Calling all NCSS members!

In 2019, we shared the exciting news with you that the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) was generously awarded grant funding from the Library of Congress as part of the Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) program. Under this grant, NCSS is partnering with the Library of Congress to develop digital resources for use in teacher candidate programs to demonstrate the effectiveness of teaching with primary sources and the College, Career, and Civic Life ("C3") Framework's Inquiry Arc.

We are creating two online methods texts entitled Inquiry and Teaching with Primary Sources to Prepare Students for College, Career, and Civic Life. One text is designed for K-6 elementary methods courses and the other text for 6-12 secondary methods courses. The texts will be joint publications of NCSS and the Library of Congress. To ensure the effectiveness of each text for social studies methods programs, NCSS seeks methods professors to provide feedback on draft chapters in development, to inform subsequent revisions by the authors. The final versions of each text will be posted on the NCSS website and be available free of charge in 2022.

All NCSS members are invited to apply to serve as a draft online text reviewer of either the Elementary K-6 Edition or the Secondary 6-12 Edition. Space is limited to 25 participants per text. An $850 stipend will be provided to each reviewer in appreciation for their time and expertise upon submission of online feedback.

Review and Institute Dates:

• Monday, May 10: Current draft texts will be sent online to selected participants.
• Monday, June 7: All feedback is due by 12:00 PM ET, in time for the start of the NCSS Teaching with Primary Sources Online Summer Institute. 
• Monday, June 7 - Tuesday, June 8 (12:00 - 4:00 PM ET): Online Summer Institute.

If you are able to meet the time commitments listed above, we invite you to apply now! Please submit your application online. Please include a current CV and the desired text (Elementary K-6 Edition or Secondary 6-12 Edition) you would like to review. Reviewers selected must have demonstrated experience teaching social studies methods in the grade band desired for text review, and be current NCSS members. Previously selected reviewers in Summer 2020 are ineligible to apply.

Please reply by Monday, April 12, 2021, at 11:59 PM Hawaii Standard Time to be considered. Applicants will be informed of their selection status the week of May 3, 2021.

If you are unable to participate in online review this summer, there will be special sessions at future NCSS Annual Conferences and webinars available starting this year. These sessions and webinars will provide additional opportunities for methods professors to share feedback in these texts under development and learn strategies to teach inquiry using primary source documents from the Library of Congress. A complete resource collection of the online methods texts, professional development content, and webinars will be free to the general public in the NCSS Digital Library at www.socialstudies.org upon completion of the project.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact lpaska@ncss.org. Thank you for answering our call!