Lee University held “Of the People: Concepts of Citizenship in World History, U.S. History, and U.S. Government,” a workshop focused on improving teachers’ effectiveness in teaching history and social studies content and integrating content with Tennessee state standards. During the five-day summer workshop, teachers were provided with pedagogical instruction and rich content focused on using primary sources.
Twenty-five high school history and social studies teachers attended the event and received three hours of graduate credits from Lee’s Helen DeVos College of Education.
Dr. Randy R. Wood, professor of humanities and chair of Lee’s Department of History, Political Science and Humanities, served as director of the event with Dr. John Coats, professor of history, as co-director. Lee faculty led the workshops.
“I thought the professional camaraderie was the best part of the program,” said Dale Dworak (Lee 2004, 2013), an AP government teacher at Brainerd High School in Chattanooga. “It was refreshing to meet other teachers and the Lee faculty and discuss teaching and government at a high level. It was great to be back in the classroom learning again.”
Each day of the event built on to the previous day’s workshops and featured these daily themes: Citizenship: Crafting the Dream; Reshaping the Dream; Citizenship: Preserving the Dream; Citizenship: Your Dream or Mine?; and Citizenship: Our Shaded Dream.
Included among the 22 topics presented throughout the week were “Working with the U.S. Constitution,” “Citizenship and the Age of Nationalism and Imperialism,” and “Citizenship and 20th Century America.” Additionally, workshop attendees participated in field experiences at Chickamauga Battlefield in Fort Oglethorpe and Historic Fort Hill Cemetery, located in Cleveland.
This project is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee through the federal Improving Teacher Quality program managed by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.
Dr. Drew Bledsoe, assistant professor of history at Lee, leading participants in a drill at the Chickamauga National Battlefield