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Dr. Dianna Lindsay's picture
Dr. Dianna Lindsay
After 43 years in my chosen profession, I remain excited, alive, and learning! From an active Twitter Account to blogging, from teaching Constitutional Law to Pre-AP English, from a national winner...
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Heralding A New Week: Four Books a Month

  • I teach! My content is AP Human Geography and Constitutional Law. My students are the center of the work and are 15-16 years old in AP Human Geography; they are also 17-18 years old in Constitutional Law. The process we use in both classes is a flipped Socratic seminar pedagogy.
  • We have four groups of five students in each learning team. In the next three months, each team will select a different book from an esoteric list of 25 recommended content rich texts. Each class then reads 3 texts (one book per month); I read twelve as the moderator. The inside circle conducts a 90 minute discussion of the text; the inside groups also provide two, forty minute background knowledge sessions to the outside circle to prepare them to listen, learn, and elicit feedback for continuous growth and improvement (life-long skills in my judgment as a principal). The inside group, teachers/leaders are evaluated by the learners or outside circle group. The process of teaching how to give feedback to peers is high level and metacognitive instruction; this is a slower instructional process and the skill is practiced the entire year. Currently, I am in my second year with the groups and they are indeed quite good at the skill of providing the "teachers" with feedback about what they need to know in order to deeply understand the content better! We use technology in the formal instructional sessions and personalized non-technology based circle conversations in the seminars.
  • This month we will discuss four exciting texts-Cod, Salt, The History of the World in Six Glasses, and How to Run The World. In my judgment, learning in this method is thrilling, refreshing, engaging, and content and skill rich! Change is great!