Thick Slides (although not in our book) are a flexible and popular EduProtocol that should be in every Social Studies teacher’s toolbox. Thick Slides help students extract key information from a text, lesson, or video and complete a deconstructed paragraph that asks for specific fields like who, where, what, when, and why? They are a fun and engaging formative or summative assessment that gives students some structure for writing.

The last time I wrote about Thick Slides, I used them for a Primary Source Scavenger Hunt. Adam recently reflected on how Thick Slides could be deepened or thickened by having the categories range up the Depth of Knowledge (DOK) framework from recall to application to strategic thinking.

I have also used Thick Slides as a critical friend protocol to create an authentic audience to review student projects. When my students created Ignite Talks on the French Revolution, Thick Slides gave them a formalized way to report what they learned from watching each others’ videos.

Some of our awesome EduProtocol friends: Angela Zorn, Dominic Helmstetter, and Steph Conklin shared some examples in the gallery below. They have used this protocol with middle to high school grades covering history and government topics.

We hope you will join us on March 21, 2024, at 6 PT/9ET on The Social Studies Show when we talk about all things Thick Slides. Bring your favorite templates, and some examples to show off your content skills, and be ready to share your ideas with some friendly teachers. We look forward to seeing you on EduProtocols Plus.