Virtual Workshops for Educators
Upcoming Workshops
June 25, 2025 | 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET | Virtual
More than a Box Checked: Adding Women into the Historical Narrative
Inspired by feedback from educators nationwide, this workshop positions teachers to meaningfully integrate women’s history into every era of American history, not as an afterthought but as an essential part of the narrative.
Including the diverse contributions and voices of women adds depth, complexity, and new perspectives to traditional historical accounts. By the end of the workshop, participants will walk away with concrete strategies, curated resources, and classroom-ready tools to bring diverse women’s stories to life.
Discover engaging lesson plans and connect with a community of educators committed to reimagining history education to ensure that every student sees women’s stories as integral—not optional—to the American experience.
July 16, 2025 | 1:00–3:00 p.m. ET | Virtual
Gender Bias and What to Do About It
Inspired by feedback from educators nationwide, this workshop equips educators to dive deeper into the gender bias embedded in dominant historical narratives and explore what it truly means to center the diverse voices of women throughout history.
Participants will learn how to identify and challenge gender bias in their curriculum. And, through powerful pedagogical approaches, such as inquiry-based learning and historical empathy, educators will gain an understanding of how to develop students into critical thinkers who examine multiple perspectives, analyze text, and reframe whose stories are being told. By enhancing their lessons to include multiple perspectives of women, educators will enrich historical understanding and inspire the next generation to value equity, representation, and the full complexity of our shared past.
Check back for more workshops!
Past Workshops
Women’s History Documented: Building Curriculum using Primary Sources
Held July 11, 2024
During this collaborative virtual workshop, educators learned about developing women’s history curriculum for K-12 students in a variety of subject matters using strategies such as Teaching with Primary Sources (TPS) and historical empathy.
Educators engaged in a conversation around their existing curriculum and collaborate on incorporating these strategies into current work. This workshop was co-facilitated by NWHM museum educators and Dr. Katherine Perrotta, Assistant Professor of Middle Grades and Secondary Education at Mercer University Tift College of Education.
Silences in the Archive: Women’s History and (lack of) Primary Resources
Held April 17, 2024
Many learners expect archives and collections to be comprehensive. If a document isn’t listed or a story isn’t included, it must not exist! Yet archives and collections themselves contain "silences." In the past, people made decisions regarding whether certain primary sources were worthy of preservation or study or not and, therefore, deliberately excluded some from collections—those decisions created these "silences." When it comes to the history of women—particularly women of color, immigrant women, and working-class women—these silences are even more deafening. How can you learn or even understand the history of women in the United States when there is a lack of primary sources on which to base that inquiry?
Check out the related lesson plan here.
C3 Framework for Social Studies Standards and Historical Empathy
Held May 4, 2023
Explore how learners can use the practice of historical empathy to examine the role and impact of women throughout history. Based on the work of, and facilitated by, Dr. Katherine Perrotta, assistant professor of middle grades and secondary education at Mercer University Tift College of Education, educators engage in discussions about the C3 Framework for Social Studies Standards, its ties to historical empathy, and its use in the classroom with a focus on the example of pathbreaking civil rights activist Elizabeth Jennings. Known as the “Nineteenth-Century Rosa Parks,” Jennings successfully challenged segregation ordinances on New York City streetcars in 1854. The National Women's History Museum is partnering with workshop facilitator Dr. Perrotta to conduct a study to explore teacher perspectives on historical empathy. Once you've watched the video, please consider participating in our survey.
Workshop Resources:
- C3 Framework Alignment with Historical Empathy
- Instructional Strategies and Assessments
- Suggested Sources for Historical Empathy InquiriesC3 Framework Dimension 3
- “A Wholesome Verdict:” Using Historical Empathy Strategies to Analyze Elizabeth Jennings v. The Third Avenue Railway Company
This recorded session represented work done over a 3-part series on historical empathy and the C3 Framework held in 2022, hosted by Dr. Perrotta. The presentation resources associated with that series can be found below:
Media Literacy and Primary Sources
Held February 23 and March 2, 2023
When we read texts, we bring a whole world of conscious and unconscious knowledge with us. Facilitated by Dr. Sarah K. Miles, (Ph.D., History. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) this two-session Virtual Workshop for Educators delves into the history of print media and reading culture to examine how the creation and consumption of texts have changed over time. It also explores how teachers can use this history to teach students to be careful readers of media in the present. Each of the workshops in the two-part series introduces key concepts from reading culture and print media studies, providing a brief overview from history, media studies, and communication. Then, using digitally accessible material from two time periods of American history, educators are introduced to a sample activity they can undertake with their own students.
In each session, the activities show how to help students contextualize print media—finding relevant information about publications, authors, and readers, as well as making inferences about readership and editorial intent based on the historical object itself. Participants work through what questions they can ask of print media and how these sources can help students and educators understand the societies and cultures in which they were produced. The session concludes by discussing how historic media compares to contemporary media and how educators can help students translate the skills of critical media literacy to the digital content they interact with every day.
In 2024, the National Women's History Museum is proud to be part of the Library of Congress's Teaching with Primary Sources Consortium. Our Virtual Workshops for Educators this year are sponsored in part by the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources Eastern Region Program, coordinated by Waynesburg University.
