Announcements

History and Social Science Standards of Learning Curriculum Framework 2008 and the Impact on Assessment

To assist school divisions in aligning existing curriculum to the revised 2008 Standards of Learning for history and social science, the 2008 History and Social Science Standards of Learning Curriculum Framework document has been updated to reflect the 2008 History and Social Science Standards of Learning. The document is posted on the Virginia Department of Education's Web site at http://www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/Instruction/History/hist_ss_framework.html.

The History and Social Science Standards of Learning assessments will continue to be based on the 2001 History and Social Science Standards of Learning through the summer 2010 test administration. Field-test items on the spring 2010 History and Social Science Standards of Learning assessments will include the new content of the revised 2008 standards.

As stated in Superintendent's Memorandum Number 49, dated February 29, 2008, beginning in 2010-2011, the Standards of Learning (SOL) tests will assess full implementation of the 2008 History and Social Science SOL. The SOL history tests based on the 2008 curriculum framework will be implemented according to the schedule communicated to you via Superintendent's Memorandum Number 239-09, August 28, 2009. Please note that the grade three History and Social Science Standards of Learning assessment will continue to be a cumulative assessment. School divisions will need to align curriculum to ensure that third-grade students being assessed in 2011 have been instructed in new content included in the revised 2008 Standards.

2010 Summer Teacher Opportunities

Jamestown Settlement & Yorktown Victory Center
Summer Teacher Institute
Virginia School Teachers K-12
July 11-16, 2010
Explore the story of colonial America firsthand during this weeklong Teacher Institute at Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center living-history museums.
http://historyisfun.org/teacher-institute.cfm

Colonial Williamsburg
Teacher Institute in Early American History
Summer 2010
Designed for elementary and middle/high school social studies teachers who teach United States history and government, these intensive week-long workshops will immerse participants in early American history "on location" in Williamsburg, the restored capital city of eighteenth-century Virginia, and nearby Jamestown and Yorktown. Twenty-five teachers and a returning mentor teacher will be selected for each session.
http://www.history.org/history/teaching/tchsti.cfm

Virginia Holocaust Museum
Teacher Education Institute – Summer 2010
This five day course is designed to assist middle and high school teachers in expanding their knowledge of the Holocaust and other genocides. The course provides teachers with excellent tools necessary to teach such sensitive subjects to their students.
http://www.va-holocaust.com/learn/default.asp?id=60

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History 2010 Summer Seminars
K-12 history, social studies and English teachers are invited to apply to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History 2010 Summer Seminars. Taught by renowned historians on college campuses in the US and the UK, these one-week seminars give educators the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of topics in American history—while gaining practical resources and strategies to take back to the their classrooms.
http://www.gilderlehrman.org/education/seminar_course_offerings.php

National Endowment for the Humanities 2010 Summer Programs in the Humanities for Teachers
Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops provide the opportunity for K-12 educators to engage in intensive study and discussion of important topics in American history at sites of historical or cultural significance.
http://www.neh.gov/projects/summer10.html

2010 Supreme Court Summer Institute for Teachers
Since it began in 1995, the Supreme Court Summer Institute for Teachers has brought together over 800 teachers from across the country to convene in Washington, D.C., for six days of educational activities related to teaching about the U.S. Supreme Court. The Institute is co-sponsored by the Supreme Court Historical Society.
http://www.streetlaw.org/en/CalendarEvent.31.aspx

New Resources for Instruction

Virginia Memory from the Library of Virginia
Virginia Memory is part of the online presence of the Library of Virginia, the state archives and reference library at the seat of government for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Since the mid-1990s, the Library has digitized parts of the collections in an effort to make our materials more widely available to our online users.
http://www.virginiamemory.com/

Teaching with Primary Sources Direct
The Library of Congress has launched a new online resource for educators entitled Teaching with Primary Sources Direct. TPS Direct enables educators to integrate primary sources into their classrooms by creating customized lesson plans based on documents and artifacts from the Library’s extensive collections. Applicable across grade levels and content areas, this project allows educators to search the TPS database for content-rich activities.
http://www.loc.gov/teachers/professionaldevelopment/tpsdirect/

The Library of Congress has also just announced a new teacher’s page, with links to classroom materials and professional development resources offered by the LOC. Educators will want to visit this site frequently to find out what’s new from the LOC and find a wealth of resources for the classroom: http://www.loc.gov/teachers/

Encyclopedia Virginia
Encyclopedia Virginia is a publicly accessible online publication of the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. As a web publication, the Encyclopedia adds an entirely new dimension to the work done by VFH over the last thirty years.
http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/

Online Games about Government and Civics
The Texas Law-Related Education (LRE) Department of the State Bar has created 13 online interactive games about government and civics. Check them out at http://www.texaslre.org/onlinegames.html.

Virginia Vignettes
Virginia Vignettes http://www.virginiavignettes.org is a brief weekly column which concisely presents a question from Virginia history along with an interpretative answer by a noted historian or scholar of Virginia. Virginia Vignettes is brought to you by the Online Virginia Encyclopedia (OVE), which is scheduled to debut in 2007. The OVE will be a comprehensive compendium of Virginia history and culture and will serve as the first point of reference for information on Virginia.
Sign up at http://www.virginiavignettes.org/signup.html.