Missouri Council of the Social Studies Annual Conference

In this session, Missouri teachers who have traveled the world will participate in a round table to discuss successful strategies used to be accepted into top teacher travel programs around the world! If you are looking for international travel or travel within the States, this session is for you. The professional develop on these trips is simply amazing and you will be a better educator because of it. Participants will also answer questions and help you complete an application on the SPOT!

With a strong emphasis on ethnic studies classes and resources, educators often find it challenging to find materials that truly engage their students. Students are eager for lessons that bring value and impact to their lives. I invite you to join me and learn about resources that are ready to use in your classroom and have the potential to make a significant impact on your students.

Chronology - placement of historical events - is a challenge for students whose awareness of the world may be only a decade. Understanding chronology begins by identifying events in their own lives. This can be expanded if students visualize and personalize the passage of time with these three elements: draw a timeline, the math number line's social studies counterpart, to create a graphic organizer; designate it as a visual story line; and personalize the content with the first-person experiences of individuals in the students' lives. This presentation will demonstrate the strategy and engage participants in developing their own timelines.

For many teachers, primary sources serve as a new frontier. Primary sources sit at the frontier of content because they offer insights into stories of the past that might be unknown. Primary sources also sit at the frontier of pedagogy because teaching with primary sources such as documents, oral histories, cartoons, photographs, and paintings, requires innovative strategies to promote higher order thinking with these different source types. In this session, teachers will learn how to locate primary sources that uncover stories of the past while also learning engaging new strategies for teaching with them.