Columbia Spotlight

As we move to virtual learning, we have focused on online textbooks like OpenStax. Now that we have Canvas, we can plug in resources from websites to create an online textbook of your own! Here are three great resources from fantastic websites including Stanford , NYDOE , and Certell . Oh, and all of these are FREE! The Stanford History Education Group is a great organization that focuses on civic education. One of its best projects is the  Reading Like a Historian project that has student-centered lessons in American and world history. According to its website, "This curriculum teaches students how to investigate historical questions by employing reading strategies such as sourcing, contextualizing, corroborating, and close reading. Instead of memorizing historical facts, students evaluate the trustworthiness of multiple perspectives on historical issues and learn to make historical claims backed by documentary evidence. To learn more about how to use "Reading Like a Histo...

  As a young child, I learned American history around two dates: 1492 and 1620. We did crafts that focused on Columbus and Pilgrims, but we definitely never learned about 1619 -- the year slaves were first brought to what is now the United States.  That's right, 1619, one year before the pilgrims arrived, and yet that part of our history is quickly skimmed over, probably because it makes many uncomfortable. Fortunately, many organizations like Teaching Tolerance  took advantage of last year's 400th anniversary of American slavery as an opportunity for us to get it right. Today, let's focus on the NYT's 1619 Project , a major initiative that they "aim to reframe the country’s history, understanding 1619 as our true founding, and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of the story we tell ourselves about who we are." My favorite piece in the 1619 Project? A new literary timeline of American history by accl...