Professional Learning

In-Person and Site-Based Programs

Role: Program Manager | Audience: K-12 Educators

The Challenge

Cultural institutions like The National WWII Museum and Colonial Williamsburg develop rich historical content and classroom resources, but face a common challenge: helping educators translate that content into effective, engaging classroom instruction.

Teachers need professional learning experiences that are not only content-rich, but also:

  • Practical and classroom-ready

  • Aligned to instructional best practices

  • Engaging and interactive

  • Scalable across diverse audiences

My Approach

I design and facilitate in-person professional learning experiences for K-12 educators, ranging from multi-day immersive workshops to district-based training sessions.

Across both institutions, my approach focused on:

  • Bridging content and pedagogy: Ensuring teachers not only learned historical content, but also how to teach it

  • Collaborating with subject-matter experts: Historians, interpreters, and educators

  • Designing for active learning: Modeling instructional strategies teachers could immediately apply

  • Centering teacher outcomes: Prioritizing classroom transfer and student impact

Experience Design (In-Person Learning)

The professional learning experiences I designed and facilitated included:

  • Content sessions led by historians and subject-matter experts

  • Hands-on activities modeling inquiry-based and primary source instruction

  • Interactive tours of museum spaces and historic sites

  • Facilitated discussions and collaborative reflection

  • Capstone or application-based projects aligned to classroom implementation

For district-based programs, I partnered with school and district leaders to:

  • Identify teacher needs

  • Customize training sessions

  • Align content with curriculum and standards

Blended and Extended Learning

Many of these experiences extended beyond the in-person setting through:

  • Pre- and post-learning resources

  • Online components or follow-up sessions

  • Opportunities for continued engagement and implementation

These features allowed for a more sustained learning experience beyond a single workshop.

Outcome

These programs reached educators across the country through:

  • Multi-day immersive institutes

  • On-site museum workshops

  • District and school-based professional development

Participants engaged deeply with historical content while gaining practical strategies and tools to implement in their classrooms.

These experiences supported:

  • Increased teacher confidence in teaching complex historical topics

  • Greater use of primary sources and inquiry-based instruction

  • Meaningful classroom application and student learning

  • “I have never participated in such a high quality professional development workshop. I would recommend this experience to any teacher at any level.”

  • “I am so grateful to have been a part of this training. I cannot wait to share what I learned with my colleagues.”

  • “I can’t imagine the amount of time, effort, and dedication it took to plan this workshop. I have attended a lot of teacher training, and this was, hands down, the best!”

  • “This was an informative and unique learning experience. The opportunity to do a deep dive into Museum resources and how to incorporate them into my classes was incredible.”

Previous

Asynchronous Courses