(Digitally) Writing New Histories: TPS Grant Project

Digitally Writing New Histories Project Flyer(Digitally) Writing New Histories

A TPS Grant for Michigan Social Studies Educators

With a shift towards disciplinary, digital, and critical literacies, we find that historical documents and artifacts — as well as images, social media posts, and videos created with contemporary technologies — all serve as primary sources. 

We invite Michigan social studies educators, grades 3-12, to join the year-long(Digitally) Writing New Histories: Building Educators’ Capacity to Teach Disciplinary, Digital, and Critical Literacies with The C3 Framework project. 

This professional learning experience will take place entirely online during evenings and weekends (times TBD), through Zoom video conferencing, throughout the entire 2020-21 academic year.  In addition to the countless number of digitized artifacts available through the Library of Congress website, we will invite teachers to examine artifacts through virtual visits to local museums and learn how to use digital writing tools such as Adobe Spark (Renamed Creative Cloud Express in June 2022), Sutori, ThingLink, and Zbib. 

Virtual field trips throughout the year will include visits to:

  • Arab American National Museum
  • The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
  • Colonial Michilimackinac
  • Coppertown USA Mining Museum
  • Detroit Historical Museum
  • Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum
  • Grand Rapids Public Museum
  • Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum
  • Hartwick Pines Logging Museum
  • Holocaust Memorial Center
  • And more…

Educators selected to participate in the (Digitally) Writing New Histories Project will have the opportunity to earn a $500 stipend after participating in approximately 50 hours of professional learning throughout the year. All content will be delivered online, through Zoom, and participation is expected in all meetings (synchronously or asynchronously).  We expect that participants will:

  • Join (or view a recording of) two 90-minute Zoom sessions per month (2020: Aug/Sept, Oct, Nov/Dec; 2021: Jan, Feb, Mar/Apr, May) for a total of approximately 25 hours
  • Join in individual/small group coaching sessions with facilitators (approximately 5 hours)
  • Engage in additional, required asynchronous learning opportunities (approximately 10 hours)
  • Develop an instructional unit aligned with the C3 Framework (approximately 10 hours)

In this application, you will share basic contact and demographic information, and submit an essay (apx 450-600 words) that will respond to the following:

  1. A description of your work as a social studies educator, including information about your teaching background and current role(s). Additionally, describe your teaching context, including information about the student body and school culture as it relates to diversity and equity. 
  2. A description of your work with The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework, technology integration, and other professional learning that will contribute to your growth as a leader in your school context and other educational organizations. 
  3. A description of how you would benefit from this program, including ways in which you would work with other colleagues in the program to develop an Inquiry Design Model-based unit of study and a webinar to be delivered to other Michigan Council of Social Studies members. 

The application deadline is Friday, July 31, 2020 at 5:00 PM EST.  Please apply using this Google Form. 

We expect to notify teachers who have been selected for the institute by the week of August 17th. Our initial Zoom call for the institute work will be during the week of August 24th (date/time TBD).

Questions? Please contact Rebecca Bush at <rbush@mcssmi.org>. 

Collegially,

  • Rebecca Bush, Michigan Council for the Social Studies
  • Jessica Ellison, Minnesota Historical Society
  • Troy Hicks, Central Michigan University