Making Freedom

This week 19 teachers, representing every district in the project, studied Antebellum Reform movements and the Coming of the Civil War at Woburn High School. The institute was offered in partnership with Primary Source. Teachers had the option to earn graduate credit through Endicott College. Highlights included lectures by leading scholars on antebellum reform movements, field trips to Orchard House and the Concord Museum in Concord, the Black Heritage Trail in Beacon Hill, and the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford. Participants also had workshops on classroom applications, lesson development using primary sources, and instructional technology. In the next several months teachers will develop and teach lessons based on the program and share their insights and lessons with other educator via instructional blogs. They will also be eligible to apply for a seat on the study tour “Civil War and Civil Rights” in February. All in all we had a great, intense week of learning and working together.

We are now accepting applications for the 2010-2011 school year programs offered by Making Freedom. Most of the application can be completed online, while one additional page must be signed by the applicant and his/her principal (see below for links.) All printed/paper application material should be returned to your district contact (click here for a list of district contacts).

Program Descriptions

The Middle/High Program is“The Long Civil Rights Movement of the 21st Century.” The Elementary Program is “Monumental America: Teaching U.S. History Through Local, Regional, and National Monuments.” Each program consists of a 3-day seminar during the school day, four after-school book group meetings, a technology workshop, and visiting another teacher’s classroom or hosting visitors to plan, watch, and debrief a lesson.

For Middle/High School teachers, the 2010-2011 school year program is the last chance to become eligible to travel along the Mississippi River on the study tour “Civil War and Civil Rights” (see a preview.)

Application Links and Forms:

• Go to online form
• Print and sign Commitment Page

OR

• Print Paper Application (alternative to online application)

Please contact Katie Bercury, Project Director, with questions. Contact by phone (781.505.4942) or via email: katie [at] tahmakingfreedom [dot] org.

Technology integration, and especially digital storytelling, are key themes in the Making Freedom TAH project, and we try to model this by documenting project programming in various ways as we go along (see the videos doing this in the previous post).

We have been making use of Flickr all along, excited by its instructional potential and appreciative of the beautiful photos of just what we need available under various Creative Commons (traditional copyright alternatives) licenses. The photos on our flyers and study tour previews are drawn from the Flickr community.

But Web 2.0 is about contributing and creating content, not just accessing what already exists, so we have joined Flickr ourselves. In fact, Making Freedom is now all over the read-write web, on Flickr, Twitter, Foursquare, Diigo. We also have a Facebook page. The resources, ideas, support, and sense of community among educators using these tools is game-changing.

One of our most challenging goals for the project is fostering working relationships between teachers from various districts.  If you don’t already use some of these tools, consider signing up for an account. Check out who we follow on Twitter for some great history resources, for example. Look at what the History Channel is doing with Foursquare and how it might impact accountability for elected officials. Teaching with flickr using their global map let’s us see photos taken in Florence Italy as recently as this morning. Educators have created a social network using Ning to explore the uses of Flickr! What’s going on out there is pretty exciting.

Take a look at the short videos below to see a few different aspects of the Making Freedom project. View in full screen mode by clicking the icon with four arrows in the bottom right corner. Also, don’t miss the study tour preview in the previous post. We are currently enrolling for summer 2010. Contact your district curriculum leader or email info @ tahmakingfreedom.org if you are interested!

This video talks about the “why” for the project:

This is a retrospective of this year’s elementary seminar, including activities, speakers, a field trip, and the project’s focus on teaching to historical thinking benchmarks:

The video below documents a field trip that the Middle/High group took during its seminar. This video, created by Phil Gay of Tufts University, doubles as a model of what participants were learning to do in their technology workshops: engaging in the process of documenting events to better understand how “history” as we experience it is constructed of events, stories told about those events, and the choices of people who tell those stories.

We are currently enrolling the summer program, August 16-20 for Elementary teachers and August 9-13 for Middle/High teachers. To qualify for next February’s study tour for the Middle/High cohort, participants must have complete the program this year, this summer, or next year. Below is a preview of this incredible tour. Elementary teachers will have a chance to travel in April 2012.

Making Freedom is excited to annouce our upcoming summer programs for Year Two, when our theme is Americans in Pursuit and Defense of Freedom. The programs will consist of a five-day summer seminar flanked by two curriculum days, one in late Spring and one in the Fall.

In late spring, teachers will begin studying the history content for the seminar, as well as technology-based integration possibilities for engaging students.

During the summer, Minuteman National Park and the National Heritage Museum will combine their extensive resources to offer an active, site-based program for K-5 teachers. The program will include expert-led visits to historic sites in Boston and Lexington in addition to exploring the resources of the Park and Museum (see flyer).

Meanwhile, Primary Source will bring together an impressive array of scholars to offer a comprehensive study of Antebellum Reform movements and the coming of the Civil War  to Middle and High School teachers, including transcendentalism, religion, the women’s movement, slavery and abolition, cross-Atlantic economic factors, and westward expansion (see flyer).

Finally, each group will meet for a follow-up day in October. Research, technology, and pedagogy-focused staff will provide mini-workshops and individual consultation and support as participants plan lessons that will bring the program content into their classrooms. These lessons will comprise each participant’s final project, and will be made available to other teachers on the Making Freedom website.

Teachers will be awarded a $250 stipend and 67.5 PDPs upon completion of the project. Optionally, three graduate credits will be available for $180. Participants will also become eligible to apply for a 9-day study tour in April of 2011 (K-5) or 2012 (Middle/High).

Dates:

“Americans in Pursuit and Defense of the Ideal of Freedom” for K-5, June 9 and August 16-20, 2010, plus October date.

“Antebellum Reform and the Coming of the Civil War” for Middle/High, May 6 and August 9-13, 2010, plus October date.

Download an application now! Applications are due to district contacts by March 19, 2010.

Click here to learn more about Making Freedom by viewing a short video. Please note: this video plays using Quicktime. The Quicktime player works on Mac or Windows operating systems and can be downloaded for free here by clicking on the green icon.

The Lexington Depot

Please save the date for our opening ceremony and dinner, October 8, 2009 from 6:00-8:30 PM at the Depot in Lexington Center. Teacher participants, school and district administrators, and partners are encouraged to celebrate the launch of Making Freedom and get to know one another while enjoying dinner, historical reenactors, and music!

Welcome to the Making Freedom: Evolution and Revolution in the Realization of an American Ideal informational website! Please explore the tabs above to learn about the program, the partners, and all that we are offering in 2009-2010. Teachers who wish to apply to join the program may find an application here. Applications are due to the contact person in your district by October 1, 2009.