Long Programs, Seminars, Institutes
These programs may range from 1 day to 6 days in length. With the longer
programs, graduate credit may be arranged, at extra cost, through the
University of Maryland?s University College and PDP-International.
Sixteen hours of contact time (two days) can earn one credit.
Institute 1: World-Mindedness For Teachers
This workshop is for
teachers who wish to incorporate more world-minded materials and methods
into their existing programs; the content covers many dimensions of
Geography Education today, providing exposure to and experience with a
large range of ideas and practices. If there is interest, we cover the
"Mapping The World By Heart" year, but in any case we talk about many
activities and lessons from that curriculum.
Topics include: the national standards and the "Five Themes"; the
variety of materials available for geography and "world-mindedness";
resources in cyber-space and on CD; using Internet and Web Resources to
fit more geography into your already-full program; geography across the
curriculum: finding ways to incorporate geography around the school;
finding & making use of local resources; and a variety activities to
enhance thematic studies and small-group work.
Large-scale group projects will be discussed, and demonstrated,
such as the global-trade game created for North Shore Country Day (and
featured at NCSS in 1999). We will also spend time making and using
outdoor maps, and on world-minded activities of all kinds, and there will
be lots of discussion and problem-solving -- people sharing their teaching
assignments, and the particular questions they have and problems they want
help with.
The program will include sharing time in both small groups and in
the whole group, with questions to be discussed and dealt with. People
will be asked to share lessons they created and used, and to bring in
materials from their students (such as samples of lessons, tests, or
maps).
Institute 2: A Teacher's Guide To Mining The Internet Workshop
Focus:
The workshop will cover a wide range of safe, innovative, and practical
ways to integrate the Internet throughout the school, and in particular
for administrative purposes. We will be looking at building, maintaining,
and using a classroom web site, smart searching, and a number of ways to
use Web resources safely in the classroom, including WebQuests, samplers,
treasure hunts, scrapbooks, and Hotlists. Depending on individual wishes,
the schedule may include:
- Making the best use of search engines, indices, and portals.
- Locating Web sites of value and interest for classes.
- Organizing on-line resources for effective class use.
- Designing safe and effective web-related lessons
- Using the Web for exercises in critical thinking and
cooperative learning.
- Using the Web for Faculty meetings and teacher development.
- Using E-Mail in the classroom and the school.
- Using school & classroom web sites for enrichment.
These longer programs can be offered with a graduate-credit option. For
an overview, see http://www.mapping.com/umuc.html
Short Programs: Workshops and Breakout Sessions
Many programs are available on a variety of topics. Here is a sample of
those programs.
- Geography & Culture Getting beyond places and names, and
integrating
cultural geography more effectively into your social studies, world
studies, or geography program. This workshop presents ideas and strategies
for merging history, geography, and broad multi-cultural concerns into a
balanced, three-dimensional package, presented mostly through cooperative
learning activities in which students, working in small groups, teach and
learn from each other. Includes videos, classroom exercises, and
handouts. Wear comfortable clothes.
- Mapping The World By Heart This acclaimed geography curriculum
helps
you de-mystify the subject. Not only will your students learn physical
and political geography, but as a final activity they will create a
complete world map from memory. This workshop describes, and provides a
selection of material from, the curriculum, there is a sampling of
exercises, and a thorough description of methodology. Program is
presently in use K through 12, around the world.
- Mining The Internet, Short Version This workshop covers safe,
innovative, and practical ways to integrate the Internet throughout the
school. We look at building, maintaining, and using a classroom web site,
smart searching, and a number of ways to use Web resources safely in the
classroom, including WebQuests, samplers, treasure hunts, scrapbooks, and
Hotlists
- Building a Useful School Web Site: Points Picked Up We begin
this
workshop with key points from the website presentation above, "Building A
Really Bad Web Site"; from there, we talk about setting goals, planning
and mapping a site, interfaces, the advantages and disadvantages of JAVA
and other tools, and then we take a tour of participants' sites, for
evaluation and comment.
- Global Geography and World-Mindedness in the Primary Grades A
survey of
materials and methods; we?ll look at read-aloud and read-yourself books,
listening and writing assignments, a variety of activities, and several
web-sites. Appropriate for teachers K through 4 or 5; a packet of useful
handouts will be available.
Special Long Program -- The Country Game
A 3-day faculty/student
international trade and treaty game that models global solutions, this
simulation includes the creation of ten unique cultures, dilemmas
involving rights, resources, and national responsibilities; trade, treaty,
and conflict as possible paths to global survival.
In this simulation, students become aware of the issues facing
nation/states as they struggle with limited resources, with trade, and
with preserving their own individual cultures in a widely interconnected
and homogeneous world; they participate in and come to understand
community activities and internal and external relationships; they learn
mercantile terms and activities; and they practice collaboration and
teamwork within one?s own team and with other teams.
Skills include geography; map-making; trade and negotiation;
calculating financial options; reading and understanding complex global
situations; using time effectively as an individual and as a team;
cooperation with team members and with other teams; problem solving.
Structure of the program includes:
- presentation of the basic structure of the game
- dividing students and faculty into teams
- Day 1 -- getting started
- Day 2 -- Making progress towards goals
- Day 3 -- disaster and regeneration
- Discussion, with questions and answers, and handouts.
Platform Presentations
These talks and presentations are up to one hour in length, and have been
used by schools and school associations as keynotes, and as
fund-raisers.
- Can 1+1=3? Globalization and Independence in the next
Millennium.
There are two prevalent, interlinked, and countervailing tendencies
evident in today's world -- globalization that transcends nation-states,
and the assertion of local identities. This keynote examines how these
tendencies have affected global cooperation and understanding, and it
offers ways, within that context, to teach children content that will be
meaningful a decade or a century from now.
- The Geographically Literate Person When doctors evaluate a
patient?s
mental status and level of awareness, two questions are often used: "What
day is it?" and "Where Are You". To answer these questions indicates
consciousness. To answer these questions on a philosophical level
indicates global consciousness. How do we understand where we are in time
and place? What methods can teachers use to help students read maps,
graphs, and charts, to acquire and process the information they contain,
and to understand not only where they are, but where others are, who their
neighbors are, where people live, why, and how? This presentation
provides a framework for understanding what we need to know about the
spatial organization of the people, places, and environments of the world
around us and the places we live.
- Maps Lies And Dreams How our world views are created, and
constrained,
by the maps and metaphors we use; an examination of maps, and world views,
from ancient to modern, with discussion and evaluation. An informative
and revealing presentation for teachers, for schools having or considering
a global studies program, or for anyone interested in maps and the world.
o What's In A Name Words are treacherous. They mean what they seem to
mean, they mean what we want them to mean, or they take meanings of their
own, understood differently by every person who hears or uses the word.
And if our individual perceptions can change the meanings we give everyday
words, then imagine how much more powerful are the layers of meanings in
the words we use to give names to the places we call home. This talk will
present the power and meaning of place names, and the many ways those
names are abused, and it will also bring the listener up to date on the
latest changes in global city and country names.
- How To Build A Bad School Web Site The process of designing a
web site
is quite simple, given the intuitive and easy tools now available. It is
much harder to design a site that actually helps a company or organization
achieve its goals, especially since most organizations? web-site goals are
at once distinct, interlinked, and complementary. The presenter, who has
designed sites for several schools and associations, will present the
major lessons he has learned by leading a tour through a number of sites,
some that work and some that do not.
School Assemblies and classroom visits
Another service of Mapping The World By Heart is classroom visits and
school assemblies. David Smith has acted as "teacher in residence" in
schools all over the country, for periods of 3 days to 6 weeks. He has a
wide range of programs for students of all ages. You can see some of
these programs at http://www.mapping.com/school.html
Technology Consulting Services
David Smith also has wide experience working with schools around their
technology vision. Typically, a school finds that despite its major
investment in infrastructure, technology is not being well or widely
used. Solutions vary, but are usually structured around a wide
range of meetings and conversations about technology and the dreams people
have for using it. Ultimately, a new technology vision emerges, one that
the members of the school community crafted and care deeply about.
Contact us regarding your
needs
Whether you are
looking for enriching and entertaining assemblies, or in-service
programs with PDP's for faculty, we can provide what you need.
Mapping
the World by Heart
For more information,
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