Join us in Butte next fall for the 48th Annual Montana History Conference.

Save the Date! The Montana Historical Society is planning an in-person conference (wahoo) and we're putting together an amazing program. Plan on joining us for the 48th Annual Montana History Conference, "A Blast from the Past! Mining Montana History." The conference will be held at the Copper King Convention Center in Butte, September 23-25, 2021. Renewal units will be available for both the Thursday educator workshop and all conference sessions. (Check here beginning July 1 for more details.) We hope you’ll consider attending!

As in past years, we will be offering travel scholarships for both teachers and college students. 

About the scholarships: Funded by the Dennis and Phyllis Washington Foundation, the scholarships will consist of full conference registration plus a $275 travel/expense reimbursement. All teachers and students in Montana’s colleges and universities are eligible to apply (residents of Butte and vicinity are eligible for the conference registration scholarship but not the travel reimbursement). 

Teacher recipients must attend the entire conference, including Thursday’s Educators Workshop and the Saturday sessions. Student recipients must commit to attending all day Friday and Saturday, including a Saturday tour. 

Preference will be given to

• Teachers and students from Montana’s tribal colleges;
• Teachers from Montana’s on-reservation schools;
• Teachers and students from Montana’s community colleges and four-year universities;
• Teachers from Montana’s small, rural, under-served communities.

Applications are due by 11:59 p.m. September 8, 2021. Awards will be announced on Friday, September 10, 2021. Applying for a scholarship is quick and easy. Apply online. 

P.S. What resources do you use that you think other teachers might benefit from? What's your go-to, no-fail, Montana history or IEFA lesson? Let me know by completing our annual, end-of-the-year survey, and I'll share it with your fellow teachers next fall. Bonus: We're offering prizes to the eighteenth, twenty-eighth, thirty-eighth, and forty-eighth person to complete the survey.

 

  

Edpuzzle for Self-Paced, Video-Based Lessons plus MORE Bozeman Trail

Frenchtown teacher Allen McCarty started a trend by sharing information about a PBS video on the Bozeman Trail. Then, Red Lodge teacher Steve Morris wrote in, sharing the unit he created around the video. And then I received this handy tip from Belgrade high school teacher Deb McLaughlin: 

If someone wants to use the film on the Bozeman Trail they should check out the app Edpuzzle.com It is a wonderful teaching tool, and you can edit films. You can do about 5 films for free then the school has to buy a subscription, but well worth it with online and in-class situations.  

I quickly browsed the Edpuzzle website, and it looks like a really useful tool: you can see if students watch the videos and add your own voice narration and questions. The website also promotes Edpuzzle's compliance with FERPA, COPPA, and GDPR laws (though of course you'll need to get your tech folks' approval if your school district doesn't already have an agreement.)  

Thanks, Deb, for sending the link for this resource! Do you have one to share? Email it to me, and I'll share it out. Also, please complete our annual year-end survey, where I hope you'll share a no-fail lesson or favorite Montana history or IEFA resource. Need more incentive? I'm offering a prize to the eighteenth, twenty-eighth, thirty-eighth, and forty-eighth person to complete the survey.

Bozeman Trail 

After sharing Steve's resources, I also received a note from Nikki Vradenberg at MontanaPBS saying that they worked on the Bozeman Trail documentary as well AND, more importantly, they have created a collection on PBS Learning Media with 1.5 to 8 minute clips from the film (plus support material/lesson plans) to make it easier to teach. (Clicking on a clip will take you to a page with both the video and links to the support material for that excerpt.) 

Teaching the Bozeman Trail

Last Tuesday, I wrote about a video recommended by Frenchtown teacher Allen McCarty: The Bozeman Trail: A Rush to Montana's Gold, which is available at WyomingPBS and on YouTube.

Red Lodge teacher Steve Morris responded right away: "I just completed the Gold and Silver Boom segment of our 8th Grade History here at Roosevelt Middle School. The PBS video regarding the Bozeman trail was my central resource and received a lot of student engagement as we explored Montana's approach to Statehood. Via Google Drive, I’ll share the Hyperdocs I developed around the video so you can see just how fun it was for our Rams!" And then he gave me permission to share his material: "Share away, happy to contribute to our community of practice from which I and the students I serve most certainly benefit. SlidesMania.com is my go-to resource for Google Slide Templates, the PBS video presented a plethora of teaching opportunities, and I really enjoyed putting it all together." So, with no further ado, here are Steve's slides: 

Montana's Gold and Silver Boom HyperDoc I

Montana's Gold and Silver Boom HyperDoc II

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Links to Bozeman Trail Video--and Our Year-End Survey

All my best stuff comes from teachers. That's why I was so glad to get an email from Frenchtown teacher Allen McCarty, recommending the video The Bozeman Trail: A Rush to Montana's Gold, which is available at WyomingPBS and on YouTube. It runs an hour and a half but he says his students liked it because of its high production value (and I'm sure you can excerpt it.) I've added it, as Allen suggested, to the video resources listed on the Educator Resources page that accompanies Montana: Stories of the Land, Chapter 6, "Montana's Gold and Silver Boom".

 

What resources do you use that you think other teachers might benefit from? What's your go-to, no-fail, Montana history or IEFA lesson? Let me know by completing our annual, end-of-the-year survey, and I'll share it with your fellow teachers next fall. Bonus: We're offering prizes to the  eighteenth, twenty-eighth, thirty-eighth, and forty-eighth person to complete the survey.

What time is it? It's survey time!

Since 2012, I've sent out a survey asking for feedback as well as asking folks to share information about "the best Montana history or IEFA lesson or project or resource you taught this year--the one you will make time for next year no matter what." Each year, I make changes to the listserv and our other offerings based on the feedback you give. And the "best of" posts that I create every fall, based on the ideas you share, are perennial favorites. That's why I'm asking for your help once again. (Take the survey!)

If you've been part of this community for a long time, you are probably tired of this request. You may also feel as if you've already shared your best ideas--but I hope you'll think of the new teachers, just starting out, trolling for good lessons, and take a moment to share them again. (Take the survey!)

Need more encouragement? I'll be offering a prize to the eighteenth, twenty-eighth, thirty-eighth, and forty-eighth person to complete the survey. Say it with me: Take the survey!  In all seriousness, though--I appreciate your help. 

 

Upcoming Professional Development Opportunities

IEFA Opportunities

Register now for OPI's fourteenth annual Indian Education for All Best Practices Conference, the theme of which is Honoring Indigenous Resilience and Persistence. The free conference will be held online from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 15 and Sunday, May 16. There are fewer sessions than usual (a concession to the online format, no doubt), but they've got some rock-star presenters, including keynotes by Oren Lyons, Onondaga Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy, and Patrick Armstrong Jr. of the Blackfeet Nation.

 

Broadwater Elementary School teacher Jodi Delaney and I will be presenting MHS's new hands-on history footlocker, Montana's First Peoples: Essential Understandings (unfortunately at the same time as the panel of the 2020 and 2021 Advocacy Award for Excellence in Indian Education Recipients and a presentation by Billings librarians Ruth Ferris and Kathi Hoyt on IEFA and primary sources, both of which I'd really like to attend!) Here's a link to the program and here's the link to register. 

 

The Best Practices conference is free, but if you are looking for a chance to go more in-depth (and earn graduate credits), you might want to check out the IEFA special topics courses offered by the Western Montana Professional Learning Collaborative (WMPLC). Summer semester courses are now open.

 

National Opportunities

Possibly the only good thing to come out of the pandemic is that we now can easily Zoom into courses offered outside Montana.

 

I encourage anyone interested in helping students cope with the barrage of fake, exaggerated, or biased information we experience every day to consider taking "Sorting Truth From Fiction: Civic Online Reasoning." This 9-week facilitated class offered by MITx is FREE (and for $50 and they'll give you a certificate of completion.) The instructors are legendary social studies Stanford University education professor Sam Wineburg, of Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) fame, and Justin Reich, comparative media professor at MIT. My colleague Deb Mitchell took the course, and found it tremendously useful. Learn more and find a link to register here. 

 

SHEG is offering a number of three-day workshops, including 

• Introduction to Reading Like a Historian Curriculum and Beyond the Bubble Assessments
• Reading Like a Historian: Local History, Opening Up the Textbook, and Discussion
• Reading Like a Historian with Younger Students, and more. 

They all seem to cost $375, but teachers at Title I schools can apply for scholarships. The deadline to apply for a scholarship is May 10.

 

Apply to Present at the MFPE Educator Conference

 The deadline to submit an application to present at the 2021 MFPE Educator Conference is APRIL 30! That's this Friday.

The conference will be held October 21-22 in Great Falls and MFPE is accepting applications to present in person or virtually. That means you can present even if you can't get to Great Falls for the conference.

Will you help make the social studies strands as rich as they can possibly be by sharing your strategies, knowledge or best lessons? Click here to submit your proposal.