Free Professional Development

Free Professional Development
We offer free professional development with opportunities for teachers from all grade levels and subject areas to focus on using Library of Congress resources to engage students, enhance their critical thinking and deepen content knowledge.  Workshops, with onsite and online content, are offered at two levels:

Essentials Exploration- Level One – 15-hour five-workshop series, including an introduction to primary sources and an orientation to the Library of Congress Web site and resources, with a focus on student inquiry and engagement. Participants develop inquiry-based learning activities that enhance students’ understanding and appreciation of primary sources and sharpen critical thinking skills.  [See additional details in outline ]– link to outline.  Graduate credit (one hour) optional

Advanced Application – Level Two - Building on the experience of the Essential Exploration, participants focus on content areas of interest or cross-disciplinary topics.  They evaluate and create in-depth lessons and units that effectively integrate digitized primary sources and include best practices for teaching.  At this level, participation by administrators and community members is optional.  Teachers may choose to bring in other colleagues to work on lessons and units to implement and share. (Graduate credit to be determined)
As they complete these two levels, members of the leadership team will continue to model the use of primary sources in their schools and involve other teachers in integrating the many types of Library of Congress resources into instructional practice.

A third level, the Library of Congress Ambassador Program, offers participants the opportunity to contribute to knowledge of Teaching with Primary Sources beyond their school walls. Among Ambassador privileges are opportunities to:

1. Facilitate professional development and earn stipends
2. Mentor colleagues on the best instructional uses of primary sources
3. Evaluate learning experiences for widespread dissemination and use
4. Interact and collaborate with fellow LOC Ambassadors
5. Contribute to local, state and national use of best practices for using primary sources in instruction by publishing in print or in online journals, speaking at gatherings of educators and/or leading professional development activities.
6. Field test, review, publish, and present exemplary TPS products.

“Hybrid” learning

Because of our commitment to reaching educators in outlying and rural areas of the state, we have developed our Essentials Exploration as a five workshop series that involves both online and onsite sessions, so you don’t have to travel to our location!
The workshop series breaks down as follows:

Workshop 1 – 4 hour session at your school
Workshop 2, 3, and 4 – an additional 8-10 hours (average 3 hours for each workshop) completed over a 2-3 week period
Workshop 5 – a concluding 4 hour session at your site again, at which you share activities and learning with other participants.

Optional Graduate Credit

Participants completing the Essentials Exploration workshop series can receive one (1) graduate credit through UNC at a cost of $55. To receive credit, participants must attend both onsite sessions and complete all activities online, including discussions or postings in the online learning community.  In addition a learning activity must be completed as assigned.  The grade is recorded as S/U on the student’s transcript.  See outline [link to outline – either on a separate webpage or a pdf] for topics covered in each workshop.