HOW AMP WORKS

During Professional Development workshops, AMP staff provide teachers with strong historical content knowledge, helps them practice skills for reading primary sources and video materials, and aids them in creating new and exciting lessons for American History and English Language Arts. All workshops follow three major phases. Phase one consists of active observation as participants focus on information presented through video, audio, images, documents, artwork, and discussion. Phase two involves hands-on work as participants engage in activities that sharpen the media literacy skills necessary to process primary sources. Finally, in phase three, participants are given an opportunity to engage in discussion and debate on how best create classroom applications for their newly acquired skills and knowledge.

Content Enrichment
All AMP workshops focus on deepening teachers’ historical content knowledge and expanding their understanding of a particular time period or theme. Sessions can focus on a range of topics from Western Expansion (Oklahoma!) to the Post-Reconstrucion South (Show Boat), and suggestions are always given for incorporating that information into classroom teaching. All presentations of historical content take into account the latest research by staff historians at N-YHS and by the scholarly community at large and information is always presented in an interactive style that engages participants and encourages further study.

Skills for Active Learning
All AMP workshops are hands-on and teachers take part in activities that allow them to practice and hone skills necessary to read primary sources of a variety of media. The use of primary sources in the study of history is so fundamental to our mission that each workshop helps teachers to decipher them and, in turn, explore how to use them in the classroom.

Media literacy in a larger sense is also a focus of AMP. Specifically, teachers learn to use the performing arts in combination with primary source material to teach history and literacy skills in a more creative and inclusive way. In using works of art to access history and language lessons, teachers can reach students in the everyday language of today’s media rich world.

Practical Lessons for the Classroom
All AMP training sessions provide opportunities for teachers to experiment with newly acquired knowledge and skills before they leave the workshop environment. Participants are encouraged to engage in the reciprocal teaching process and share information and ideas with each other. Through this process participants gain confidence in their new knowledge and skills as they continue their professional growth and improve their work with students.

More than just offering sample lessons, AMP staff work with teachers to help them create coherent units of study for use in their classroom over a period of time that can cover a larger theme. For example, teachers attending a workshop on the American Revolution (1776) explore far more than the details of the Stamp Act of 1765. They are instead assisted in creating several lessons that, when taken together, will help their students understand the many issues and events that led to the American Revolution, and how people responded to those factors. All units of study developed through AMP follow the backwards design model; staff members help teachers to identify desired educational goals for their students and how to assess competency, then we work with teachers to plan instruction and learning experiences designed to help students achieve success.