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Teacher Professional Development
Discover new teaching practices and broaden your knowledge through MNHS teacher professional development. Educator workshops are offered by the History Day and Teacher Education teams.
Making Space for History in Elementary Classrooms
Cost: Free; teacher participants paid $100 stipend through Library of Congress grant
Date: Wednesday, June 21, 2023, 8:30 am-3:30 pm
Location: Minnesota History Center (St. Paul, MN)
Audience: grades K-5 teachers
Registration is full. Add your name to the waiting list.
History has enormous potential to help elementary students develop critical thinking skills in highly relevant and meaningful ways. So why isn’t there more time for it in elementary school?
In grade-level groups, explore how primary source inquiry and the culturally relevant pedagogy framework can support social studies for students across the elementary grades. Led by practicing elementary teachers who have developed relevant, usable primary source inquiry materials, you will practice instructional strategies and build a toolkit of lesson resources and materials you can bring back to your classroom.
Participants will receive:
- Resources for classroom application
- Light breakfast
- Lunch
- Parking
- Admission to Minnesota History Center exhibits
- A MNHS Press Book
- $100 stipend paid to teacher participant
This workshop is paid for with a generous grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium. Contact Kara Knight with questions.
Image source: Library of Congress
History Fest
Cost: $50
Date: August 10, 2023, 9:00 am to 3:30 pm
Location: Minnesota History Center (345 Kellogg Blvd. W., St. Paul, MN 55102)
Audience: K-12 teachers
Register
Minnesota teachers of history: Join us for History Fest, a full day of sessions about teaching history in the classroom!
Get ready for the 2023-2024 school year with a choice of educator-led sessions focusing on state, national and world history, as well as assessments, primary sources, and more. Connect with your history peers from around the state! This workshop has sessions for elementary, middle, and high school levels. This workshop is delivered in partnership with the Minnesota Council for History Education.
Contact Heidi Kloempken with questions about workshop content.
Image source: MNHS Collections Online.
Cultural Relevance & LGBTQIA History
Cost: Free; teacher participants paid $100 stipend through Library of Congress grant
Date: Thursday, August 17, 8:30 am-3:30 pm
Location: Mill City Museum (Minneapolis, MN)
Audience: grades 6-12 teachers
Registration is full. Add your name to the waiting list.
Visit the Mill City Museum with MNHS teacher educators for a full-day workshop digging into LGBTQIA history across Minnesota. Draw connections between important historic and modern issues, such as marriage, civil rights, and community spaces, and practice strategies to provide all students windows and mirrors into the experiences of queer Minnesotans past and present.
Participants will receive:
- Resources for classroom application
- Light breakfast
- Lunch
- Parking
- Admission to Mill City Museum exhibits
- $100 stipend paid to teacher participant
This workshop is paid for with a generous grant from the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium. Contact Kara Knight with questions.
Image source: Library of Congress
Northern Lights 101 Webinar
Cost: Free for Northern Lights teachers
Virtual meeting platform: Zoom video conferencing
The same session will be offered multiple times:
Tuesday, August 22, 2-4 pm
Friday, August 25, 1-3 pm
Tuesday, September 19, 3:30-5:30 pm
First time teaching with the Northern Lights Interactive eBook? Need a refresher before the 2023-24 school year? Join Northern Lights teacher educators from the Minnesota Historical Society for an introductory webinar about Northern Lights -- from the content it covers, to the different curriculum components, and hallmarks of the curriculum. Get a walk-through of the Northern Lights Interactive eBook and have practice time to navigate the robust digital curriculum and ask questions.
The session will address changes to the Minnesota social studies standards, how the current curriculum addresses them, and measures we are taking at MNHS to align the curriculum with those standards with greater fidelity.
The webinar will be repeated synchronously multiple times to accommodate your schedule. Zoom video conferencing will be used. Connecting via a device with a larger-screen video feed (laptop, desktop, or tablet) will be essential to benefit from this session.
Sessions are free for Northern Lights subscribers, but registration is required. Contact Kara Knight (kara.knight@mnhs.org) with questions.
Northern Lights Academy
Cost: $100 ($80 for MNHS members)
Date: Monday, November 13, 2023 8:00 am-2:30 pm (in-person)
Location: Minnesota History Center (St. Paul, MN)
Audience: Teachers using the Northern Lights curriculum
Join 6th grade colleagues from across the state at Northern Lights Academy, the premier professional conference for Minnesota Studies! Sessions will feature Minnesota Studies experts and master Northern Lights teachers from across Minnesota, as well as opportunities to explore MNHS collections items and tour select History Center exhibits. This year, as we look forward to standards adoption and a forthcoming new edition of Northern Lights, we will be packing our agenda with ideas, curriculum resources, and time to tap into the potential of the current edition as a stopgap while the Third Edition is being developed.
Reimbursement subsidies are available to support in-person workshop participation. Apply for funding to reimburse substitute, mileage, and hotel costs. Due to low asynchronous participation last year, we are not offering a remote option, so we want to ensure that Northern Lights teachers have the resources to attend in-person regardless of how far they live from the History Center. Learn more about subsidies and apply for this first-come, first-served resource.
Sessions align with current state social studies standards, as well as with content and resources in the Revised Second Edition of Northern Lights (print book, 2013; Interactive eBook, 2014+); those with earlier editions of Northern Lights may also find this conference useful.
Your in-person registration includes:
✔ Light breakfast ✔ Lunch ✔ Exhibits Access ✔ Collections Tour ✔ History Center Store Voucher ✔ CEUs ✔ Parking
Contact Kara Knight with program or subsidy questions. Contact Jessica McMahon with registration questions.
History Day workshops
There are no History Day workshops scheduled at this time.
Cancellation policy
- Registrants canceling 24 hours before the workshop are eligible for a refund or credit. (This includes weather related cancellations.)
- Registrants unable to attend a workshop may send someone in their place; substitutions will be made at the registration desk the day of the event.
- No refunds or credits will be granted for nonattendance.