Grant Proposal

NEH Application Cover Sheet

Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant

http://www.neh.gov/grants/odh/digital-humanities-start-grants

Project Director

Michael Gallimore

Institution: 

Fairmont State University

Application Information: 

Title: West Virginia Social Studies Teachers Association 

Grant Period: 

6/1/2014-7/1/2015

Field of Project: Humanities

                                          

Abstract

Across the state of WV, many teachers associations exist to promote teaching leadership, technology integration, and best practices for teaching subject matter.  However, currently there are no programs or groups to assist the classrooms for teachers in the field of Social Studies.  This grant will help with the creation of an association that will intend to exist as a continuing learning opportunity for teachers across the state of WV. 

Statement of Innovation:

This project is will act as the first educational group in the state of WV of its kind.  The West Virginia Social Studies Association will provide imperative services to teachers that currently exist in no other way.  This group will provide digital learning tools, best practice information, ongoing educational resources, and a constant tool for teachers to express how to make their classrooms better, and the West Virginia Social Studies Association will continually ask for feedback about how this group can better meet the needs of teachers and how the organization will become better.  Furthermore, the West Virginia Social Studies Association will be best innovative because the staff will be working teachers in social studies, which will provide real time data and expert knowledge on the goals of the organization.  At this time, no other group exists to fill this gap of knowledge in West Virginia. 

Statement of Humanities Significance: 

The academic focus of this group will encompass the fields of social studies.  Social studies covers a broad range of topics which help children learn about the humanities during the duration of their time before college.  This group will help to close gaps of knowledge of best practices of social studies teaching, will help teachers to explain the greater state and national significance of their teaching, and will help teachers who are interested the history of West Virginia and Appalachia better teach their students.  The students and teachers in WV deserve the best services in the humanities, and this group will strive to meet any need or break any barrier to the educational process of social studies. 

Narrative: 

The WV Social Studies Teachers Association, or WVSSTA, will focus on professional development for teachers who are currently teaching social studies, and will help future teachers become better social studies teachers.  The WVSSTA will strive to provide a constant learning opportunity for existing and future teachers.  The WVSSTA will become 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, which will seek to provide additional funding for low income and underrepresented schools.  

West Virginia is a state with rich cultural and natural resources.  West Virginia has historical roots in the colonization of North America, the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Industrial Revolution, the Civil Rights Movement, and continues to be a place of national importance.  However, despite the cultural and historical significance, and the importance of some of the most valuable natural resources in the nation, West Virginia continues to deal with poverty, underdevelopment, infrastructure issues, and the crippling “brain drain,” due to the lack of secondary education and need for college educated labor markets. 

Enhancing the humanities through innovation: 

The WVSSTA will work fill gaps in many different educational needs areas.  The WVSSTA will work to promote professional development, better learning environments for children in WV, help to move WV forward in the digital age, explore the needs of individual schools, and provide information and resources to teachers to provide for their technology hardware needs.  The WVSSTA will also focus its efforts in promoting the continuing education of the history of WV and Appalachia, and direct the students of WV to work to fix these issues. 

In addition, the WVSSTA will focus it’s efforts on the best practices of technological integration into the classroom.  In today’s digital world, it’s important for students to be exposed to technology use in the classroom at an early age.  Many of the workshops provided will be on the use of technology, new technology, and how to connect students of social studies with other students and issues of the state, nation, and world.  

Environmental Scan 

Although a teachers association like this fails to exist in WV, there are many other groups in other states that have similar design and function to that of the WVSSTA.  The Texas Council for the Social Studies, or TCSS, has a very similar function.  The TCSS has an excellent website that serves as a place for teachers to promote their ongoing research, it provides texts and materials to assist with subject matter, and allows to post on going learning opportunities for teachers.  The WVSSTA will look to the TCSS for guidance and help for the successful creation and operation of its goals.  

Additionally, The Illinois Council for the Social Studies, The Michigan Council for the Social Studies, and the Ohio Council for the Social Studies all have similar formats and goals as the WVSSTA.  Like the TCSS, the WVSSTA will seek information and guidance from other social studies organizations for help to create the best group possible.  

As similar work is being done in other states, WV has a need for such an association.  Digital teaching resources will help to provide a low cost method of expanding their knowledge of the field, networking with other teachers, and the annual conference will allow them to share what works in the classroom and how other teachers are helping their students to learn.  Many similar teaching associations exist in WV, but they are all focused on subjects like math and science.  This association will be the first of its kind in WV, as no other teacher association currently exists to focus on social studies and promote teacher involvement on this scale.  

History and duration of the project 

The research has been conducted over a four month period.  During this time, it has been noted that states across the country have adopted new teaching standards and curriculum to help teachers to provide all necessary material.  Given the need for new standards, a concept was acknowledged that some students were not obtaining complete knowledge in many different academic studies, thus needing to standards to ensure they do.  This idea, along with the need for better technology sharing resources, helped to be the catalyst for the idea of the WVSSTA.  Furthermore, teachers may have different approaches to teaching the history of WV and Appalachia.  This group will strive to help unify a body of work, through teacher input, to make sure that WV History is taught with the up most amount of professionalism and academic integrity.  An aspect of this integrity comes in the form of the direction of focus of specific historical and regional importance in this field.  Through the website and yearly conference, it will be the teachers that work together, share information, and help to decide what should be the focus of lessons being taught about WV.  

June 1, 2014- Purchase the www.wvssta.net domain name.  After the purchase of the domain name, the efforts will be directed to creating a message board to best fit the teachers needs. Many teachers will be asked to provide input on what they think would be the best way to run the site and what features the site should provide. 

June 15, 2014- After brainstorming and pre-launch trials, the site will be formally launched on June 15, 2014.  During this time, the WVSSTA will work diligently to recruit members and ask for feedback on how the would want the association to run.  

June 15, 2014- Ongoing- Preparing for the 2015 conference.  This will include preparing the materials for the conference, recruiting trainers to come and provide information about new technology in the classroom, recruiting teachers to lead discussions about teaching leadership, etc.  Preparing for this conference will be a long process, but with ample time, one year, preparing for the conference will be doable. This will be the time to prepare everything for the conference, such as renting even space from the Raleigh County Convention center

October 10, 2014- Submit application to obtain 501(c)(3) status.  This status will help the WVSSTA to obtain grant monies, as well as take in kind donations.  These donations could range from computers, to school supplies, and teachers will be able to submit request forms to the WVSSTA for what they need. 

April 10, 2015- Meet with conference planning team and prospective teachers to ensure conference stability.  

July 20, 2015- The first annual WVSSTA conference.

This will conclude the grant period.  The WVSSTA will consider its establishment after the first conference. 

Work Plan

The WVSSTA will primarily work through three pathways: a biannual online newsletter, an online forum, and an annual summer conference.  

The WVSSTA will have an annual conference that will offer workshops to teach various educational activities.  Workshops will include, but are not limited to, using technology in the classroom, grant writing, educational activities, promote teacher research, assist in continuing education credits, promote national teacher certification, etc.  Assessment of conference will come in the form of an evaluation sheet that will be mailed to members and participants of the conference.  The evaluation sheet will include a questionnaire on what worked and what didn’t, will inquire about future participation of conferences, and will ask for individual feedback about what should be offered in subsequent conferences.  A portion of the online message board will be focused on the conference and how it can be made better. 

The WVSSTA will have a focus on helping to provide educational leading standards to the underrepresented populations of the state.  The WVSSTA Annual Conference will accept donations, but operating costs will rely on grants and membership fees.  Membership fees will be $30.00 per year, but these fees will be based off a prorated system.  If a teacher comes from a school with a high percentage of children falling below the federal poverty level, special consideration will be taken to include these teachers and membership fees will be waved.  If the median income salary of a county falls below the national poverty level and within 15% above the poverty level, teachers will have membership fees waved.  Furthermore, this program will take special emphasis on the county statistics of the amount of families that come from first generation college students and low margin college family backgrounds.  Moreover, the WVSSTA will work diligently to asses the technology needs of each school and will provide all available resources to provide resources to make sure needs are met. 

The purpose of the online newsletter will help to promote awareness of grant and resource opportunities for WV teachers, share stories of successful new technology in the classroom, explain new education legislative changes, promote the summer conference, and provide teachers with community service opportunities for their student's, normally in relation to social studies.  The purpose of the newsletter being online will function to eliminate costs, environmental degradation, and the increasing use of digital technology.  Since the newsletter will be not require costs, this will significantly lower the operating expenses needed to spread knowledge of the association to members. The newsletter will be evaluated on the online message board and will feature a thread about input that should be included in the next newsletter. 

The purpose of the online message board will be to assist teachers throughout the year, where they will be able to ask questions, post answers, see what other teachers are doing, and so much more.  The message board will feature many different threads to fit the ongoing needs of WV social studies teacher’s needs.  For example, one thread may only deal with educational activities in the classroom, while another may be a way for teachers to post class project ideas and then post pictures of the class projects as they are completed. Evaluation of the message board will come in the form of a specific thread to help the users 

This will be an excellent resource to teachers, as no other association exists in WV specifically for social studies teachers. 

Staff 

At this time, staff is being recruited to promote the best statewide association possible.  At the current time, the staff is quite limited, but recruitment is being completed in a statewide manner.  Due to the size of WV and the different cultural and political nature of the state, members from all different education regions are being sought.  Once the group has been chosen, members will run for the various positions in the WVSSTA.  The group will have an advisory board, which will meet monthly in Charleston, WV to discuss the agenda of the group.  The staff members will be decided once recruitment has been completed. 

 Budget: 

The total grant being requested will be $1210.00.  These funds are start up funds and they will provide enough budget for start up fees and one year of operating, until all association goals have been met once.  After the initial year, funds will be raised in many different venues, but the WVSSTA will seek donations.  This organization will have an operating budget, but other than costs associated with maintaining the organization, conference, and online newsletter, volunteers will offer their labor as in kind donations.  Meaning, positions within this organization will not be paid.  This will be a strictly volunteer project and the strength of this program will rely on the level of work that volunteers wish to contribute.The WVSSTA will be offer ongoing donation and funding opportunities 

Biography:

At this time, the principal project participants are being recruited.  The members being sought out are veteran teachers of social studies, but early teachers are also encouraged to join the WVSSTA team to work on these projects.  The WVSSTA will have formal qualifications of members: must be a certified teacher, must be either currently teaching or a recently retired teacher, participants can members of the Board of Education and State Board of Education, but they still must fulfill all other criteria. 

Data management Plan

Data management of the WVSSTA will primarily come in the form of a website and the online newsletter.  Data will be distributed on the website through the message board, where members will be able to interact with other teachers, share knowledge, and keep up to date with what the WVSSTA will be doing.  Other data will be managed by the team through computer storage devices and paper folders.  It will be the responsibility of the teachers to maintain this storage.  

Resources

ProBoards. (2014) Proboards: Free Message Board Forum Creator. Retrieved from  http://www.proboards.com/create-free-forum

Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center.(2014) Prices. Retrieved from   http:// beckleyconventioncenter.com/Prices

West Virginia Science Teachers Associtaion. (2014) Join Today WVSTA.  Retrieved from  http://www.wvsta.org/index.php/membership.html

West Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics. (2014) President’s Remarks. Retrieved from  http://www.wvctm.com/

United States Census Bureau (2014) State and County Quick facts: Wyoming County, West Virginia. Retrieved from  http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/ 54/54109.html

United States Census Bureau (2014) State and County Quick Facts: Mcdowell County, West Virginia. Retrieved from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/ 54/54047.html

Texas Council for Social Studies. (2014) About. Retrieved from http://txcss.org/? page_id=2

Illinois Council for the Social Studies (2014) Welcome Social Studies Educators. Retrieved from http://www.illinoiscss.org/

Michigan Council for the Social Studies (2014) Strategic Plan. Retrieved from https://www.mcssmi.org/about-mcss-mainmenu-29/strategic-plan-mainmenu-75

Ohio Council for the Social Studies (2014) OCSS Mission Statement. Retrieved from 

http://ocss.org/