Professional Development

We offer Professional Development workshops and seminars for teachers, educators, and school administrators. The Center is an approved NYS CTLE sponsor and teachers will receive CTLE credits for all workshops.

Our courses vary in emphasis and focus, and include both methodological and thematic components. Each course is designed to take full advantage of our rich archival resources and to build upon and directly connect to Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, English as a New Language, and History/Social Studies.

All our workshops include four modules: 1) a lecture by an expert/academic professor; 2) hands-on activities with primary sources from the collections at the Center; 3) short seminar on pedagogical methods in use; 4) peer-reviewed workshop on lesson scenarios and assignments you will take back to your students.

Look for this icon to see which offerings are more focused on methods or on themes:

methods themes



Open House for Educators, Chancellor’s Day

Date: Tuesday, November 5, 9am-2pm
Offered by: All Center Partners
Duration: 4.5 hours
CTLE credits: 2 per session
Download the program agenda

Participate in 1 or all 3 of our 1.5-hour sessions (2 CTLE credits per session).
Each session includes lectures by the experts, presentations by our archivists, and interactive hands-on workshops with primary sources.

Themes include: a) immigration, minorities, NYC history, antisemitism and hate speech; b) formative assessment, teaching critical thinking with primary sources; c) Emma Lazarus curriculum by AJHS; d) microhistory in teaching ENL, Social Studies, and ELA.

Join us and take home ready-to-use ideas on how to use our resources to teach about Enduring Issues!

Light refreshments will be served. Email us at education@cjh.org with any questions.

#Antisemitism #World History #New York History #Immigration #Human Rights and Civil Rights #ENL #ELA #Media Literacy

methods themes


Immigration: Zooming Between the Institutional and the Personal

Date: Wednesday, October 23, 4.30-7pm
Offered by: American Jewish Historical Society and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Duration: 3 hours
CTLE credits: 3

We will study immigration through personal and institutional lenses, zooming back and forth between the microhistory and the Big History at play. What were the dilemmas and challenges that aiding institutions were facing? What fears, hopes, and dreams did the refugees carry with them over the ocean? The answers to these questions are complicated, eye-opening, and timely.

You will explore personal accounts of refugees and immigrants and the documents of major aiding institutions—and include these multiple perspectives to enrich your teaching practice.

Opening lecture delivered by Dr. Susan Jacobowitz, CUNY

#Immigration #World History #New York History #Human Rights #Visual Literacy #Media Literacy #Critical Thinking #Object-based Learning

methods themes


Antisemitism and Fighting the Power of Visual Culture

Date: Tuesday, October 29, 4-7 pm
Offered by: Leo Baeck Institute
Duration: 4 hours
CTLE credits: 4

We will study a plethora of visual and textual examples of antisemitic discourse across languages, continents, and centuries. This is a unique opportunity to get exposure to vast archival material on antisemitica and to ask questions about the power of visual culture and the unfortunate sustainability of major themes in hate speech. And to curate your own mini-exhibition!

Beyond close reading and visual literacy competencies, we will explore “curatorial” approaches to primary sources and methods of using curating as a tool to assess comprehension and critical thinking skills in classroom. Yes, you will take home
some new rubrics, too!

Opening lecture delivered by Dr. Magda Teter, Fordham University

#Antisemitism #World History #New York History #Immigration #Human Rights and Civil Rights #Visual Literacy #Media Literacy #Critical Thinking #Object-based Learning

methods themes


Art, Rebellion, Social Change. Teaching with Primary Sources in ENL, ELA, and Social Studies

Date: Thursday, November 21, 4-7pm
Offered by: All Center Partners
Duration: 3 hours
CTLE credits: 3

In this workshop we will study the role of art in fighting for social change in the 20th century: we will explore the visual language of the suffrage movement, anarchist and socialist songs, and diverse ephemera related to the civil rights cause.

How do we make these primary sources effective in ENL classes? How do we broaden ELA syllabi with more historical records of creative production? How do we critique art-related sources in Social Studies classes? We will focus on methods applicable in your classroom.

Opening lecture delivered by Dr. Malgorzata Bakalarz Duverger, Parsons School of Design.

Antisemitism #World History #New York History #Immigration #Human Rights and Civil Rights #ENL #ELA

methods themes


Holocaust

Date: please inquire
Offered by: Leo Baeck Institute and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Duration: 4 hours
CTLE credits: 4

This course draws on the collections from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and Leo Baeck Institute to explore forced displacement into ghettos and the political, cultural, and social aspects of ghettos’ organization, through personal documents and objects. Assessment strategies for close reading and visual literacy in teaching with primary sources will be at focus during the methodological part of this course.

#Holocaust #Visual Literacy #Critical Thinking #Object-based Learning #World History

methods themes


Women’s Activism

Date: please inquire
Offered by: American Jewish Historical Society
Duration: 2.5 hours
CTLE credits: 3

This course will be an in-depth orientation to women’s rights through the personal papers of women activists, philanthropists, and women-led organizations in the collections of the American Jewish Historical Society and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Participants will contextualize women’s rights within the larger historical narrative and explore archival silence as it relates to women in archival taxonomies.

#Women’s History #New York History #Visual Literacy #Critical Thinking #Object-based Learning

methods themes


1938 — a Turning Point in History

Date: please inquire
Offered by: Leo Baeck Institute
Duration: 4 hours
CTLE credits: 4

This course explores the political, social, and historical context for displacement from Germany and Austria prior to 1939.

Participants will workshop various strategies for using “history from below” perspective in teaching, and for supporting students’ processing of information, including students-curated mini-exhibitions.

#Immigration #Human Rights #Visual Literacy #Media Literacy #Critical Thinking #Object-based Learning #World History #Holocaust

methods themes

Contact Us

For inquiries, to discuss details of our courses, to request a workshop, etc, please email us at education@cjh.org.