Please Touch Museum has both offsite and onsite Teacher Training workshops. We find them to be more marketable now that we are able to provide continuing education credits for attending the training. In PA, the Department of Public Welfare certifies training for Early Childhood Professionals, and Dept. of Ed certifies for Head Start and School Teachers. I understand it varies state to state. Depending on your institution and topics, you may be able to work with a Community College to give course credit as well. We use to have more funding and offered our workshops free to the educators, but now we have begun charge a fee either to the participants of to the schools. We also use to do an annual conference at a hotel where we had over 150 participants that we charged about $10 for. However, eventually the cost for renting space out weighed the financial gain and foundational support, so we had to stop. Besides credits, I think teachers are looking for activities to incorporate in to their curriculum. If you can get you hands on your state education curriculum standards then you can show a match. You may also want to provide some pre and post visit materials and a "how to do a class trip" packet if you think they may visit. After learning that the adult attention span is about 20 minutes, we found that if we break down the instruction into 20 minute intervals, and either switch speakers, or activity (e.g. power point, handling artifacts, discussing in small groups, taking a tour...) then the participants find the training more enjoyable. In general, I think it is good to provide refreshments, and somehow work in to each workshop you institutional flavor. For example, we are a children's museum centered on play, if it is a small group, we often open by having people say who they are, where they are from, and mention positive memory from their childhood. Anne Draghi Svonavec, MSW, LSW Community Programs Manager Please Touch Museum 210 North 21st Street Philadelphia, PA 215-963-0667 -----Original Message----- From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sheryl Woodruff Sent: Thursday, September 08, 2005 10:21 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [MUSEUM-L] sponsoring teacher workshops in NYC I am with a small historic preservation organization in New York City. Recently my education committee brought up the idea of having a teacher's workshop in teaching historic preservation. The committee sees a workshop as a way to involve teachers more in our formal education program as well as a way to provide teachers the tools to teach about historic preservation. So, any advice from those of you who have organized teacher workshops, especially in New York City, would be appreciated. More specifically, I am wondering: Does an organization need to have any special credentials to do this? We do have a charter by the New York State Department of Education. We are not a vendor for New York City schools. Do most organizations offer credit for thier workshops, or not? Does not offering credit lower the numbers of teachers who get involved? What fee do you normally charge? What types of materials are most teachers looking to bring home with them from workshops? Where do your participants come from? Advertising? Previous relationship through formal education program? Please feel free to offer advice on anything I haven't brought up. I am rather new to this and would like to hear from those a bit more seasoned. Thanks in advance for your help. Best, Sheryl Woodruff Director of Operations, The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).