A Northampton educational services group is set to expand the reach of a successful program that encourages teachers to use primary sources in the classroom thanks to a new grant from the Library of Congress.
The nonprofit Collaborative for Educational Services received the $201,000 grant, renewable for three years, for its “Teaching with Primary Sources” program.
More than 1,500 teachers have taken courses through the program and accessed its online resources, according to a CES press release about the grant.
CES developed the program in 2010, in partnership with the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Boston Public Schools and the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The program helps teachers integrate primary sources into their teaching methods and focuses on helping struggling learners.
“Students get to work with a variety of digitized historical source materials — maps, photos, sound and video recording, and the like — to figure out their interpretations of historical events,” said Rich Cairn, project developer of Teaching with Primary Sources.
The grant recognizes the program’s progress since its inception and aims to help expand it nationwide. CES will develop new strategies and programs in special education and history to partner with other states.
“I look forward to all the good work that this grant will do as the Collaborative with Educational Services and Teaching with Primary Sources work together with our local schools to help more of our students reach their full potential,” said Congressman Jim McGovern.
A description of the program on the Library of Congress website describes the three levels of professional development offered:
Level I: Workshops partner with host school districts or multi-district collaboratives.
A popular format, “Self-Evident Truths,” features documents, images, and maps from the American Revolution and Constitutional periods.
Teachers in grades 5-8 learn to help students read the complex texts of the era and to write persuasive essays — key Common Core standards.
Other topics include immigration, African-American struggle for equality, and multimedia resources from the Library of Congress.
Level II: Lesson study workshops engage teachers in developing lessons as teams, teaching the lesson, and bringing observations and student work to analyze how to improve instruction.
Level III: Training of Trainers includes a one-day orientation for veteran teachers, a one-month online interactive course, and co-leading a workshop with Emerging America staff. More than 20 teachers have prepared to lead workshops to date.