Open Forum

Hi all,

Are there any other museums with teacher conferences with teachers who are thinking about how to move them to a virtual format? 

Each summer, the National Museum of American Jewish History hosts around 20 teachers from around the country for the National Educators Institute, a jam-packed conference on how to teach American Jewish history. It is four days long and includes lectures and workshops with prominent scholars in the field, opportunities to apply knowledge by testing out educational programs they can bring to their classroom, and time to work with teachers from other schools on developing new lessons for their classrooms. Teachers have reported that they find the time spent with other teachers just as useful as time spent with scholars. It is very intense, but very beneficial! 

We want to still be able to offer some sort of program to this year's teachers, but we obviously don't want the solution to be something like 8 hours on zoom, because that's ridiculous and exhausting. That said, we want to come to a solution that somehow maintains the social and collaborative environment we aim for. 

Are there any other museums in a similar position? If so, I would love to brainstorm this issue! 

Thanks,
Charlie

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Charlie Hersh
Education Specialist
National Museum of American Jewish History
Philadelphia, PA
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Hi Charlie,

We offer a week-long teacher institute every summer, with a full day dedicated to museum courses, and we've just announced that we're adapting it to a virtual conference this year. Our plan is to use a mix of Zoom Webinar (for "plenary sessions"/lectures) and regular Zoom meetings for the courses. We'll be using a mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning to make it as flexible as possible for people to participate. For example, instead of offering a full day of courses for 5 consecutive days, we'll have about three hours of live programming three days a week that will also be recorded and available to participants for up to six months after. We also normally put participants into "learning groups" that meet periodically during the week to process what they're learning, and we'll carry that part over to our virtual institute by making the groups smaller and scheduling Zoom calls for them on the days when the courses aren't meeting. That way, teachers still get that social-professional networking and collaboration!

At least in this first iteration of a virtual institute, we'll be aiming to keep our numbers smaller than what we normally do, but perhaps, if it goes well, we'll offer versions of this in the future for even larger numbers!

Good luck with your own virtual adventures this summer--I hope this helps!




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Abby Krolik
Executive Assistant
Professional Development Collaborative
Washington International School
www.pdcollaborative.org
www.wis.edu
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-28-2020 12:02 PM
From: Charles Hersh
Subject: Teacher Conferences During COVID-19

Hi all,

Are there any other museums with teacher conferences with teachers who are thinking about how to move them to a virtual format?

Each summer, the National Museum of American Jewish History hosts around 20 teachers from around the country for the National Educators Institute, a jam-packed conference on how to teach American Jewish history. It is four days long and includes lectures and workshops with prominent scholars in the field, opportunities to apply knowledge by testing out educational programs they can bring to their classroom, and time to work with teachers from other schools on developing new lessons for their classrooms. Teachers have reported that they find the time spent with other teachers just as useful as time spent with scholars. It is very intense, but very beneficial!

We want to still be able to offer some sort of program to this year's teachers, but we obviously don't want the solution to be something like 8 hours on zoom, because that's ridiculous and exhausting. That said, we want to come to a solution that somehow maintains the social and collaborative environment we aim for.

Are there any other museums in a similar position? If so, I would love to brainstorm this issue!

Thanks,
Charlie

------------------------------
Charlie Hersh
Education Specialist
National Museum of American Jewish History
Philadelphia, PA
------------------------------