Teacher Professional Development
The Education Department offers interdisciplinary professional development for teachers that makes use of the Museum’s vast and varied collections that will help to bring history alive for students.
We can customize a training opportunity for your group at the Museum or your location! Just contact education@jfk.org to discuss how we can help.
There are often special events, exhibits or special partnerships that occur during the school year for which we hold teacher workshops. Stay tuned to this page for announcements about those or sign up to receive the Educator Newsletter, and we’ll send you the information.
Upcoming Opportunities
VIRTUAL TEACHER SEMINAR
Presidential Leadership at Historic Crossroads
July 10-13, 2023 | 5-7 p.m. CST | $25
We are excited to announce the Museum will be partnering in the summer of 2023 with The Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History for a virtual teacher seminar led by Dr. Barbara A. Perry, Gerald L. Baliles Professor and Director of Presidential Studies at the University of Virginia. This seminar will feature pre-recorded and live sessions with Dr. Perry, two sessions with Sixth Floor Museum staff and pedagogy sessions for elementary, middle and high school educators.
Course Description
Starting with its inception in the eighteenth century, the American presidency has faced numerous inflection points that have reshaped the office. From its constitutional roots to Washington’s precedents, Jacksonian democracy, Lincoln’s Civil War power assertions, Teddy Roosevelt’s and Woodrow Wilson’s creation of the “rhetorical presidency,” Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Great Depression and World War II presidency, the Cold War’s impact, Nixon and Watergate, the Global War on Terror, and Trump’s unprecedented tenure, the chief executive’s influence has waxed and waned depending on circumstances and presidential leadership. Using classic and new scholarship as well as primary sources, this seminar will examine the challenges and responses of presidents when they have faced and sometimes constructed historic crossroads.
Special Topics in History Session
Kennedy’s New Frontier Sixty Years On
The Sixth Floor Museum’s Director of Education presented a Special Topics in History session as part of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History’s summer 2022 virtual teacher professional development programs. View the program in full below.
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas and the world was sent into a mindset based on the question “What if…?” Kennedy had challenged United States citizens to be active citizens, participating in government, demanding change and striving to create a new frontier for future generations. In this program, educators will explore Kennedy’s New Frontier and look at how it changed the country before and after President Kennedy’s death by focusing on three major issues from his time in office.
Explore the roles of the Civil Rights Movement, the Cold War and the Space Race during the 1960s and connect these issues to current events your students are witnessing in their lives. This session will help address the questions “Why is studying history important?” and “How did we get here?” by showing that modern day issues are not isolated to the present. Using Museum collections and curriculum, educators will explore the challenges and choices President Kennedy faced during his time in office and the impact of his legacy through discussion and hands-on activities for the classroom.