APUSHSLIDES BLOG
Introducing SlidesBot
SlidesBot is a GPT-powered chatbot designed to serve as a reference guide for students struggling with AP US History material. When creating this chatbot, I implemented strategies to address some of the existing limitations in GenAI technologies.
What Does it Mean to be American?
This year I am making a commitment to emphasize the theme American National Identity in my APUSH classes and will attempt to do so with a recurring project titled “What does it mean to be American?” American National Identity is a difficult concept to explain because it has changed across time periods and does not have the same meaning to everyone in the same time period. My hope is that through this project students will start to make those connections earlier in the school year.
Primary Source Reviews
The more comfortable that students are in reading and interpreting primary sources, the better prepared they will be for the exam. For this reason, APUSHslides has started to create new review videos that are meant to help students practice analyzing primary sources, and also meant to provide an example on how a certain themes are prevalent throughout each time period. Each video will cover one document, summarize the content, and analyze it based on the criteria in the DBQ rubric.
Responding to Short Answer Questions
The Short Answer Question (SAQ) section of the AP exam is made up of a 40 minute period where students will answer three question sets for 20% of the possible points in the APUSH exam.
Putting Together a Course Review
As the month of April begins, it’s also time to start thinking about a course content review (course skills review is a different monster) that would be beneficial for preparing for the AP exam. There’s several approaches one can take, based on how much time is left before the exam, and APUSHslides can help in whichever approach you choose.
Using Secondary Sources in Class Instruction
Secondary sources in a history class are necessary in delivering the necessary information to students in an efficient way. They are meant to work in conjunction with the use of primary sources in instruction. A class taught completely with primary sources may feel scattered and without direction, while a class taught solely with secondary sources may lack depth and use of analysis. Secondary sources are the lines that connect the dots that are the primary sources. With that said, students’ comfort level with secondary sources can greatly impact their understanding of history and ultimately their performance on the AP exam.
APUSH Slides Updates
Well this year has certainly been unlike any other, and I hope you’ve been holding up. All of the slides up until the end of Period 8 have been embedded into their respective pages.
-
August 2020
- Aug 17, 2020 Getting The Most Out Of APUSHslides.com Aug 17, 2020
- Aug 18, 2020 Using Primary Source Documents Aug 18, 2020
- Aug 19, 2020 APUSH Course Pacing Aug 19, 2020
-
March 2021
- Mar 24, 2021 APUSH Slides Updates Mar 24, 2021
- Mar 25, 2021 Using Secondary Sources in Class Instruction Mar 25, 2021
- Mar 30, 2021 Putting Together a Course Review Mar 30, 2021
-
April 2021
- Apr 13, 2021 Responding to Short Answer Questions Apr 13, 2021
-
May 2021
- May 12, 2021 Primary Source Reviews May 12, 2021
-
September 2022
- Sep 13, 2022 Writing Context in an Introduction Sep 13, 2022
-
July 2023
- Jul 29, 2023 What Does it Mean to be American? Jul 29, 2023
-
August 2023
- Aug 5, 2023 Comprehensive Writing Guide Aug 5, 2023
- Aug 27, 2023 Generative AI Policy in APUSH Aug 27, 2023
-
September 2023
- Sep 30, 2023 Introducing SlidesBot Sep 30, 2023