Educurious
Contact: Chris Carter
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://educurious.org/
Grant awarded 3/30/21
Educurious is a 501(c)(3) organization in Seattle, WA whose mission is to “…capture the imagination and interest of youth by integrating project-based learning, connection with real-world experts, technology, and career exploration to create meaningful learning and cultivate contemporary skills”. Prior to their TPS project, they developed and launched the Social Studies Collective (SSC) to support their development of remote teaching practices while using PBL curriculum and primary sources to inspire conversations about how the events of American history have contributed to the root causes of the Black Lives Matter movement. This project will fund the expansion of the SSC with the development of new curricular units teaching the untold stories of Reconstruction using Library of Congress primary sources. They will then provide online professional development for 20 teacher-leaders in the Western United States using these materials which will also be made freely available as open education resources.
Vancouver Public Schools
Contact: Rose Nelson
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://vansd.org/
Grant awarded 6/2/2021
This project will create a cadre of 4th grade teachers who will participate in a series of online professional development experiences which will create, test, refine, and share curriculum to support the Washington State curriculum mandate to teach about their indigenous communities.
CultureWorks, LTD
Contact: Steve Rowland
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://www.tooj.org/
Grant awarded 11/15/21
CultureWorks, LTD is a 501(c)3 non-profit This project based in Seattle, WA. Their TPS project titled, Time Out of Joint, will build upon their ongoing project: “Shakespeare, Prison & Me” to engage teachers with the works of Shakespeare and the resources from the Library of Congress. CultureWorks has developed, and is already beta-testing, an exciting educational platform to introduce Shakespeare in new ways to students of all backgrounds. A key to their program is that they employ educated former prisoners as workshop leaders in the belief that Shakespeare belongs to each of us, and that “Shakespeare changes lives”.
This project will train participants to use the Library’s primary sources and then write, teach, and refine curriculum for their high school and college classrooms.
This project is off to a strong start with several meetings having already been held with 16 educators from 9 states along with a team of 8 scholars and 8 former prisoners.
Wing Luke Museum of Asian Pacific American Experience
Contacts: Rahul Gupta – Education and Tour Director
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.wingluke.org/
Grant awarded May 30, 2017
The mission of the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience (The Wing) in Seattle, WA is to connect the public with the rich history, dynamic cultures, and art of Asian Pacific Americans through vivid storytelling and inspiring experiences. Through their TPS regional grant, The Wing utilized Library of Congress primary sources to add to their history curriculum related to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and provide professional development and online resources for Washington state teachers in grades 4, 7, and 11. Overall, the project trained 115 teachers in the Chinese Exclusion Act and related Asian Pacific American History over the course of five trainings throughout the state. In additional to enhancing their own programs, project staff put considerable effort into connecting with communities outside of the Seattle area and reached almost every congressional district. As a representative from the Kittitas County Historical Society remarked, “We have had an overwhelming response from the local school districts as well as the community in general about the training, and many want to learn more, on Chinese Exclusion in Washington, the impact locally, and the families that have been here.”
Project Director Rahul Gupta reported that teaching practices changed considerably as a result of this project. “Within the museum, education staff now utilize primary-source materials on a daily basis and instruct students in identifying and understanding multiple perspectives on Asian and Pacific American histories. In subsequent trainings and content development, the Teaching with Primary Sources materials as well as multiple archive sources of materials are used consistently and provide the base from which these histories are taught. The positive effect can be seen in student interactions during field trips and educational tours. This has put more responsibility on the Education Department to regularly train all museum education staff in new content, resources and methods of instruction.”
Western Washington University
Contact: Tina Storer – Education and Curriculum Specialist
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.k12studycanada.org
Grant awarded February 14, 2013
The Center for Canadian-American Studies at Western Washington University, a Pacific Northwest National Resource Center on Canada, provides K-12 teachers and students with a wealth of resources for learning about Canada and the Arctic. Through this TPS Western Region grant, the 2-½ day professional development workshop “Archives on the Arctic: Connecting to Global Issues with Primary Sources” was held on June 24-26, 2013. Adding to the inter-disciplinary nature of the event, the workshop was held on the campus of Metropolitan State University of Denver and utilized the expertise of the Library of Congress TPS Western Region staff and trainers. Twenty-three educators from ten Western states learned about the complex historical, cultural, environmental and geopolitical issues of the Far North while also discovering the Library’s rich reservoir of digitized primary sources and instructional tools for actively engaging students in historical inquiry. The audience consisted primarily of Teacher Associates in the K-12 Study Canada program, teacher leaders who are experienced in lesson development and dissemination. Not only did the Teacher Associates develop curriculum materials and lesson plans to take back to their classrooms, they performed outreach activities on behalf of TPS and the Pacific Northwest NRC on Canada throughout their school districts and states.
As Project Director Tina Storer summarized, “All efforts were well worth it. Participants unanimously indicated on their evaluations that they felt inspired by the program and were prepared to use TPS methods and LOC resources in their classroom curriculum design efforts … and educational outreach work. In all cases, participants now intend to utilize the LOC website in TPS methods more regularly in the future.” All lesson plans and annotated resource sets developed by this select group of educators can be accessed at http://www.k12studycanada.org/artic_lesson_plans.html.
Evergreen Public Schools
Contact: Ryan Theodoriches
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.evergreenps.org
Grant awarded August 9, 2012
The Evergreen and Vancouver district curriculum specialists, with support from the Teaching with Primary Sources Western Region, provided professional development to district middle school teachers that introduced the Library of Congress as a pedagogical model for using primary sources in historical inquiry. The workshop encouraged attention to student’s literacy needs in approaching those documents, as well as introducing the Library of Congress web resources (especially the American Memory collection) as a fertile resource for classroom instruction. Teacher teams designed lessons which utilized Library of Congress sources, applied inquiry-based methodology, and anticipated students’ literacy needs. Teachers deepened their understanding of Common Core standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, and developed approaches for supporting students’ ability to read challenging text.
After the initial workshop in October 2012, teacher teams met in November to watch a team member teach the lesson their team had developed to students. After the “demonstration lesson” was taught and observed, the teams engaged in a protocol-driven, facilitated discussion of their observations and analysis of student work. During that debrief discussion, teachers evaluated the efficacy of the lesson, discussed revisions to be applied in future iterations of the lesson, and considered ways in which the process led them to deeper understandings regarding the teaching and learning of history. Teachers attended a final workshop on December 13, 2012. At that session, groups prepared their lessons for sharing with each other and their non-participating colleagues. Data collected from a teacher survey indicated that participating teachers deepened their understanding of how to use primary sources effectively with students through an inquiry into historical questions. In the words of one teacher,
“The lesson study caused me to realize the importance of inquiry learning and teaching history. Introducing students to rich primary sources and allowing them to grapple with meaning in a supportive environment produced heightened student engagement and brought forth interesting student conclusions.”
This grant built on the successful collaboration model piloted earlier in ESD 112 in southwest Washington state.
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
Longview School District
Contact: Amy Johnson – 5th Grade Teacher, Northlake Elementary School, Longview School District
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.longview.k12.wa.us
Grant awarded December 13, 2012
“Teaching with Primary Sources to Integrate Common Core Standards across Content Areas: A Collaborative Outreach Project to Train and Sustain Teachers in the Longview and Kelso School Districts” is the second grant (see below for information on first grant) awarded to the Longview School District in southwestern Washington state. This grant continued the successful work begun in the Longview School District under the leadership of Amy Johnson, and expanded the reach to a new audience of middle school teachers in these two neighboring school districts. Beginning in the summer 2013, this grant provided three days of collaborative professional development opportunities for approximately 40 social studies teachers. The grant focused on integrating TPS into existing courses as well as supporting the transition to English Language Arts Common Core Standards in the two school districts. It also served as a beginning point for developing a cadre of teacher leaders who will further disseminate TPS training and lesson design into surrounding communities.
One year after the grant began, Amy Johnson reported that “… the Longview School District is fully funding professional development for teachers in our area. They are sustaining what we have done over the past two years! Thanks for all you do … you have changed our district!”
Educational Service District 112
Contact: Matt Karlsen – Teaching American History Grant Coordinator
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://web3.esd112.org
Grant awarded October 28, 2011
The Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Western Region grant funding supported high school teacher engagement in a lesson study cycle deepening their understanding of and commitment to guiding student historical inquiry utilizing primary source documents. Twenty-nine teachers from the Evergreen and Vancouver school districts attended a two-day Level I training in the use of primary sources in the classroom and the loc.gov website on January 12 and 13, 2012. Teacher teams designed lessons utilizing the resources and pedagogical approaches described during the workshop. The resulting lessons were taught as five demonstration lessons, observed and discussed by the teams, on February 10, 16, 23, 24, and March 1. On March 7, the teams regrouped to document their lessons, reflect on the process, and discuss next steps with their districts. Following that session, teacher-participants committed to meet with their non-participating colleagues at their schools to discuss the process and resources. Teacher evaluations of the grant activities were very positive. As one teacher expressed, “This was not like a learning walk. I worked on a lesson related to my work, and I’ll use it. This is the way professional development should be.“