Success in the Face of Adversity: Arkansas Workshops for Heritage Educators
The Arkansas Archeological Survey (ARAS) (www.archeology.uark.edu) conducted four workshops for educators in the summer of 2020 with IHE grant funds. Mel Zabecki, ARAS Education Coordinator and now Arkansas State Archeologist, staged four socially-distanced workshops with the help of the state’s Educational Cooperatives, a network of service providers. The workshops utilized Intrigue of the Past, a curriculum guide from Project Archaeology (www.projectarchaeology.org), and Arkansas-specific educational materials. While participant numbers were lower than expected due to the pandemic, Mel was able to add an extra workshop and reached 40 teachers with high-quality heritage education. Not bad, considering that we are in the middle of the worst pandemic in more than 100 years. Congratulations, Mel!
Mel made some amazing adaptations to make the workshops safe and engaging for all participants. Judging from the post-workshop evaluations, she was very successful. Here’s how she pulled it off.
“I began with photographing all the ‘props’ that I would normally bring to the workshops and printed sets for each individual teacher. I made sure to organize all the materials I would be handing out a week before each workshop so that all the packets could sit untouched and be safe for distribution. I was still able to bring other props [e.g., contemporary objects and local artifacts of unknown provenience] and lay them out around the room for viewing and discussion. Since the groups were small and the rooms were big, we were still able to get up, move around, and have lively discussions. Activities that included tallying up answers were done on the computer and then projected onto the big screen.
“The guest speakers I usually have, like local research station archeologists and staff from the Arkansas Humanities Council, were able to zoom in. Teachers still got the same information from them that they would have in-person and succeeded in learning about resources available to them. These workshops took a bit more prep on the front end, but I was still able to offer the teachers the same general material … “
As one participant put it: “The presenter did an excellent job adjusting to the Covid 19 challenges to make this interactive and meaningful. Kudos to the presenter and her two meaningful Zoom participants for expanding the training and including additional meaningful content to link with our local resource expert and information about grants. Thank you for taking time to adjust, connect and prepare.”
Good job of altering activities and lessons on the fly to create an engaging and high-quality learning experience. Thank you, Mel, for your dedication to heritage education and for making this project a shining example of adaptation to difficult circumstances.
