I'm writing to share my plans from a three-day workshop we've just completed at the Kennedy Space Center, funded by TPS, sponsored by the National Center for History Education, and hosted by the Astronauts Memorial Foundation.
Specifically, I decided to be more transparent with teachers about (1) teacher learning goals for each session [from TPS]; (2) key LOC resources I was using [which I tried to pull from a range of places, including Teacher Blog, Primary Source Sets, Collections, Topics in Chronicling America]; (3) focus questions for the resources that might guide classroom use of the resources we were working with; (4) links to strategies I emphasized during the workshop [e.g., Visible Thinking Routines]; and (5) links to the slideshows and item lists I created for the workshop [so teachers can quickly find the resources or even use some of the prompts for their classrooms or PD facilitation they might do]. Here's the document I shared with teachers (and that I want you to have too!)
Most of the session designs were inspired by LOC / TPS materials from the Professional Development Builder.
I'd love to hear your thoughts...what else might we put-all-in-one-place for teachers so that they can refer to it once our workshops are done?
(Thanks to Tom Bober for feedback on an early draft.)
Trey, I think your transparency is wonderful. We all need models as well as resources. Your concept of putting all the workshop resources in one place for easy retrieval is great! I was happy to see that you gave links to Visible Thinking Routines and other strategies that you used and not just the primary source sets. In addition to Blogs, Primary Source sets, Collections and Topics in Chronicling America, I may want to add Exhibits and Primary Source Starters. I often use these in our workshops. The Primary Source Starters form a category within the Teacher Blogs but are worth pulling out for special attention. There are 32 blogs in that category and at least one related to aviation: https://blogs.loc.gov/teachers/2011/11/primary-source-starter-the-wright-brothers%E2%80%99-crumpled-glider-2/ . I like to use the Exhibits because this is the place that you can always count on finding high resolution images for classroom projection for some of those sources with copyright restrictions. The LOC Exhibit most directly related to your theme of aviation is The Dream of Flight. And kudos for listing the focus questions that you used in the workshop. That is a must for modeling inquiry in my book. Thanks for sharing this workshop plan. It is always helpful to see the workshop pacing as well as the content from another TPS program.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful feedback, Ann Canning ! I wasn't aware of the "Primary Source Starters" tag. This is super helpful for teachers who are just getting used to introducing primary sources into their classrooms. You're also so right that I could be pointing toward exhibits as another place to find primary sources...and indeed a place where these sources have been nicely curated and connected, which lessens some of legwork teachers might have to undertake to contextualize primary sources and create sets!