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Program Teachers

Bowling Green State

Angela Falter Thomas, PhD

Associate Professor of Education
Bowling Green State University
College of Education and Human Development
School of Teaching and Learning

  1. What attracted you to the TPS regional grant program? 

    The ability to have a little bit of financial assistance first attracted me to the program. I’d wanted to conduct some professional development training for teachers who had been contacting me and asking for help with using primary sources to teach literary and meet Ohio’s New Learning Standards. Being able to offer the teachers a small stipend, if they met all of the requirements, was a huge help. In total, we had 72 participants. We actually had to turn teachers away so many wanted to attend.

  2. What are some of the highlights of the professional development you offered with your TPS regional grant? 

    I teamed up with social studies methods professors to conduct workshops at Bowling Green State University (my home institution), the University of Akron, and the University of Cincinnati. We held at the last workshop simultaneously at all three locations, connected by a video/audio feed. 

    Highlights included:

    • Guided web explorations and primary source analyses using Library of Congress  tools
    • Modeling Library of Congress primary source-based lessons
    • Focus on teaching literacy and meeting Ohio’s New Learning Standards
    • Teams of workshop participants creating and teaching lesson plans together
    • Skyping with other teachers around the state, sharing ideas and asking questions
    • Selecting exemplary projects to be presented at a state English teachers’ conference
  3. What impact did your TPS grant have on your participants’ ability to teach with primary sources?

    Teachers applied in teams that included one social studies teacher and one language arts teacher. They needed to be able to co-teach a lesson developed as part of the workshop back in their classrooms. Through their sharing at future workshops and through the lesson plans they submitted, we saw they learned to integrate Library of Congress primary sources in their social studies and language arts classrooms.

  4. What lasting effects did the TPS regional grant have on your programming for educators?

    I am a methods instructor for language arts. I now devote two full class sessions to using primary sources from the Library of Congress for my students who are future language arts teachers.

    Comments from workshop exit cards:

    • I really enjoyed this and will absolutely utilize these resources.”
    • I like being walked through the Library of Congress website to see all the benefits it has to offer. This made it easier when were on our own. Good resources to take back to the classroom.”
    • Strong presenters – clear, concise and relevant. Great command of concepts as well as actual tools and processes.”