About the Teacher
My dog Tina
My name is Cris Higginbotham (my students call me Ms. Higgie) and I have been an educator for 17 years. I am currently an Instructional Technology Coach for Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools.
I began my career as an educator teaching FAST classes for the US Army and graduated to K-12 education in 1998. My first job in the K-12 setting was teaching 7th grade Africa and Asia social studies, 6th grade health and PE, and 6th grade mathematics. Obviously this was before NCLB and the Era of the Highly Qualified teacher. When I started teaching I had a B.A. in History with a concentration in U.S. history. I ask myself all of the time how I was able to pull it off teaching Africa and Asia? Perhaps we should poll some of my past students, they may say I didn't! In 2003, I earned my masters in curriculum, instruction and technology. Soon after, I moved from middle school to high school where I found my true calling. I absolutely love teaching high school. In 2010, I was honored to serve as the Social Studies Curriculum Specialist in the North Carolina district where I taught. I enjoyed my two years in that position, but because of the military I found myself moving to Savannah. Now I am in Savannah and getting the opportunity to do what I love in a new school with a collection of educators who believe the same things that I believe. Students are important; they deserve respect and deserve to be listened to. My students deserve the best education that I can offer them. They will not always be happy with me, but I promise they will learn the value of thinking for themselves and discovering history through the words of those who actually lived it.
What kind of teacher am I? I am constantly amazed by the amount of resources on the web; sometimes the sheer volume is overwhelming. I wonder how we made it without technology! My goal in the classroom is not only to use technology, but to empower my students to use technology to create their own content and prove mastery of material. For the 2012-2013 school year I am going to try something new. I have always considered myself a tech savvy teacher, but I am going to step it up a notch. In addition to using an online learning platform to extend the learning beyond the classroom, I plan to Flip My Classroom! Flipping is done mostly in math and science courses, but Social Science teachers know what they can do, we can do better! What is Flipping? Flipping allows the students to watch videos on content at home (or before/after school) as part of their homework and do the REAL work at school with the teacher. The flipped classroom is not simply videos; this is a way to differentiate instruction for all learners. We will start slowly with only a couple of lessons a week. Students who do not have Internet at home, will be given the opportunity to view this content before or after school.
Who am I personally? In my spare time I am the webmaster and board member of a German Shepherd Rescue. I love to take pictures and spend time with my husband and dogs. I love to read and tinker will all things web-based!
This site is specifically for teachers and I hope that you find the resources on this website helpful. Please contact me if you find a great resource for me to add or have a question. My email is cris.higginbotham[insert@]sccpss.com. (This is to keep the Internet spammers at bay).
Please note that this site is still under construction.
Last Updated 11/11/2012
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I began my career as an educator teaching FAST classes for the US Army and graduated to K-12 education in 1998. My first job in the K-12 setting was teaching 7th grade Africa and Asia social studies, 6th grade health and PE, and 6th grade mathematics. Obviously this was before NCLB and the Era of the Highly Qualified teacher. When I started teaching I had a B.A. in History with a concentration in U.S. history. I ask myself all of the time how I was able to pull it off teaching Africa and Asia? Perhaps we should poll some of my past students, they may say I didn't! In 2003, I earned my masters in curriculum, instruction and technology. Soon after, I moved from middle school to high school where I found my true calling. I absolutely love teaching high school. In 2010, I was honored to serve as the Social Studies Curriculum Specialist in the North Carolina district where I taught. I enjoyed my two years in that position, but because of the military I found myself moving to Savannah. Now I am in Savannah and getting the opportunity to do what I love in a new school with a collection of educators who believe the same things that I believe. Students are important; they deserve respect and deserve to be listened to. My students deserve the best education that I can offer them. They will not always be happy with me, but I promise they will learn the value of thinking for themselves and discovering history through the words of those who actually lived it.
What kind of teacher am I? I am constantly amazed by the amount of resources on the web; sometimes the sheer volume is overwhelming. I wonder how we made it without technology! My goal in the classroom is not only to use technology, but to empower my students to use technology to create their own content and prove mastery of material. For the 2012-2013 school year I am going to try something new. I have always considered myself a tech savvy teacher, but I am going to step it up a notch. In addition to using an online learning platform to extend the learning beyond the classroom, I plan to Flip My Classroom! Flipping is done mostly in math and science courses, but Social Science teachers know what they can do, we can do better! What is Flipping? Flipping allows the students to watch videos on content at home (or before/after school) as part of their homework and do the REAL work at school with the teacher. The flipped classroom is not simply videos; this is a way to differentiate instruction for all learners. We will start slowly with only a couple of lessons a week. Students who do not have Internet at home, will be given the opportunity to view this content before or after school.
Who am I personally? In my spare time I am the webmaster and board member of a German Shepherd Rescue. I love to take pictures and spend time with my husband and dogs. I love to read and tinker will all things web-based!
This site is specifically for teachers and I hope that you find the resources on this website helpful. Please contact me if you find a great resource for me to add or have a question. My email is cris.higginbotham[insert@]sccpss.com. (This is to keep the Internet spammers at bay).
Please note that this site is still under construction.
Last Updated 11/11/2012
Read Posters