Build Historical Knowledge with SYMBOL SLAM!

In this episode, Caitlin breaks down how she uses "Symbol Slam" to engage students while building historical knowledge for her students. Its more than notes, its more than a call-and-response- its more than a review of key terms - its an active learning strategy that can be applied to any subject matter, any history class, at any age to get students to comprehend essential terms and then to be able to think critically about them!

Dan pretty much ends up interviewing Caitlin for this special episode due to the number of requests we got to review how this strategy works. Think of the 10 million things you need to get students to learn in the 10 months you teach them and now narrow down just the 50-100 most essential terms, people, events, or concepts that are most important for mastering the standards and understanding your subject matter. Caitlin explains her process for determining which terms make the cut and get a symbol (she narrows it down to just 70 for the year), what the symbol will look like (keep it simple, stupid!), and what students must know for each. From there, what is the super simple, must know thing about the term, and that will be the call and response. Then of course, she covers what might be most important- which is how to get your room to sound like a rock concert of excitement and engagement when you are teaching and reviewing these key terms. That is symbol slam!

Trust me, after listening to this, you'll see why this is such a powerful way to build historical knowledge. And definitely listen to the end for the little sneak peak into Caitlin's class reviewing some symbols from the first month of school.