Two Questions...

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

What's your sentence?

Was I better today than yesterday?

- Daniel Pink

“How can I help make a group into a team?”

A leader might consider the following qualities in his or her team members:

• Loyalty: “Respecting the people you work with and the team goals.”

• Good character: “Having a desirable set of beliefs and values.”

• Ambition: “Desire to work with the team.”

• Dependability: “Able to be trusted with responsibility.”

• Hardworking: “Willing and able to complete a job at a quality level.”

• Good attitude: “Focuses on the team’s success.”

• Goal-oriented: “Puts forward resources to accomplish the team’s purpose.”

• Open-minded: “Willing to take in new ideas and work with people.”

• Communication: “Able to share information effectively and appropriately.”

A few technical skills, knowledge or experience you may have considered are:

• Technical skills or talents specific to the task.

• Knowledge about rules or regulations.

• Experience having working on something similar.

“Responsibilities of a Leader on a Team”
• Listener: “Is willing to listen and not always talk. Active listening must be practiced.”
• Motivator: “Is able to be the catalyst and get the team going. Team leaders are
responsible for moving the team to accomplish its task as well as recognizing and
celebrating accomplishments.”
• Chemist: “Builds chemistry, harmony and trust in the team.”
• Educator: “Provides information and strives to build themselves and team members.”
• Responsibility Taker: “Is willing to shoulder responsibility for the team. Works closely with the team to create agendas, plan outcomes and ensure next steps are assigned.”
• Facilitator: “Opens up communication lines between team members, assists with
meetings, encourages quiet members to speak up and, when necessary, shuts down
those members who might try to dominate.”
• Vision Creator: “Helps develop and guide the team toward their common purpose.”
• Chief: “Finds the best people and assembles the best team possible. Organizes the team and secures meeting space, resources and clearing boundaries.

Global Warming???

Libya

After looking at colonialism and Africa, I wanted to bring our studies full circle. We started by taking a look at what is happening in Africa right now? In the month since we did that assignment, Africa has drastically changed.

We will examine Libya today.

Here are the questions that I want you to be ready to discuss today.

What is happening in Libya? Why?

What implications does this have for the United States?

Take a look at this link to get you started.

Columbus Before and After

I always find it interesting to do a word map of how students view Christopher Columbus before and after they read a little Howard Zinn. The first two are the before, the second two are the after. We had great conversations about Columbus and about the process of documenting history in both classes.

Inventors

Inventions

The Scientific Revolution

Vocabulary -

1. Scientific Revolution
2. heretic
3. Inquisition
4. Recant

Isaac Newton