Reflecting on Your Practice
- What are some specific strategies you have used to prepare students for group work?
- What are some topics in your course that lend themselves to using primary and secondary sources? To research and group discussion? To group presentations?
- What are some overarching themes that you stress or that repeatedly surface as you study different world regions?
- Why is it important to teach about migration?
Taking It Back to Your Classroom
- Ask students to interview family members about how and why they or their ancestors came to the United States. Work with students to develop interview questions that help determine the "push/pull" factors involved in their decision to relocate. Students may want to explore Ellis Island resources. Students could also interview people they know who have immigrated themselves.
- Have students participate in a model United Nations (UN) program, taking the role of a diplomatic representative to the UN from one of the member nations. Model UN programs can be conducted with as few as 15 students from a single classroom or with thousands of students from classrooms all over the world.
- After students have had an opportunity to study a teacher-created or commercially prepared set of primary and secondary resources about different regions, ask them to create such a packet of their own, with maps, photographs, art, poetry, cultural artifacts, and other documents.
- Identify a controversial issue in your course matter and invite students to develop a resource packet that provides background information on the issue and that explores the issue from different points of view. After using the materials, ask students to give two presentations: one in which they deliver an objective overview of the issue, and one in which they take a position and defend it.
For related print materials and Web sites, see Resources.