A consortium member of the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program.

Barat Education Foundation is building teacher confidence and competence in using the Library of Congress to bring history to life for students in grades K-12.  We collaborate with local teachers to create highly interactive student projects using the LOC materials that meet IL standards and curriculum requirements.  Our collaborative, project-based approach combines the research for change management and long-term learning effectiveness into a synergistic project strategy that includes the following benefits:

• Collaborative project development with a cohort of teachers builds their personal ownership and sponsorship for the project, and continued work with Library of Congress primary sources
  
  
• Our  project-based approach streamlines the translation from ‘training into action’
  
  
• Our high usage rates prove that we are connecting significant numbers of students with Library of Congress materials in a high-quality, hands-on approach
  
  
• Our research-based approach is backed by evidence that project-based learning is critical for long-term memory
  
  
• Our initial results prove our hypothesis: that a fun, compelling project based approach will create a self-propelling model to drive high usage of the Library of Congress projects in other classrooms and schools.

Schools | Teacher Testimonials

Our Services in American Memory … 

Teacher Workshop/Technology Lab
The Barat Education Foundation proudly presents fun, effective, and impactful professional development for educators who want to enrich learning through primary source activities and projects that promote critical thinking.

This summer we are focusing on Teaching for Understanding along the following path:
Concept > Experience > Inquiry > Creation > Reflection

The Learning @ the Source series includes in-person workshops and online modules to reinforce learning as well as optional lesson-planning labs with expert technology assistance and resources. New this year is a one-day U.S. Constitution workshop. Join us to discover the wonders that await you and your students at the Library of Congress!

Online Modules
Provide a distributed learning model to reach teachers that can’t attend workshops, or to reinforce and share the learning that happened in a workshop.  The combination of classroom and online learning is proving to increase teacher confidence in using technology personally and with their students.   

Masters Credit Program
Participating teachers who complete all requirements, including the classroom projects, may apply to earn Masters credit from our partner Regis University in Colorado  

Student Projects
Help teachers immediately transfer training benefits to student application, putting tools and techniques into learning programs with results (these projects were completed by over 5000 students in just 14 months) 

Lincoln Workbook
For early readers, a thought-provoking workbook about the life and works of Abraham Lincoln, brought primary sources from the Library of Congress to 10,000+ early readers throughout northern/western Illinois 

To learn more about the American Memory Initative from the Barat Education Foundation in collaboration with the Library of Congress please visit our dedicated project website here.