Teaching Use of Digital Primary Sources for K-12 Settings

This paper describes learning outcomes of a three-day workshop on integrating primary sources into K-12 teaching. The short curriculum — intended for teams of teachers and school librarians — combined visits to a museum and a library's special collections with an introduction to significant national and local digital collections of primary sources. The paper draws on focus group data, reflection papers, and a conference presentation by the workshop participants as well as curricular artifacts presented to the workshop instructors. Using their workshop experience, teachers integrated digitized primary sources into their curricula thereby creating quality instructional content that engaged students' interest. School librarians and teachers worked together during the workshop, establishing a model for future collaboration. They were exposed to readily accessible digital sources they can draw upon for scholastic projects and lifelong learning. Primary source sets created by workshop participants were added to local and national educational websites for others to use.