Lee faculty hosts “Of the People” workshop with aims to improve local teachers effectiveness
Assistant Professor of History Dr. Drew Bledsoe leading participants in a drill at the Chickamauga National Battlefield.
Courtesy of Lee University Office of Public Relations
Lee's history and education departments are working to ensure high school students learn more when they step into their social studies classrooms.
The university recently held the “Of the People: Concepts of Citizenship in World History, U.S. History and U.S. Government” workshop, aimed at improving the effectiveness of local high school history and social studies teachers.
Twenty-five high school history and social studies teachers from the southeast region attended the five-day summer workshop. Teachers were provided with pedagogical instruction and content focused around the theme of citizenship.
Chair of the Department of History, Political Science & Humanities Randy Wood served as director of the workshop with Professor of History John Coats as co-director. Each spoke alongside other Lee faculty members who led different sessions throughout the five-day period.
The workshop is fully funded under a grant contract with the state of Tennessee through the Improving Teacher Quality program.
The grant is designed to allow university professors and School of Education professors to cooperate to help teachers in high school improve their content knowledge, according to Wood.
“[High school teachers] get to go back to college and re-learn some things, re-study some things and also to work on their pedagogy — how to teach whatever topic it is differently or how to teach it in a new way,” Wood said.
Specifically, the “Of the People” workshop focused on discussing citizenship and urged teachers to explore the concept of citizenship and its importance with students.
Assistant Professor of History Drew Bledsoe said the purpose of the workshop was to give local teachers fresh perspectives on how to approach the subject of immigration and to inspire teachers to engage their students with new techniques.
“We want to remind these teachers that citizenship as a notion is really important,” Bledsoe said. “In many ways, our national health depends on having educated citizens — and that starts in the classroom.”
To further his point, Bledsoe led the teachers on a trip to the National Chickamauga Battlefield. The aim was to show the history and nature of the American citizen and soldier, according to Bledsoe.
Another aspect of the workshop was to urge teachers to use primary sources and documents in the classrooms.
Reference Assistant and part-time Professor of Museum Studies Joy Veenstra Key led a two-hour session focused on engaging students to interact with primary sources in the classroom.
The session aimed to help students create deeper connections between what they are learning and how it relates to the context of the time in which an event occurred, according to Key.
“[The session] focused on using deep looking strategies to question primary source objects, artworks and photographs in order to use the sources to tell a rich story," Key said.
Twenty-two topics were presented throughout the week, each building on themes surrounding citizenship.
With the conclusion of the workshop, applicants received three hours of graduate credit through the Helen DeVos College of Education as well as online contact and support of Lee University professors throughout the academic year.
Find out additional information regarding the “Of the People” Workshop on their website.
