Tuesday and Wednesday (11/18 – 11/19) a core group of our Social Studies teachers (Middle and High School) came together for some of the best training they had ever had. George and Carolyn Breaz visited our district to present a two-day training on gathering and using digital primary sources gathered from trusted sites on the web. Our participants ranged from new-to-teaching to really-experienced-veterans (over 30 years).
I’ve never come up with a really good title (that would translate into an acronym that I could remember, so we just call it National Archives training, or Primary Resources training. The Breaz’s trained our participants on the processes, resources, and various classroom uses for the materials gathered, culminating with an activity where the participants made lesson plans using the resources. These plans and resources will be shared between the participants and will provide further enhancement for our students. A lot of eye-opening and mind-expanding classroom strategies to involve students with primary resources were also presented. The Breaz’s have a wealth of experience in education, and were a true pleasure to have visit our district.
This training is incredible. All of the participants walked out with their head filled with information and online resources to use that contained the outline of what we did. They were very excited. If anyone outside of Citrus County are reading this blog and would like to contact the Breaz’s, just email me.
The essential question, of course, for our participants is: How effective was this training when translated into classroom use?
4 comments:
The National Archives and Library of Congress websites are a wealth of information and primary sources. Thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Breaz, I learned how to find what I am looking for and how to save and use these pictures, maps documents, etc. in programs like PoerPoint, Publisher, etc. The strategies they shared are effective and easily adaptable for classroom use in many content areas.
I tried my lesson on Dwight D Eisenhower today in class. I ran into a glitch early on because one of my pictures wouldn't show up. It turns out, I had saved the temp address in the LOC website. I was able to fix it, but it delayed the lesson for about 5 minutes.
At first the students were giving silly answers and not giving reflective ot thoughtful answers (it could be because it was the day after a long break.) As I got into the later stages of the lesson, the discussion got better and better. The students were able to apply Eisenhower's dilemma of having to act confident for the troops, though he had written a letter incase the D-Day invasion failed already to their own lives. Many had stories from sports, school, church, etc. where they needed to act more confident than they really were.
I plan to use this lesson again, but maybe not right after a week-long break!
Eddie
I enjoyed attending the National Archives workshop. The presenters were enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Every session included hands-on activities that are very applicable in any classroom. As of today, I find myself browsing through the websites for supplemental activities and information.
I tried my lesson on Washington and the French and Indian war last week. When the class got to the creation of power points they were amazed at the wealth of historical documents and pictures. During the training it was hard for the teachers stop looking at all the cool documents and pictures. It was the same for my students. I think the lesson went well and the slide shows were really impressive.
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