Rolling Applications Begin October 9 for One-Day Social Studies Teacher Workshops
This fall and winter the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) will host Institute for Louisiana Culture and History (ILCH) workshops for K–12 social studies educators in Lake Charles, Port Allen, Shreveport, and Alexandria. These Saturday workshops will focus on Reconstruction in Louisiana in alignment with the Louisiana Department of Education’s (LDOE) new 7th grade social studies standards and provide a $150 stipend for all participants.
Applications will be open on a rolling basis beginning October 9. See below for the workshop and application schedule, as well as additional details about the facilitators and eligibility.
Schedule
Lake Charles
Saturday, November 9, 2024 | 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Port Allen
Saturday, December 7, 2024 | 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Apply here from November 7—December 2
Shreveport
Saturday, January 11, 2025 | 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Louisiana State University-Shreveport
Apply here from December 11—January 3
Alexandria
Saturday, February 1, 2025 | 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Louisiana State University-Alexandria
Details
These one-day regional workshops will provide Louisiana-based public school social studies educators the opportunity to build their content knowledge by engaging with a historian and participating in social studies working sessions exploring how to use expanded standards-aligned content found on LEH’s 64 Parishes digital encyclopedia, 64parishes.org, in the classroom.
Historian Dr. Shae Smith Cox will take participating teachers on a deep dive into Louisiana’s Reconstruction-era history. Dr. Shae Smith Cox is an assistant professor of History at Texas A&M University in College Station, TX. She was previously an assistant professor of History at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana. She earned her Ph.D. in American History with a minor in Public History at the University of Nevada. She studies material culture and sensory history of the U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction era. As a Public Historian, she specializes in museum studies, material culture, oral history, and memory. LSU Press published her first book The Fabric of Civil War Society: Uniforms, Badges, and Flags, 1859-1939 in February 2024. She recently co-authored an entry in 64 Parishes about Smithridge, a historically Black community founded after the Civil War in Louisiana.
Louisiana social studies curriculum specialist Lindsay Bardes will lead hands-on teaching sessions. Lindsay Bardes has been an educator in Louisiana for over fifteen years. Bardes earned her teaching certification from the University of New Orleans and her Master of Education from RELAY Graduate School of Education. After spending the first decade of her career teaching early elementary school, she transitioned to school leadership, teacher
coaching, and curriculum writing. Bardes served as Director of Curriculum and Instruction for Social Studies at ReNEW Charter Schools, where she coached social studies teachers in grades 3–8 across three campuses. Bardes currently serves as Schools Manager at New Schools for Baton Rouge. She also works as an educational consultant, providing professional development sessions and teacher resources for all things curriculum and instruction.
The institute will provide a $150 stipend to all regional workshop participants on completion of the one-day workshop. Social studies educators and specialists employed by public schools in Louisiana and working with 7th grade social studies content are encouraged to apply. All four workshops will cover the same content. We encourage applicants to apply to participate in the workshop most closely located to their residence.
About 64 Parishes Encyclopedia and K–12 Educational Resources
Encompassing an award-winning quarterly print magazine and website, encyclopedia, and K–12 resources, LEH’s 64 Parishes explores Louisiana history and culture. 64 Parishes Encyclopedia hosts over 1,300 entries about Louisiana accompanied by thousands of archival images, documents, and audio files. The encyclopedia is the LEH’s most-used resource, reaching hundreds of classrooms across Louisiana each year.
The institute has expanded encyclopedia content and adapted and grade-leveled encyclopedia entries for the classroom. As part of the effort to better serve students and teachers, institute staff has also rolled out new tools, including the Teacher Resource Map, that allow teachers to search content by the new Louisiana social studies standards.
The LDOE, one of LEH’s partners on the 64 Parishes Encyclopedia expansion, introduced new social studies standards in the 2023–24 school year. The new course frameworks expand the study of Louisiana history and culture in the state’s public schools from third and eighth grade to nearly every grade. Together, LEH and LDOE have mapped these new social studies standards to the content on 64parishes.org, creating resources for teachers and students, including grade-level-appropriate adaptations of key texts.
