A plethora of lessons to help teach content and historical thinking skills!
Community Review for Stanford History Education Group
My Take
The lessons provided are great in content and pedagogy. Not all, but some lessons even offer student handouts in Spanish.
However, the lessons lack technology and full 21st-century learning engagement. It would be beneficial if these resources were made available for the Google suite at minimum. An even better concept would be providing students more opportunities to create rather than simply filling out a worksheet. For example, students could respond to the guided analysis questions for the Boston Massacre assignment using video recording or try to recreate the Boston Massacre scene through a perspective that isn't biased.
How I Use It
I enjoy this database of lessons! SHEG (now DIG) provides lessons on world and American histories called "Thinking Like a Historian." I have used the Boston Massacre lesson in my American history classes. I use these lessons instead of notetaking. Students work on sourcing documents from various points of view. They learn about the Boston Massacre but through primary sources rather than typical notetaking. This lesson supports my students' critical historical thinking skills. Rather than simply remembering facts, students are challenged to look at perspectives and consider different points of view. The lesson's goal worked; the worksheets and PowerPoint provided did not.
The student handouts provided are not innovative in design or function. I typically remake the student worksheets and PowerPoints to make them more appealing and accessible to students.