Students often struggle to understand the increasingly complex content and vocabulary presented in social studies. Frustrated teachers often feel that it is easier to just cover the information presented instead of working to help students make meaningful connections. Effective strategies increase students learning and build scores on standardized social studies reading and writing tests. This workshop will share successful strategies that target the unique features and constructions of social studies texts as well as other forms of nonfiction and fiction. Handouts and materials provided can be used immediately to modify social studies instruction.

How can social studies teachers engage their students at deep levels so true learning occurs? Brain researchers and educational leaders such James Zull and Robert Marzano suggest developing instructional units around the mysteries of history. Participants in this workshop will use resources from the Buck Institute and others to focus on both the theory and implementation of Problem-Based Learning (PBL). Who killed the Iceman? What really happened at the Battle of the Little Big Horn? What became of the lost colony of Roanoke? Who was the Man in the Iron Mask? How did Cortez conquer the Aztecs? Teachers can use these and mysteries like them to focus student attention and meet state standards. During this workshop, educators will be presented with resources, examples, and time to begin constructing their own history mystery unit.

How can social studies teachers engage their students at deep levels so true learning occurs? Brain researchers and educational leaders such James Zull and Robert Marzano suggest developing instructional units around the mysteries of history. Participants in this workshop will use resources from the Buck Institute and others to focus on both the theory and implementation of Problem-Based Learning (PBL). Who killed the Iceman? What really happened at the Battle of the Little Big Horn? What became of the lost colony of Roanoke? Who was the Man in the Iron Mask? How did Cortez conquer the Aztecs? Teachers can use these and mysteries like them to focus student attention and meet state standards. During this workshop, educators will be presented with resources, examples, and time to begin constructing their own history mystery unit.

This workshop provides in-depth training about the Winston Churchill Memorial's education curriculum specific to the 4–5 classroom. This workshop will assist teachers in preparing students for participating in the Memorial's various on-site and outreach school programs.

In this institute, K–12 teachers, in conjunction with a group of leading scholars and public historians, will explore a neglected but crucially important aspect of early American history—the two-and-a-half-century web of connections between the rise of New England as a commercial and industrial center and the enslavement of Africans. New England's extensive and complicated relationship with slavery is a crucial part of the American story that almost never is clearly and comprehensively discussed in American history textbooks. But this is an important story, and there is no better place to explore it, and learn how to teach about it, than in Rhode Island, not only the center of the American slave and provisioning trades, but also the birthplace of the American industrial revolution. The two-week institute will include lectures by experts, tours of historic sites associated with these key developments, and guided explorations of original 18th- and 19th-century print and graphic sources that document this fascinating, often painful history. Teachers will be able to bring back to their classrooms and departments new knowledge, new primary documents and images, and fresh ideas and strategies for teaching this sensitive material, including shared lesson plans.

The America's Industrial Revolution workshop at the Henry Ford will draw together K–12 educators with leading humanities scholars and museum staff for unique enrichment exercises centered on the impact of industrialization. The workshop is designed to encourage participant curiosity and deepen knowledge on the subject, engage participants with innovative methods of transmitting enthusiasm and content to students, and empower participants to use cultural resources to enliven the teaching and learning of history. Participants will explore the diverse ways that Americans experienced social change between the 1760s and the 1920s through lecture/discussions and by visiting with museum curators at 12 of the 80 historic sites interpreted in Greenfield Village, including Thomas Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory, Hermitage Plantation Slave Quarters, 1760s Daggett Farm, 1880s Firestone Farm, a railroad roundhouse, and a 19th-century grist mill. In addition, time is set aside each day for exploration of archival sources in the Benson Ford Research Center and to work on individual lesson plans for implementation back home. The week's activities will culminate with a visit to a related National Historic Landmark, the Ford Motor Company's Rouge Industrial Complex.

This workshop provides a varied program of lectures, demonstrations, analysis of documents, independent research, and group work that introduces teachers to the holdings and organization of the National Archives. Participants will learn how to do research in historical records, create classroom material from records, and present documents in ways that sharpen students' skills and enthusiasm for history, social studies, and the humanities. Each participant selects and prepares to research a specific topic, searches the topic in the records of the National Archives, and develops a teaching unit that can be presented in his or her own classroom.

This workshop provides a varied program of lectures, demonstrations, analysis of documents, independent research, and group work that introduces teachers to the holdings and organization of the National Archives. Participants will learn how to do research in historical records, create classroom material from records, and present documents in ways that sharpen students' skills and enthusiasm for history, social studies, and the humanities. Each participant selects and prepares to research a specific topic, searches the topic in the records of the National Archives, and develops a teaching unit that can be presented in his or her own classroom.

This workshop provides a varied program of lectures, demonstrations, analysis of documents, independent research, and group work that introduces teachers to the holdings and organization of the National Archives. Participants will learn how to do research in historical records, create classroom material from records, and present documents in ways that sharpen students' skills and enthusiasm for history, social studies, and the humanities. Each participant selects and prepares to research a specific topic, searches the topic in the records of the National Archives, and develops a teaching unit that can be presented in his or her own classroom.