Grant funds Warner School partnership

Santora

three-year, $921,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education will support a collaboration between the Margaret Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development, the Department of History, and local educational institutions. The funding will provide a professional development program for 120 urban and suburban K-12 social studies and history teachers.

Designed to engage teachers as learners and researchers of history, the program will prepare them to teach their students to think more critically and to use a multidisciplinary approach while studying historical events.

Ellen Santora, assistant professor of social studies education at the Warner School, directs the program. "Many of the elementary, middle school, and high school teachers who will participate in the program talk about and teach history but have never experienced 'doing history,' " explained Santora. "I am thrilled by this opportunity to enhance their knowledge of history by engaging them in the work of historians. As a result, we hope it will be easier for them to actively involve students in exploring the highly contentious and dynamic nature of historical interpretation."

Participating teachers will attend summer institutes to conduct research as "apprentices" to historians. During the school year, teachers will participate in regular follow-up sessions, develop and test curricula, and visit area museums and historical sites to expand their knowledge of local historical resources.

Monroe BOCES #1 in Fairport will administer and evaluate grant activities as well as take the lead role in recruiting teachers for the professional development program. The Warner School, through its Social Studies Program and its newly created Center for Professional Development and Education Reform, will work with the Department of History to design and provide professional development for the "American History as Dialogue" program.

Other key collaborators are the Rochester City School District Teacher Center, the Greater Rochester School Support Center, Genesee Valley BOCES in LeRoy, BOCES #2 in Spencerport, and Wayne-Finger Lakes BOCES in Newark.

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