Portland State University
Contact: Kenneth Carano
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://vansd.org/
Grant awarded 5/11/2021
This project will provide both a pre and post professional development experience for an already funded civil rights trip to Atlanta Georgia that the organization has planned. The overall project is to prepare Oregon teachers for a significant change in their social science standard which will require ethnic studies be incorporated into the curriculum. The idea is that giving a core group of teachers who will take the trip a pre-travel foundation in TPS methods and materials will better prepare them for the place-based primary sources they will encounter in person. When they return, they will complete their inquiry by writing a series of e-books that will use their experiences as foundations for curriculum that address the new standards. The project will also use their OR teacher network to edit and field test the e-book materials with approximately 100 additional teachers.
Teach Rural Oregon – Eastern Oregon University
Contact: Dave Dallas
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://www.eou.edu/teach-rural-oregon/
Grant awarded 11/17/2023
The project titled “Teaching with Primary Sources for Rural Oregon Teachers” is led by Teach Rural Oregon (TRO) at Eastern Oregon University. The project focuses on addressing the challenge of obtaining historically accurate, culturally embedded, and place-based curriculum materials, mandated by recent Oregon legislative measures.
The project aims to provide professional development for rural teachers, offering a full-day seminar on utilizing primary sources from the Library of Congress and local partners to meet new social studies standards.
The target audience includes 30 Social Studies educators spanning grades 3-12.
The project will pair primary source materials from the Library of Congress with resources and expertise from local partners including the Oregon Historical Society, Japanese American Museum of Oregon, Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, and the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute.
All materials created will be shared with project partners including the recording of the workshop sessions which will be turned into learning resources and posted on the TRO website.
Seattle Pacific University
Contact: Kris Gritter
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://spu.edu/
Grant awarded 11/17/2023
Seattle Pacific University project “Hidden Histories,” plans to enhance literacy skills in pre-service and in-service teachers using Library of Congress primary sources. Focused on women’s rights, the initiative involves collaboration between the Literacy and History departments and Everett School District.
Their team will develop curriculum materials aligned with Washington State Common Core standards, emphasizing primary sources and literacy. Professional development will target social studies/history teachers, incorporating historical reading and writing strategies.
The plan includes curriculum creation, themed professional development sessions, and a culminating conference in 2024. All materials will be shared with project partners and conference sessions will be recorded and used to create online learned materials to ensure access and sustainability of project outcomes.
The Cottonwood School of Civics and Science
Contact: Sarah Anderson – Project Director
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.thecottonwoodschool.org/
Grant awarded May 1, 2019
The Cottonwood School is a public, tuition-free, charter school located in Portland, OR. Their mission is to provide a creative learning environment where students develop a deep sense of place and become engaged citizens within the community. Cottonwood used this regional grant to disseminate their 6th grade curriculum on the Black History of Portland, Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs. They adapted the curriculum for both face-to-face and online delivery and provided professional development in both formats. One of the main project goals was to provide area educators with the skills and training to teach with primary sources, using an inquiry- and place-based historical unit and culturally responsive teaching practices. The project reached approximately 250 educators through seven face-to-face workshops, with the online curriculum reaching even more. In addition to making the Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs curriculum available online, the project created a website for hosting teacher lesson plans and a hands-on teacher tool kit. New state social studies standards require that educators teach a multicultural history of the city and state, and as evidence of sustainability, the Portland Public Schools adopted the curriculum as part of their 8th grade scope and sequence.
As Sarah concluded, “We believe that our lesson about understanding activism will help teachers connect the study of primary sources from Portland’s past to the movement for racial justice taking place in Portland today.”
Center for Geography Education in Oregon (C-GEO)
Contact: Dr. Teresa Bulman – Coordinator
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.pdx.edu/geography-education/
Grant awarded January 14, 2016
The Center for Geography in Education in Oregon (C-GEO) is part of a four-state geographic alliance that collaborated with the TPS Western Region in 2014-2016 to train a cadre of teachers in developing geographic tools for primary source analysis (https://2016orgeo.pbworks.com). This Oregon-based grant introduced K-12 teachers to the new TPS tools and instructional strategies for developing a set of model lessons using primary sources. C-GEO partnered with the Oregon Historical Society, Portland State University, and Western Oregon University to implement the 5-day summer institute “Teaching Geography with Primary Sources” in June 2016. Nineteen teachers from across Oregon participated and designed model lessons for use in the K-12 classroom. Each lesson was standards-based and included primary sources. Teachers disseminated the new lessons in their schools and districts, and plan to offer at least one in-service or conference presentation about the LOC materials and TPS.
As Theresa Bulman reported, “Because of this project, each participant plans to incorporate primary sources and the geography analysis tool in their teaching … Most participants expressed amazement at both the breadth of what is considered a primary source, and of the primary sources available on the LOC website; this new understanding increased the likelihood that they would incorporate primary sources in their teaching.”
The materials developed during the workshop have been published online through the C-GEO website, demonstrated at their annual conference, and shared at other professional organization venues such as the Oregon Council for the Social Studies. The TPS Western Region is delighted to see the fruition of this four-state geography collaboration.
Northwest Regional Education Services District
Contact: Marta Turner – Professional Development Coordinator
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.nwresd.k12.or.us/
Grant awarded April 6, 2015
The Northwest Regional Education Service District (NWRESD) is the largest and most diverse Education Service District in Oregon. Two of the state’s five largest school districts, Beaverton and Hillsboro, reside in the urban parts of Washington County while many small, rural districts reside along the Columbia River, Coast Range Mountains, the Pacific Ocean, and in Western Washington County. NWRESD, in collaboration with the Oregon Historical Society and Portland State University, embarked on an ambitious program to train a cadre of secondary humanities teachers in the design and delivery of document-based learning activities that foster the “student as historian.”
Beginning in June 2015, teachers were trained how to find, curate, and present Library of Congress online sources in a variety of digital formats. Participants used a blended learning approach to complete an on-line interactive course as a prerequisite for the two-day summer institute. Under the direction of Marta Turner, a former American Memory Fellow, teachers created lessons or units to be used in the classroom that integrated Common Core State Standards with primary sources. Peter Pappas, of Portland State University, worked with teachers to develop digital content for the classroom using technology tools and provided guidance on the instructional strategies needed to promote student engagement and learning. All the final projects are housed on the website http://tps.nwresd.org as well as the link to the iBook, The Student As Historian.
Concordia University
Contact: Professor Shawn Daley – Assistant Professor of History, Director of Academic Technology
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://cu-portland.edu/
Grant awarded July 11, 2014
Concordia University provided Oregon middle/secondary teachers with consistent, high-quality professional development with university staff in which they were trained to incorporate Library of Congress primary sources into the curriculum. Initially, Concordia offered a series of ten content-rich workshops for two different cohorts of Portland Social Studies teachers. After the initial series, the program was replicated for the Southern, Eastern, Central, and Coastal regions of Oregon via an iTunesU course. The iTunes course, including video presentations from all the participating trainers, will serve as a statewide resource.
Concordia collaborated with the Oregon Council for the Social Studies, the Oregon Historical Society, the Oregon Department of Education, and other state partners to create a cadre of educational leaders throughout the state who will train their colleagues in TPS methods. Another goal of the grant was to foster better relationships and provide academic support between project sponsors and the community of Social Studies/History teachers at the 6-12 level. This was highlighted through collaboration with another regional grant which worked with university scholars to integrate original research into the classroom. Shawn Daley and three of his participating teachers prepared lesson plans using primary sources related to the scholars’ research and presented at the 2015 WHA Conference Teacher/Scholar panels, held in Portland. As Shawn summarized, “Many of our associated teachers have already invited scholars into their classrooms or have refined their teaching methods based on what we reviewed with the Library of Congress materials.”
Densho
Contact: Tom Ikeda – Executive Director
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.densho.org
Grant awarded June 26, 2012
Densho’s mission is to preserve the testimonies of Japanese Americans who were unjustly incarcerated during World War II before their memories are extinguished. Densho offers these irreplaceable firsthand accounts, coupled with historical images and teacher resources, to explore principles of democracy and promote equal justice for all. Through a TPS Western Regional grant, Densho integrated the rich resources of the Library of Congress with its own digital archives to create professional development for middle and high school teachers. Teachers engaged in historical thinking about the Japanese American WW II experience by analyzing primary sources and discussing how this can inform thinking about current events. In addition to their home base in Seattle (Washington), Densho offered TPS workshops in Los Angeles (California), Portland (Oregon) and Honolulu (Hawaii).
The May 18, 2013 workshop in Portland represented the TPS Western Region’s first professional development offering in the state of Oregon. The partnership with the Oregon Nikkei Endowment resulted in a strong group of 40 participating teachers. Workshop participants appreciated the tight integration of pedagogy with the primary sources about the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. In the words of Tom Ikeda, “Working with TPS changed the way we trained teachers. We added more resources from the Library of Congress website and spent time exploring the richness of loc.gov with workshop participants.” Densho plans to create an online course to reach a larger national audience of educators based on the work done for the TPS workshops.
*Multiple States Served