Professional support
Workshops and Inservices
Free Professional Development Sessions for your school district
We are once again offering professional development programs to school districts across Kansas. These presentations are tailored to meet the needs of your teachers K-12 and are offered at no charge to the school. Our trained professional staff will work with your teachers to help them learn how to include Kansas history within the reading curriculum. A strong component of the presentation will be showing how critical thinking skills can be improved through the use of primary sources. Participants will receive samples of the standards-based educational materials developed by the Education-Outreach Division of the Kansas Historical Society.
Archaeology in the Classroom
Understanding Past and Present Cultures: Bringing Project Archaeology to the Classroom workshop was conducted at ESSDACK in Hutchinson this past summer. The facilitators for this workshop were Virginia Wulfkuhle, KSHS public archeologist, and Nathan McAlister, 2010 Gilder-Lehrman National History Teacher. Guest speaker was Brenda Culbertson speaking on Pawnee archaeoastronomy.
Focus of the workshop was using Investigating Shelter with the Pawnee earth lodge investigation and two of the Project Archaeology in Kansas curriculum pieces—Migration of the Pueblo People to El Cuartelejo (seventh grade) and The Archaeology of Early Agriculture in Kansas (fifth grade).
Selected comments from participants:
Project Archaeology materials successfully support the district, state, and national civics/government, history, geography, and language arts standards, as well as life skills, math and science.—Dana Blew, Lansing
The integration of subject areas also supports the Kansas State Department of Education transition to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Project Archaeology's multi-disciplinary approach aligns well with the CCSS efforts to expand reading, writing, speaking and listening standards into all subject areas.—Kimberle Curtis, Salina
Finding out about a culture of people by what they lived in, what they wore, what they ate, how they got their food and the tools they used for all of this is a perfect way to start the year on learning about world cultures.—Tim C. Harris, Hutchinson
Best of all, students are learning about the civilization through their own discovery, and not solely from a textbook. —Annette Husted, Paola.
It has always been my goal to help my students "personalize" history; to give the events of the past a human face, a human heartbeat. Archaeological studies can give us greater connections to those before us, even to those in the distant past, those whose names we don't even know.—David W. Lungren, Kansas City, MO
To get more information regarding the materials we have available for 7th and 5th grade students and possible upcoming Project Archaeology workshops contact Virginia Wulfkuhle.
Library of Congress and Kansas Historical Society
The first Teaching with Primary Sources from the Library of Congress: It's Elementary: Professional Development for K-6 Teachers in Kansas" Teacher Workshop was held in late July, 2011. Using primary sources in your classroom helps to increase students' critical thinking. As the 24 participants in this workshop learned primary sources can make history "come alive".
Elementary teachers from all over the state developed lesson plans for their classrooms. These will be shared on our website soon. View images of the activities and participants.
Watch for information about the next Library of Congress and Kansas Historical Society primary source workshop.
Adapting Primary Sources to the Promethean Boards
Kansas Memory resources and our Read Kansas! lessons are easily adapted to an interactive lesson such as those developed for the Promethean boards. This works well in a whole class setting or for individual work. Please contact us for more information.
Other Resources
KSHS Teacher eNews
Throughout the school year, we keep you up-to-date on Historical Society happenings of interest to Kansas teachers. You may view the current issue or register for enewsletter.
Ready-to-Use Lesson Plans
Participants in our workshops prepare lessons that are ready to take back to their classes and use. Selected lesson plans and other materials from this previous summer's workshop and others conducted by Historical Society are available for use in your classroom. More teacher prepared lesson plans will be added soon.
Web resources for teachers
The Kansas Historical Society has compiled a list of resources for primary sources, newspapers, and educational activities for students. These are presented to help you find appropriate materials for your classroom.
