NCSS annually presents Summer Workshops, designed to strengthen classroom techniques. These workshops take place around the nation during the summer months, and feature in-depth, hands-on information.
1Literacy Strategies to Unlock Social Studies Content
What are the important literacy strategies for the secondary social studies classroom? What are the organizational patterns of text structure that can help unlock social studies content? What impact do these strategies and patterns have on the planning, delivery, and assessment of social studies content?
This practical, hands-on workshop for secondary-level educators (grades 6-12) will focus on strategies and approaches that help students with nonfiction reading in social studies. Eight organizational patterns of text structure will be examined, including description, cause and effect, compare/contrast, problem/solution, concept definition, sequence, proposition/support, and goal/action/outcome. Participants will identify and find examples of each in social studies text, acquire and apply reading strategies appropriate for each type of text structure, and determine ways of using strategies in both instruction and assessment. In addition, participants will acquire and apply other strategies that help students unlock social studies content in the secondary classroom, including vocabulary strategies, anticipation guides, summarizing, synthesizing and evaluating information, making inferences, and assessment. Participants must bring a grade-level text to use during the workshop.
2 Powerful and Authentic Social Studies (PASS): A Teacher Training Institute
Powerful and Authentic Social Studies (PASS) is a professional development program that trains social studies teachers in curriculum design, assessment, and instruction in a standards-based environment. This institute will provide participants with the materials and expertise necessary to lead their own PASS training workshops in their schools and school districts.
Participants will learn about PASS criteria and standards for curriculum design, assessment construction, and effective instruction. In small learning communities, participants will examine videotaped K-12 vignettes of teaching and create examples of curriculum units and assessment tasks to share with their learning community.
PASS materials consist of two videos or DVDs, a general manual outlining PASS principles, and specialized manuals for different grade levels. There are three different PASS sets—elementary, middle, and high school. Participants will receive a free PASS set at the level of their choice (value: $279.00), and deep discounts will be offered on other sets.
PASS is an effective means of training pre-service, as well as in-service, teachers. This institute will interest NCSS members at all educational levels.
More information on PASS
3 Teaching with Documents and Works of Art: An Integrated Approach
This three-day workshop will provide a varied program of lectures, demonstrations, collaborative work, and analysis of documents and works of art—introducing teachers to the holdings of the National Archives and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. Workshop attendees will participate in and develop classroom activities that utilize both visual images and primary source documents as teaching tools in ways that sharpen students’ skills and enthusiasm for history, social studies, and the humanities. This year’s content focus will be on Immigration.
Course Objectives:
- Identify the various types of primary source documents held by the National Archives.
- Learn about a wide range of artworks in various media in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
- Learn, develop, and share exciting methods and materials for teaching with visual images and documents as primary sources.
- Describe the opportunities available for educators and students (workshops, tours, publications, online resources) from both organizations.
- Have fun!
Teachers may read more about the workshop at
americanart.si.edu/education/dev and at
www.archives.gov/education/growing-professionally.html
See the Teaching With Documents collection, which is free online to NCSS members, at
http://publications.socialstudies.org/twd.shtml.
4Innovative Approaches to Teaching World History and World Cultures
Explore cutting-edge approaches to the teaching of world history and world cultures at the high school and middle school levels. During this intensive three-day workshop, participants will examine best practices and innovative teaching strategies that can be used in a world history/world cultures classroom. Three graduate credits are available. The workshop is co-sponsored by National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) and Yale University Programs in International Education Resources (PIER). The cost of the workshop is $200 (room and board extra).
In this workshop, Yale faculty will provide some of the latest research on world history topics, and teachers of world history will share teaching strategies. We will connect the teaching of world history to NCSS and other professional standards. Presenters will provide samples of both chronological and thematic approaches to world history and will present strategies for creating an interdisciplinary approach to world history.
Michael Yell will explore teaching strategies in a natural sequence: from making contact with a new topic, to conversing substantively in different discussion formats, to linking content with big thematic ideas, to assessing student knowlege with projects and cooperative group investigation.
We will also discuss specific films, musical selections, pieces of art, and works of literature that are appropriate for middle and high school world history classes.
