Texas Grantees

Grant contact: Sharron Wilkins - Curator of Education, The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza
Email: sharronc@jfk.org
Website: http://www.jfk.org

Grant awarded January 26, 2011
Through a TPS regional grant, the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza expanded its successful one-day teacher training workshop into a five-day intensive teacher Institute that provided educators with interpretive tools to fully analyze the life, death and legacy of President John F. Kennedy and the impact of his November 22, 1963 assassination on the state, nation and world. Held during the last week of July 2011, teachers gained an overview of the LOC website and how to use primary sources to teach students about presidential succession. The TPS Institute culminated in a mock trial of Lee Harvey Oswald using sources from the Museum’s permanent collections.

Follow-up communication to all participants encouraged them to share their use of primary sources, continue to develop Annotated Resource Sets (ARS) and use the Institute’s online wiki for collaboration. Sharron Conrad noted the impact of the TPS Institute at a variety of levels. “The wider Dallas community is better informed about the Museum’s collections, its goals for education and its partnership with the Library of Congress, LRE and State Department of Education as a result of the Institute, due to high profile press coverage in The Dallas Morning News. The Museum has secured a corps group of supportive teachers who understand its goals and the value of its collections.”

Grant Contact: Natalie Arsenault - Outreach Director, Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Email: n.arsenault@austin.texas.edu
Website: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/orgs/hemispheres

Grant awarded January 14, 2011
Hemispheres is the international outreach consortium at the University of Texas at Austin, providing free and low-cost content-based teacher training and standards-aligned curriculum development and instructional resources in a variety of formats and levels to K–12 educators and curriculum specialists around the state of Texas. Funding from the TPS regional grant was initially used to provide a two-day Level I workshop to 27 educators in August 2011. Given the focus on world history, presenters Michelle Pearson and Sally Purath highlighted the resources of the World Digital Library.

This workshop not only provided Texas educators with an opportunity to work with primary sources, it also familiarized the Hemispheres staff on how to disseminate the TPS program and LOC resources.  As Natalie Arsenault reported, response to their series of one-day TPS workshops in school districts throughout the state has been high. “We knew that TPS would be well received by the teachers with whom we work, but we have been surprised by the level of enthusiasm. It has caused us to think about how to continue and even expand this project…. We will continue to work with LOC collections long after the grant expires.” Grant coordinators estimated that over 3, 497 teachers have been reached, including dissemination through their weekly e-bulletins and quarterly newsletters.

Grant Contact: Barbara Parisher - Elementary Social Studies Curriculum and Instruction Specialist
Email: barbara.parisher@nisd.net
Website: http://www.nisd.net

Grant awarded January 11, 2011
The Northside Independent School District (NISD) is located in San Antonio, and is the largest school system in south Texas, fourth largest in the state, and the 31st largest district in the nation. NISD currently serves 95,000 students in 110 schools. The dual focus of this grant was to provide elementary teachers with the knowledge and skills necessary to use primary sources in the classroom and to facilitate collaboration with the smaller rural districts of Lytle ISD, Lavernia ISD and Judson ISD.  Initial grant activity began with a 3-day Level I workshop presented by Michelle Pearson and Sally Purath to 30 teachers in June 2011. Subsequent professional development activities focused on developing and evaluating the resource sets developed by the core group of teachers and writing essential questions based on the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) curriculum.   

After a year of implementation, grant coordinators felt they had developed a select cadre of teachers to disseminate TPS to the 70 Northside elementary schools and surrounding districts.  “At the conclusion of this grant period, NISD has witnessed many teacher achievements and grassroots effort to use the Library of Congress site and materials as a major aspect of historical inquiry.”

Dr. Gloria White - Director of Sponsored Programs
Email: gloriaw@stedwards.edu
Website: http://www.stedwards.edu

Grant awarded February 2, 2010
Located in Austin, Texas, St. Edward’s University and the State Bar of Texas/ Law Focused Education, Inc. work together to educate current and future educators on a variety of topics including using primary sources in P-16 education. The kick-off event for this grant was a two-day workshop, Critical Thinking with Primary Sources, presented in July 2010. Peggy O’Neill-Jones, Diane Watkins and Mary Johnson presented a Level I workshop to 33 teachers who had been successfully recruited from throughout Texas. This initial training led to awareness presentations to over 174 Texas teachers on February 2, 2010 at the Law Related Education Conference and at St. Edward's student meetings. Over 300 additional teachers and librarians were trained by Elizabeth Arredondo, Social Studies and Instructional Specialist from Judson, TX in August, 2010.