Project Collaborators:

• Elizabeth Hinde, The Center for Civic Education and Leadership, College of Teacher Education and Leadership, Arizona State University
• Linda Sargent Wood, Department of History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Arizona State University

Project Overview:

The funding from this grant will be used to organize and implement a one-day workshop for Arizona social studies and history methods instructors. The workshop’s focus is to train these instructors in the use of the LOC website and American Memory resources. The instructors who attend the workshop will be asked to include the resources in their syllabi and then teach their students, who will be or are practicing K-12 teachers. The intent is that the methods instructors will become proficient in using the LOC and American Memory resources so that they may train their students to use them in their own K-12 classrooms. It is also our intent that the methods instructors will return to their university sites and inform colleagues of the resources. The impact of this workshop will likely be very significant.  Depending on the instructors’ course load, methods instructors teach anywhere from 25 to 120 preservice and practicing teachers a semester. Training these instructors in the use of the LOC resources has the potential to reach a large number of teachers in the state. In addition, we will create a social studies/history methods listserv for instructors in the state so that we can remain in contact and continue to share ideas.

“We’re reaching our pre-service teachers to at least introduce them to TPS in some format before they come out. We’re reaching our districts—especially the larger ones—so that curriculum leaders can go back and do district-level or school-level training and even reach out to smaller, rural districts. Then, we’ll do something for teachers who are particularly interested in TPS and for whatever reason didn’t fit into those other groups,” says Carol Warren, social studies program specialist for the Arizona Department of Education.

Which group will take on the third piece of the program has yet to be determined, but the goal is to offer two or three free teacher-level programs across the state.

“I think we have a strong level of communication and cooperation among the social studies organizations,” says Warren. “The organizations support the Department of Education in what we do, and we try to support them in providing standards-based training.”

Grant Awarded: Awareness Grant of $5000

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