Description of the 1999 Summer Institute

The American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning (ASHP/CML) in cooperation with the American Studies Association's Crossroads Project, is offering five to six-day faculty development institutes to explore the issues of narrative and inquiry as they pertain to the interdisciplinary study of American culture, new media resources, and classroom learning.

As part of a year-long faculty development program, the New Media Classroom Summer Institutes will feature an integrated approach that combines practical hands-on sessions, demonstrations, and group work revolving around successful strategies for introducing new technologies into the culture and history classroom. In particular, the institutes will emphasize the use of information technologies to engage students in active and authentic learning, with an emphasis on multicultural and multivocal approaches to American culture study.

The institutes will focus on pedagogical contexts and classroom practice with technology-enhanced approaches; faculty participants will also be able to spend some time learning technical skills through workshops and guided open planning time. Among the technologies covered will be:

World Wide Web and cd-roms as research and reference tools

Web-based syllabi and course platforms classroom presentation tools

programs for the creation of hypertext, hypermedia, and multimedia materials

email and threaded discussion programs as teaching tools

The institutes will feature the use of the ASHP/CML and Center for History and New Media's new web site "History Matters: Teaching the U.S. History Survey on the Web"
a collection of on-line primary source documents, syllabi, annotated web guide, hypertext classroom lessons and much more, designed to provide resources for high school and college teachers of the U.S. History survey.

The mission of the Regional Centers program is to reach a broader cohort of high school and college faculty in various regions across the country who are interested in the integration of new electronic resources to help advance teaching and learning in humanities classrooms. The year-long program begins with a summer institute and continues during the school year 1999-2000 where faculty will test the strategies they developed during the institute, take part in on-line discussions, and participate in follow-up meetings at their home institutions.

Who Should Apply to the Program?

The New Media Classroom program has been designed for college and high school teachers who teach the U.S. History survey (or comparable interdisciplinary survey courses in American Studies, American literature, American art history, etc.) with a range of comfort levels and experience with technology. Faculty who attend should be at least minimally comfortable with the use of electronic mail and acquainted with the World Wide Web.

The program will involve leaders in the field of new media education and those who have an interest in using new media as part of classroom instruction. Our goal is to work together to deepen collective expertise in new media-based instruction and help  humanities faculty prepare as technology leaders, building a national conversation about the new media classroom and extending its promise to a broad range of teachers and students nationwide.

The guidelines for candidates at each Center program will cover a combination of demonstrated interested and experience in:

1.Teaching the U.S. History survey (or comparable interdisciplinary humanities survey course);
2.Using inquiry-based classroom pedagogies;
3.Exploring on-line communication systems; and
4.Expanding their professional knowledge and teaching repertoires.

A candidate's eligibility and successful participation will also depend upon the willingness of their school or college to make a commitment to facilitate such implementation as:

1.Scheduling the candidate to teach a humanities survey course in Fall 1999;
2.Scheduling the candidate to teach a humanities survey course in classroom or computer labs equipped to provide students with ready access to new media resources
3.Facilitate the candidate's individual access to on-line systems for program communication and participation in on-line seminar.

Program Fee

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OR QUESTIONS, PLEASE CONTACT
Howard Lurie
Mt. Greylock Regional High School
1781 Cold Spring Road
Williamstown, MA 01267
email: hlurie@massed.net    (413) 458-9582 x112


For an application...