Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.—This week, 20 educators from across the Magnolia State are returning to their classrooms with the knowledge and confidence to integrate Library of Congress Primary Sources into their instruction.

Teachers representing each Congressional District and geographic area of Mississippi are participating through Friday in the Teaching with Primary Sources Mississippi Summer Institute.

MSU Assistant Professors Nicole C. Miller and Paul E. Binford and Associate Professor Kenneth V. Anthony in the College of Education’s Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Special Education are organizers of the institute, which also will be offered June 17-21.

Anthony, who also serves as the department’s elementary education undergraduate coordinator, said learning about specific methods for teaching using primary sources will help participants develop mini-lessons they can incorporate into their own professional practice and share with other educators.

“Our goal is to help highlight the work of TPS Mississippi and to increase the use of primary sources and Library of Congress materials in classrooms across the state because we believe this will benefit student learning,” he said.

The university’s TPS Mississippi Summer Institute is made possible with support from a three-year grant funded by the Library of Congress TPS program.

The grant enables MSU to provide professional development training to pre-service and in-service teachers in Mississippi school districts, as well as on the Starkville campus and at conferences or seminars across the state in partnership with various educational agencies. These organizations include MSU’s Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, Mississippi Geographic Alliance, Mississippi Council for the Social Studies, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. 

In addition to the MSU curriculum, instruction and special education department’s TPS classroom in Allen Hall, learning activities are taking place in Grant Presidential Library, Department of Geosciences’ Dunn-Seiler Museum, and the Cobb Institute of Archaeology’s Lois Dowdle Cobb Museum of Archaeology, among others.

Learn more about Teaching Primary Sources Mississippi at www.msstatetps.org.

Established in 1903, MSU’s College of Education is home to six academic departments, one research unit and numerous service units. For more about the college, visit www.educ.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.