We all love our summers. After a couple hundred days of facilitation, lesson design, students, parents, exciting projects, new ideas, administrators, and assessments, the chance to catch your breath a bit during the months of June and July is hard to beat.
But summers are also perfect for catching up on your own professional growth and for having conversations with other social studies teachers. If you’re planning to take advantage of the many different summer PD options, now is the time for finishing up your applications.
And do I have a Google spreadsheet for you.
Stefanie Wager, the amazing social studies consultant at the Iowa Department of Education, has put together an equally amazing database with over 75 different free or low cost learning opportunities specifically for social studies teachers.
My personal faves?
- Transatlantic Outreach Program (two weeks in Germany – all expenses paid)
- Gilder Lehrman Teacher Seminars (Full week of awesome learning all over the place – with stipend)
- Ford’s Theater (Washington DC – with stipend)
- National Portrait Gallery (Washington DC)
- National Endowment for the Humanities (All over the place)
Those aren’t doing anything for you? There are 70 other options. Check out the Google sheet for descriptions, links, and application deadlines. Speaking of application deadlines, there’s not a whole lot of time to dilly dally. If you’re interested, you need to get cracking.
FYI – some of the organizations are part of the government shutdown but they still seem to be taking applications. (And if you haven’t yet called or emailed your respective congressional representative and Senator regarding the shutdown, one way or the other, consider this your official invitation to become civically engaged.)
Need a few more? Head over to the Scholarships, Grants and Summer Institutes for Teachers group on Facebook.
cross posted at glennwiebe.org
Glenn Wiebe is an education and technology consultant with 15 years' experience teaching history and social studies. He is a curriculum consultant forESSDACK, an educational service center in Hutchinson, Kansas, blogs frequently at History Tech and maintains Social Studies Central, a repository of resources targeted at K-12 educators. Visit glennwiebe.org to learn more about his speaking and presentation on education technology, innovative instruction and social studies.
