Created by María Jesús Campos, Head of History and Geography Department at IES Parque de Lisboa (Alcorcon, Madrid, Spain) for "II Jornadas de Orientación de Auxiliares de la Comunidad de Madrid"

1. TEACHING TIPS FOR HISTORY CLASSES
María Jesús Campos Fernández.
Head of Geography and History Department at IES Parque de Lisboa
(Alcorcón, Madrid)

2. The Journey of a Teacher Assistant
Novice Avanced Competent Master
Assistant Beginner Assistant Assistant

3. NOVICE ASSISTANT
 Is simply trying to survive
 Has many ups and downs
 Is textbook bound
 Is very busy and “alone” at times
 Learns an enormous amount
 Finds that planning and researching is important
and time consuming
 Faces discipline challenges

4. ADVANCED BEGINNER
 Has gained experience which
makes decisions easier
 Sees similarities and connections among
subjects and content
 Is more strategic at getting things done
 Has greater understanding of how a lesson
or unit fits into the total picture
 Takes responsabilities
 Realizes the classroom is his or her milieu

5. COMPETENT ASSISTANT
 Feels much stronger
 Finds that routines become automatic
 Has a sense of the situation and knows
what’s going on
 Makes decisions based on lots of
experience
 Uses higher-level thinking skills
 Has excellent assessment skills
 Manages class with ease and fluidity
 Engages in teaching that fits the aims

6. Knowledge of
the content of
the subject Knowledge
Materials
of the
and how to
language
use them
You need to
become
competent
in:
Knowledge
of the child
Planning Classroom growth and
skills management developmen
and skills t

7. THE WORK BEGINS
BEFORE ENTERING
THE CLASS
OBSERVING • Mission Statements
• Working with different
Teachers and Students
DISCIPLINE AND TEACHING
TACTICAL ISSUES HISTORY
• Creating a Learning • Challenges
Environment • Tasks
• How to Communicate with
Students • Planning a Lesson
• Delivering a Lesson

8. OBSERVING
 Observe and feel the class
 Different teachers
 Different groups
 “Steal” the techniques or
approaches that best fits your
interests

9. BEFORE ENTERING THE CLASS: MISSION
STATEMENTS
 Main objectives:
 To impart knowledge
 To increase language skills
 To impart skills that facilitate learning
 Have a far-reaching insight of
teaching:
 To empower students
 To provide life skills
 To open the eyes of young students to
the world of learning
 To help the kids’ social and emotional
growth
 To provide connections among
subjects and between subjects and
real life

10. BEFORE ENTERING THE CLASS: WORKING WITH
DIFFERENT TEACHERS
 An opportunity to learn from
experienced teachers,
different approaches,
methods and attitudes
towards teaching.
 You may:
 Collaborate or co-teach with
the subject teacher
 Carry out your own lesson or
activity
 Develop your own procedure,
approach or way of teaching

11. BEFORE ENTERING THE CLASS: DEALING WITH
STUDENTS
 Your responsability is to
lead all the students to
achivements in academics
and life skills they will need
in the future.
 You will work with students
that are at different
cognitive, emotional,
physical and social stages.

12. When working with students always:
Make them know that you are interested on them and their
success
Never talk down to them
Support them, accept them but let them know that you are in
charge
Reward them for their achievements
Do not give up when facing a difficult student
Make them know there will be no rest in your class and that
they will have to work and think whether they like it or not
Create a safe learning environment: make students know
that answering and taking risks is safe and they won’t be
scolded or humiliated by you or by other students if they
give the wrong answer

13.  Establish some basic
rules.
 Never make a demand
that your are not
prepared to follow
through on.
 Students need to know
that if they break an
established rule or
procedure, they can
predict the consequence
with 100% accuracy.
 Agree some corrective
measures with the
subject teacher

14. Give an extra-assignment
In the Take time away from their
class break
Change their seat
Correcti - Criticizein private
ve - Don’t show anger
Measure - Condemn the sin and not the sinner
s - Let the “offender” suggest a
remedy
- Insist on a real commitment to
Talk after change
class - Don’t “soften” the impact.
-“Sandwich” your reprimand or
corretion between two slides of
praise and reinforcement
- Use a respectful voice and remain
calm
- Don’t panic or overrreact
- Never get into a power struggle.

15. THE WORK BEGINS
BEFORE ENTERING
THE CLASS
OBSERVING • Mission Statements
• Working with different
Teachers and Students
DISCIPLINE AND TEACHING
TACTICAL ISSUES HISTORY
• Creating a Learning • Challenges
Environment • Tasks
• How to Communicate with
Students • Planning a Lesson
• Delivering a Lesson

16. DISCIPLINE AND TACTICAL ISSUES



17.  Do not be afraid of
disciplining your class:
 Anticipate problems and
address them ASAP
 Design the seating
arrangement
 Train your students to get
ready to work
 Keep in mind the student’s
attention span: changing
activities may be required
 Develop your non-verbal
skills: business face + laser
stare + voice control

18. TEACHING HISTORY

19. CHALLENGE
 The lack of knowledge in a
field that does not coincide
with your main field of
studies.
 To know how to explain
historical
evidence, analyse
sources, select relevant
information and being
prepared to answer
questions about history.

20. Tasks you will be asked to develop:
• Correct the teacher’s grammar or pronunciation
mistakes
• Create exercises or activities for the lesson
• Carry out oral activities to develop the student’s
listening or oral skills
• Correct the material that teachers have translated
or translate new material
• Support slow-learners and help them reach the
level of the class
• Work with high-skilled students to deepen or
enlarge the content
• Work in the Global Classrooms program
• Deliver a lesson

21. COLLABORATING WITH THE HISTORY TEACHER
 You should always work within
the aims, policies and
practices of the school you are
a guest in, the bilingual
section, the department of
history, and the History
teacher.
 As part of the team you should
contribute with time, energy,
imagination and initiative.
 You have to be open-minded,
try things and experiment.
 When you do not feel
confident or when you have
questions, please,
always…ASK, ASK, ASK!

22. 

23. 

24. HOW TO BRING TOGETHER THEORY AND
PRACTICE: HOW TO PRODUCE LEARNING
 Plan, plan, plan
 Teach with academic rigour
 Engage pupils in active
learning
 Do not abet student’s
intellectual passivity
 Evaluate the student’s
learning and your teaching

25. PLANNING A LESSON OR ACTIVITY
Develop your subject knowledge
Establish the objectives you want your students to achieve
Reflect about which questions are posed by the topic
Decide methodology and approach to engage students
Select/create materials, exercises and activities
Decide how you are going to evaluate your teaching and asses the students

26. 1. DEVELOP YOUR SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE
 Reflect about the importance and
purposes of school history:
 To help understand the present in the
context of the past.
 To give students a sense of identity
 To give students an understanding of
their own cultural roots and shared
inheritance
 To contribute to the student’s knowledge
of other countries and cultures in the
modern world
 To train their mind by means of
disciplined study
 To prepare students for adult life
 To help students develop critical
judgement
 Information to reflect in “The purposes
of school history”

27.  Try to address gaps in your content
knowledge. “If you don’t know it, you can’t
teach it”.
 Identify the subject-language or vocabulary
and master it.
 Identify the ordinary language that may not
be known by students thus difficulting the
delivering of the lesson.
 Identify “weasel words”, words that do not
seem difficult but may seem confusing in
some contexts. (Is “church” an institution or
a building?)
 Identify historical “key concepts” that make
possible to turn information into historical
knowledge:
 Time
 Cause and consequence
 Change and continuity
 Diversity
 Significance…

28. 2. ESTABLISH THE OBJECTIVES YOU WANT YOUR
STUDENTS TO ACHIEVE
 Develop the student’s  Develop the ability to record
historical knowledge and and recall information and
understanding of the past. to deploy it appropriately.
 Develop English oral,  Sheds light on student’s
writting and listening skills: economic, social and
 History requires the use of cultural awareness.
past tenses, not often used  Contribute to the student’s
by students.
thinking skills.
 Rewrite or identify the words
or phrases that may be  Develop other skills such
problematic. Be ready to as: numeracy skills,
explain the words when problem solving, ICT, team
delivering the lesson. working, learning to learn
 Students will have to
produce an academic style
in their communication and
writing (passive form, cause
and effect, comparisons, etc)

29. 3. REFLECT ABOUT WHICH QUESTIONS OR
PROBLEMS ARE POSED BY THE TOPIC?
 How can you
problematise the topic
in a way which
presents “thinking
problems” for
students?
 Which questions are
you going to pose for
the students to work
on and attempt to
resolve so that they
develop historical
understanding?

30. 4. DECIDE METHODOLOGY AND APPROACH TO
ENGAGE STUDENTS
 “Active learning”: present
the content in a way which
make the students want to
find out about the past and
create interesting, helpful
activities to keep students
“hands on” and focused.
 Relate the past to the
present as much as you
can so that students can
see the point of learning
about the past.
 Do not abet students’
intellectual passivity. Do not
do “all the work”.

31.  Remember to use two
levels of questioning:
 First-order questions that
simply ask the students to
locate or write down
information or reiterate
what you have just
explained. Useful to learn
the concepts.
 Second-order questions
which help students
understand history and
make conections. Related
to the concepts of
chronology, time, change,
cause, evidence, interpret
ation and motive.
Questions which require
thought.

32.  Combine different types of
questions:
 Recall: give details of
events, people mentioned…
 Comprehension: what does it
mean? What effect did it
have…?
 Interpretation: who should be
blame for…?
 Invention: if you had been
there…? What if…?
 Evaluation questions: what is
your opinion about the course
of the action taken?
 Try to make students discuss
about the topic and question
themselves.

33. 5. SELECT/CREATE MATERIALS, EXERCISES,
ACTIVITIES
 Taking into account the
previous reflections create
the exercises or activities
that will help students
learn the content, develop
the skills and achieve
historical understanding.
 Create low-order
exercises and high-order
exercises:
 Low-order exercises: simple
questions; definitions;
explanation of concepts;
dates…
 High-order exercises:
comprehension,
interpretation, creative
thinking, etc.

34. WORKING WITH WORDS OR CONCEPTS CHRONOLOGY
 Key Vocabulary Bingo  Sequencing the past
 Jeopardy  Key Dates Bingo
 Crossword-type clues  Timelines
 Outlaw  Family Trees
 Twenty questions
 Odd one out

35. COMPREHENSION: WRITING SKILLS COMPREHENSION: ORAL SKILLS
 Letters  Hot-Seating
 Postcards  Chat show challenge
 Newspaper article or front  Radio News Broadcasting
page  This Day in History
 Obituaries and Epitaphs
 Diary Entries

36. DELIVER THE LESSON
What helps learners learn:
Teacher's Explanation
Working with Words
(Meanings, word
lists, translations…)
Answering
questions/Exercises
Images/Visual Aids
Group Work

37.  Combine teacher talk with
questioning:
 Take into account the
students’ attention span.
 Give “wait time”. Ask a
question and give time for the
students to think the answer.
 Do not do “all the work”.
Make the student know that
you are going to wait for
his/her answer, give clues
and help but make the
student create an answer.
 Do not always ask students
with their hands up so that
the students’ brain need to be
tuned in.

38.  Questioning techniques:
 Do not call on a student and
ask a question…..Ask a
question, wait and call on a
student.
 Do not explain a technique
that has been used before in
the class. Make a student
explain what they will have to
do.
 Ask a student: “Tell me in
your own words what you
heard me say”.
 Call on another student to
repeat something a student
has just said or asked.

39.  Use pupil talk:
 Make them create or
identify definitions of
subject specific words.
 Make students establish
similarities and
differences.
 Ask students to defend
or justify a point of view.
 Engage students on a
group discussion

40.  Use group work but
anticipate the problems:
 Give simple and clear
instructions.
 Establish clearly the
outcomes students have to
develop.
 Keep the students on task.
 Check that every student
is contributing.
 Create alternatives for
students that are reluctant
to give feedback in a
plenary.

41. ASSESS THE STUDENTS
 When working with students, the subject
teacher may ask you to give your
impressions about the lesson or
activity, specially if you are working on your
own with a small group.
 It is not that you are evaluating the students
but checking if learning is taking place.
 When planning think how you are going to
asses the students in order to think what
elements need to be gone over again or
reinforced.
 Give a feedback to the subject teacher:
 Overall impression of the lesson
 Information about each student’s
learning
 Your feeling about your own work

42.  Create your own rubric or
scoring guide to grade
the student’s
motivation, involvement
and learning:
 Use among 3-5 columns
and rows. Each column
would represent a
possible grade (points or
Exceeds, Meets, Doesn’t
Meet) and each row
represents an aspect of
the assignment.
 Adapt the rubric for each
lesson/activity.
 You can teach your
students how to use the
rubric to evaluate their
work and learning.

43. EVALUATE YOUR TEACHING
 What have I learnt from this?
 What would I do differently next
time?
 What’s the relationship between
the student’s knowledge, skills and
understanding and the activities
taking place?
 In what parts of the lesson did
pupils gain knowledge?
 In what parts of the lesson did
pupils gain skills?
 In what parts of the lesson did
pupils gain understanding of
aspects of the past?

44. SOURCES
 Bianco, Arnie. “Teaching Tips From Your One-Minute
Mentor”. 2006, Jossey-Bass.
 Cummings, C. “Winning Strategies for Classroom
Management”. 2000, Ass for Supervision and
Curriculum Development
 Haydn, Terry et alii. “Learning to Teach History in the
Secondary School”. 2008, Routledge
 Husbands, C. “Why Teach History?” 1996, Open
University Press.
 Murphy, Julia. “100 Ideas for Teaching History”.
2005, Continuum.
 Wong, H. “The First Days of School”. 1991, Harry
Wong

45. María Jesús Campos Fernández
Head of History and Geography Department at IES Parque de Lisboa
(Alcorcón, Madrid)