit actually that supports
introducing their students news literacy
skills and you can find it on our website.
We talk about it really briefly.
It is called our news literacy unit.
And it covers for main lesson.
They are journalism, misinformation,
bias and opinion and analysis.
There also for many lessons
that go along with this unit.
They cover topics such as
monetization of the news,
satire algorithms and privacy policies.
You can incorporate those into
a lesson on the elections,
but you don't necessarily
have to you this week unit.
You'll also find a game in this
unit called newsfeed defenders,
but again,
we're focusing on the election for this
webinar and so will keep that focus.
Each lesson comes with the reading.
There are activities for students to
complete based on what they read about.
And then there's a web activity
where they can practice the skills
they learned about in that lesson.
Again, it's all free.
It's downloadable on our website,
but if you really think about news,
literacy and elections,
this is a great time for you
to leverage elections, news,
literacy,
media literacy skills are going
to span across content areas.
You can do it in ELA class.
You can do it in social studies class,
and it's really probably one of the skills.
Just students are going to take
away with them because it's
what they're going to see on
their own social media feeds.
We want them to be able to
evaluate that critically before
they click the share button.
OK, and with that I'm gonna
turn it back over to Laura.
She's gonna talk about tips
to collaborate with colleagues
and different departments.
Alright, thank you Taylor.
All those ideas are fabulous and I'm
seeing the chat box is like blowing
up with all these great ideas and
you can do these ideas by yourself
individually in your own classroom,
but I want to shift gears now and
talk about collaborating with
someone from another Department.
So if I'm talking that means there's
another poll question Are you ready?
Here you go.
How often do you collaborate with
members from a different Department?
So a all the time B during
two or three units a year.
See once in awhile D almost never or EI.
Don't even know who's in the other
Department or I am all the Department so I
know there's some adult Ed folks out there.
So uh,
you may be the entire Humanities Department.
I don't know.
I know a lot of this can depend
on the size of your school I was
a high school history teacher.
I was in a small high school.
And the English Department, literally,
their classrooms were just passed mine.
They had to walk past my room
to get to there.
So I saw them all the time and
it was easy to collaborate.
But I know in a bigger school
that may not always be the case.
So let's see what we've got here all
the time. 42%, that's awesome, wow.
Once in awhile 25.9% comes in 2nd place cool.
That is so encouraging to hear
into see that is awesome, alright?
Well then.
Let's talk a little bit about collaborating.
If you've never collaborated
before or just once or twice,
it really can be an intimidating
process to go through to try
to align your curriculum,
never mind trying to figure out
the timing of things,
and that's why we're suggesting you
start with the presidential election
as a place to start simply because it
effects all of us were all involved in it.
Their students were talking about it.
They're probably hearing about it at home.
There's certainly hearing about it at school.
So it's a good starting ground.
Um? Let's just be honest and
practical about things you know.
Collaboration can be hard.
It takes a lot of time and we all.
None of us have enough time, right?
Ever if you don't know each other,
it can be really intimidating,
especially if you have very different
teaching styles or different priorities, etc.
But we encourage you to
collaborate across the curriculum,
because keep in mind that you each have.
If you're talking about the English teachers,
or if you're talking about history teachers,
you each have with the other needs.
So YLA teachers,
you guys want interesting topics,
exciting writing assignments for discussions,
social studies history teachers you
guys want really well written essays
and reports and research papers,
and that can only come from ELA
and good English instruction,
so keep that in mind as you
go forward in this.
So I just sort of want to outline
several steps to take just some
tips on how to go about this.
If you've never collaborated with someone
before, or even only done it once or twice.
So you want to start with finding
out who's in and who's interested.
So if your social studies or Ella
contacting the other Department,
maybe you send out an email.
If you know the teachers,
maybe you approached them at a summer
professional development session.
You know those sessions you have to
go to right before school starts.
Maybe you go through your Department
head or their Department had it all.
Depends on how your school is structured,
but once you find someone who's
interested the process,
the next steps can be kind of daunting,
right?
It's like great.
Yeah, I want to collaborate now Watt.
Uhm and it can be overwhelming to
figure out where you want to start.
What do you want to cover?
What do you want to talk about?
So use icivics as your common ground.
If the other person doesn't know about
Icivics, you can introduce them,
but then you both have a common starting
place when it comes to collaborating.
For your next step is coming up with that
all important planning time and I know,
I know.
I know you're going to say we
don't have enough time and it's
true you never have enough time,
but finding that scheduling,
scheduling some planning time is so
important, it's probably the hardest,
but it's the most important
part of this whole process.
And when you do sit down with your
collaborator really map out a time
frame for teaching the election so
this year is probably questionable,
so let's focus on next year from.
Say September to the beginning of November.
Look at that calendar and think
about how often do you want
to talk about the election.
Is it one day a week?
Is it 15 minutes a day or two
straight weeks at the end of October?
You know one day before the election,
you know.
Just think about it and come up with
a time frame so that you know
what you're working within.
And then your next step can be very
overwhelming where you're trying
to come up with what assignments,
what topics, that kind of thing.
So I'm going to suggest that you start
with a little selfish brainstorming
so you have your time frame,
let's say September to November
and sit down with.
Your Department facing ID requirements.
Look at all the things that
you need to cover.
You have to cover and what you'd like
to cover and just do a little brainstorm
list of all the things you need.
Who are not during that
time for apartments so YLA.
If you need to do persuasive writing,
an understanding tone and analyzing media.
Social studies maybe if your civics
thinking about all the electoral process
or political parties or power and popular.
Whatever it is,
brainstorm your list and.
Down.
Then come together and compare your list.
What could complement the other?
What could crossover you know
could if the social studies teacher
is talking about the Electoral
College and explaining that,
could that turn into a persuasive
essay on whether or not we
should keep the Electoral College
in the English class in ELA?
Are you both interested in top
and covering the same topic
but from different angles?
And this can be a really
great way to reinforce how.
History an English work together right?
So if your topic is power and
popularity or something like that,
and maybe social studies wants to
focus on how candidates use the media,
the English Department can at the same
time be looking at how to analyze
the language in ads or speeches.
So when you've got your list,
do some comparison.
How could this crossover?
What could lead to another?
What could be a research in one class
that leads to a debate in another class?
See what you can come up with.
Now that's all well and good,
but what if you do your lists?
You compare your list San.
Nothing seems to line up,
or it's just overwhelming,
or you're just going in completely
different directions, right?
Don't run out of the room, regroup.
This is where you can use icivics.
Our games come all of our games
come with extension packs.
An extension packs include many lessons,
vocabulary lists, pregame activities,
postgame activities, all that stuff.
OK, so start with the games.
Pick a game.
So let's say when the White House,
since that's what we've been talking about.
Review the extension packs together and then
do the brainstorming process all over again.
Lol a brainstorm all the different
ways you could use this game,
how what topics would you like to expand on?
What subjects with things could
you hit that would hit your
requirements in your standards?
Same with social studies.
Do your list the whole process again.
Maybe the Social Studies Department wants
to look at campaign financing over the
last 12 years and how that's changed
and maybe ELA wants to compare slogans?
And what were catchy slogans?
What worked?
What didn't work,
that kind of thing you guys can
find topics that complement each
other but also reinforce your own
Department so they don't have
to be connected side-by-side.
It can be a reinforcement of looking
at the election from different angles,
and that's always super cool.
So once you find that and you figure
out your topics in which ones you want
to cover and how you want to expand it,
and you have your time frame,
then you want to just move on
to mapping out the logistics.
OK, these are the basics right here.
Figured out which class will play the games.
Or will you play it in both classes?
Or will you assign them for homework?
Who's going to assign which activities
from our extension pack are you
going to divide and conquer or are
you going to do it in one class and?
Reinforcing another uhm.
Same as a vocabulary vocabulary lists
uh divide and conquer or cover vocabulary.
One class reinforce in another,
and you can just break that right
down and it's not overwhelming.
Our extension packs are a handful
of activities and vocabulary.
It's not like you're going to get 500 things,
and you don't know what to do.
It's really straightforward.
Break it down. All right, got your plan.
You got your time frame.
You've got your topics.
You know how it's going to compliment
you are ready to go but we all know
that once you get into the classroom,
things change up and so making it work
can be different than planning it out.
So communication is the key to our.
First of all,
start off the year telling your
students that you're working
with the other Department.
I don't know why,
but this was always freaked out
that students when I was like,
yeah, I'm working with Miss
Walsh in the English Department.
They were like why you guys talk
to each other. I was crazy.
They every year without fail,
it always happened and maybe you
won't get those little comments about.
Why do I have to write this is
an English class, you know.
It shows that you're on board together
and you both have the same goals,
which is fantastic.
Check in with your collaborator frequently.
We all know things don't always go
as planned. You thought you were,
it was only going to take two
days to cover something in class.
Well now it's taking four and
your whole time frame.
Your whole schedule is off,
just you know,
keep tabs on that and also about
what's working and what's not working.
And that's OK.
Just keep,
just keep the communication
lines open and another thing to
think about is reaching out to
other people at your school.
If you need resources,
if you're out of ideas or you're not
sure how to make something work,
talk to lick your library and they
usually have so many Resources
which are fabulous that can be
adapted to both history and social
social studies and English.
Talk to them about maybe even
talking to your class about media
literacy or doing good research.
That kind of thing is you never know.
What they have to offer?
And then finally,
you want to spread the word of your
success of your collaboration.
Keep your Department updated on
how things are going,
even if you know you're running
into glitches.
I mean, this is a practice thing, right?
Like we're not going to get it
perfect the first time out,
but let your Department know how it's going.
Ask them for advice if they can
give some ideas.
Best ideas I ever had came from
other teachers, right?
Or were influenced by other teachers,
so reach out to them.
Maybe if your administration is open to it,
share your experiences.
With the whole faculty during a
professional development day,
maybe mid mid year or at the end
of the year to tell him how it went for you.
And of course will be selfish here too.
And say tell everyone about our
icivics resources as well and you
can sort of spread the word for
collaborating,
but even for independent work as well.
So to give you more of an idea of
what resources we have for the
elections going to throw it back
to a lean and she is going to talk
about that.
Awesome thanks Laura.
Uh, So what to look for at a civics
in election years I'm going to draw
a link in the chat box for everyone.
Uhm, before I move forward so we
do have an election headquarters
on our website right now.
It's an easy way for all of our election
related resources to be curated in one spot.
So icivics.org backslash election so we
know right now the election is still ongoing,
but it's probably not your focus right now.
But as the months as we head
towards November will be ramping up.
Our curriculum around the election
and looking to add new curriculum
infographics in terms of timely content.
Blogs written by fellow educators
who are teaching the election in
their classroom and also some
interactive activities.
So expect to see more on this page
you can visit anytime it's available
now and it's everything that we have
are on the election in one place.
So we hope this makes finding the
content a little bit easier for you.
And then Ferrari lay teachers on today.
I did see a few you actually
mentioned are persuasive writing
unit in the chat as it was flying by.
So I want to just make sure
really teachers know that we
have a persuasive writing unit.
It's actually one of our most
popular units on share my lesson,
but it's also available on our site so
it has 8 lessons that teach students
to argue on paper and a corporates
are game Supreme decision which
teaches have the Supreme Court work.
So definitely check it out
if you're interested.
There was a few folks in here
that I've already used it.
That's really awesome to see.
And then for associated features,
we also recommend you explore our
foundations of government unit
available at that URL right there.
That's on our website.
This unit covers the understanding
of different forms of government,
Democratic principles and also
distinguishing features of
governments around the world.
So giving you a little bit of that
international view for some students.
Alright, so your homework,
um, so we definitely, um,
if you haven't already done so,
we definitely recommend you how to our
website to create a free edgecator account.
The only thing you need to do is
provide your email address and some more
information about you and you'll get
access to all of our free resources.
There was a question in the chat about
extension packs and I actually miss spoke.
Not all of our games have extension packs,
but we're heading in that direction.
Most of our brand new games that
have just come out all have them,
and those are accessible.
On the edgecator pages of the game.
So when you log in as an educator,
you should always see those
materials alongside the game.
They're not available when you're not
logged in because we want to make sure
your students do not get access to any
of the answers and also the material
unless it's provided to them from you.
So definitely go explore when the
White House in Castroville start
collaborating with your colleagues.
We know that this looks a little
bit different right now for you,
but no better time to connect.
Start talking, have conversations,
collaborate.
You really do talking to others at this
time is going to be really beneficial.
We've also seen so much of that over
the past week and it's just inspiring.
Sharing on Twitter on Facebook groups,
you're all really lifting each
other up at this time.
So definitely start collaborating,
visit our election HQ.
And then Lastly,
just let us know how we can help
you as I started this web and are we
are here for you and we want you to
know that we are providing resources
at this time that are relevant
to you and answer your concern.
So let us know what you need.
Email us.
Tweet at us were always active on
Twitter and answering questions,
but most importantly take care of yourselves.
You're doing an amazing job and
we're really proud of you.
So thank you all for joining with us today.
We're going to turn it over to questions.
Great. Couple back again and because
I think I was having issues with
audio, I'm just gonna ask is.
You hear me. Yes. OK, great.
And we've gotten a lot of questions
and I'll just let folks know that if
you don't have your question answered,
we will be getting all the questions.
So they will be able to
get back to individually.
So our first question is.
What if I have a big class of 35 students?
Can students work in groups?
Absolutely, we actually encourage partner
play with our games in Group play.
It's a really great way for students
to discuss what they're doing in the
games and that sort of discussion
actually enhances their learning.
You can assign two students to
a computer or a device or tablet
and have them play together.
You could also, if you wanted to make
it a little bit more interactive.
You can assign roles like one
person could be the candidate.
The other person could be
the campaign manager,
and then halfway through the
game they switch roles.
Create and then we have another question
about whether how how to deal with this.
If the election is a touchy subject
when students or lead to conflict.
Yeah, that's a great question.
I saw actually a couple of
those in our in the chat box.
Yes, you can lead to controversy an
we recommend that you don't avoid
controversy because by avoiding it,
you're sending a message that
we're not going to talk about it.
We're not going to learn,
it just shuts people down.
If you were going to have
discussions in your class,
hopefully you have ground rules that you've
established for all class discussions.
So you want to reinforce that
that you're going to have a
respectful environment if people.
Make comments or students make comments
that maybe are hurtful or upsetting.
One technique you can do is try to reframe
that question back to the student,
because sometimes they're using
the wrong words in a sense.
So you could say, well,
what I hear you say is blah blah blah.
Is that what you meant and almost make
it more clear if it is what they meant,
you can try to turn it into a teaching
moment where it's not that you're in gig.
Don't engage with that.
Question or comment, but more with
the audience with your students.
You know where did this idea come from?
Where do you think this comes from?
What informs it?
What?
What's the opposite view to this
and try to take it out of the
personal and the passion it and
make it a little bit more objective.
If it's a statement where there's,
uh,
maybe some ignorance or lack
of understanding,
maybe it's an opportunity to say,
Hey we have a new research
assignment tonight.
You're going to Google two or
three reasons or two or three.
Facts about this topic and just be
ready to discuss it first thing tomorrow,
but you don't want to get your own.
You know you don't want to get
upset yourself and you don't
want to like yelling at people.
Having students take the burden of ants.
Someone you can turn on and
try to make it more objective.
Back to the to the students as a question.
Being so super helpful, I think.
Next question, what type of background
knowledge is needed for teachers?
What if I don't have any
knowledge of election?
That's that's we're here for.
Taylor rental
Yeah, even if you don't have any knowledge
of Elections and you probably do have
some knowledge of elections, right?
Because we hope you're out there in
your voting. But the activities that I
went over earlier in the presentation,
especially those creative writing activities,
debate activities, research activities,
news, literacy skills.
Those are all things that you could do.
Whether you're teaching social studies
or not so you don't have to be an
expert in the electoral process.
Again, I'll just do a small plug.
I think that our lesson plans are
really great places to start,
even for teachers.
Because the readings are broken
up into just two short pages there
chunks into sections and they really
give you a great breakdown of what
you need to know in order to be
able to teach it to your students.
So I would start there if you're
really interested in teaching
about elections in your class,
but you're kinda uncomfortable with doing so.
We're not so confident in
your content knowledge.
You can always learn as you go,
and remember that the game will teach
them a lot just by claim they'll
walk away with a ton of content
knowledge just by playing the game.
Great operating. Sorry, go ahead,
go ahead now. I was just gonna say and
if you're collaborating with someone
in the other in the History Department,
another Department you can save
those questions for that person.
Absolutely. Great, we're just about
out of time, but I just wanted to
open the floor back up to you.
Our presenters. Is there anything else
you wanted to add them right out?
I think one of the questions
were early on was how long
does it take to play the game,
and I think we talked about it,
but just to reinforce,
it's about 30 minutes.
It might take a little longer for some
students and they are targeted 6 through 12,
but you can easily adapt it to 5th grade.
And if you are you could have fifth
graders working in small groups,
even groups of four if need be to sort
of work their way through the games.
And about something again.
Go ahead. I was gonna say I'm seeing a couple
of questions about where should I start.
I want to bring this to my team
or to my grade when you log on
to our website icivics.org.
You will also notice the
scope and sequence document.
That's a really great place to
give you an idea of where to start.
It's broken up by unit.
If you really want to focus on
the elections that let's you know
all the resources that are there
and starts in order of where we
would suggest that you start.
Of course you don't have to start there,
but it is a good starting place
if you're looking for one.
Awesome, well thank you again.
That was super helpful and such
an important topic and thank you
so participants for joining us.
We appreciate feedback and have two
easy ways for you to provide it.
First, please take the survey that will
show up on your screen momentarily.
This feedback is that it was wearing
sneakers and as we've been future webinars,
Secondly, this is the registration page
for this session on share my lesson at
your rating and reviews help others
before I end the web and RI want to
draw your attention to a couple of things.
We are constantly adding resources to
get our distance learning community.
Would helpful tips and free resources
you can participate in an active
discussion with other educators and
parents to get advice on how to navigate
the new difference farming world.
You can also upload resources to
the community that might be helpful
for other educators.
Also, please join us on Twitter,
Instagram,
Facebook or wherever you use social
media and helping us send our love
to teachers and support staff.
Finally,
if you're interested in more
professional learning.
I have uploaded 13160 lessons
on to share my lesson.
I know that people out
there that will use it.
That's more than a few more.
It's almost a unified in its
own sense that here we are.
We're teachers were in this together.
Thank you. Thank you with that little
she did with it gave me a different
way of thinking about my lesson.
Like to make sure that you've done
there really baby born that you used it.
I figured out it worked well my classroom.
Why not share it with other teachers?
I want to never thought about
doing the grocery store like this.
It was fun being part of share my lesson.
It makes me feel like I'm
part of the community.
When I heard that they
were at a million users,
it really made me excited because
even though I'm one in a million,
I know that I'm making a difference.