News and Highlights

CLAS AND MDCPS EXPAND THEIR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT EFFORTS WITH SUMMER K-12 TEACHER TRAINING WORKSHOPS

July 2, 2012

Each year UM’s Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) utilizes its network of distinguished faculty and students along with its spirit of innovation and multidisciplinary expertise to engage thousands of South Florida community members in topics related to Latin America and the Caribbean.  CLAS’ commitment to community engagement was bolstered this year with a new partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools and a successful series of K-12 teacher training workshops. 

As part of its educational outreach efforts, the Center hosts a number of professional development workshops for K-12 educators, which serve to provide the tools to integrate Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) content into the existing district curriculum.   

The series began in May with two Social Studies best practices workshops.  CLAS Distinguished Fellow, Amelia Hintzen, presented “U.S. Relations with the Caribbean and Central America: Continuity versus Change.”  The workshops explored themes such as U.S. interventions in Latin America, Latin American views towards the U.S. and how these views have changed over time, and explored how to integrate these themes into varying classroom subjects and grade levels.  More recently, incoming CLAS Distinguished Fellows, María Gracia Pardo and Jennifer Garcon, teamed up to present a series of professional development workshops related to LAC primary resources.  The workshops, “Beyond the Textbook: Using Primary Resources in the Social Studies Curriculum,” focused on ways to supplement traditional textbook learning with original materials and digital resources from the LAC region. 

Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the fourth largest school district in the United States, is an ideal partner in this effort as its students speak 56 different languages, represent 160 countries, and over 70% are eligible to receive free or reduced lunch; there is both a robust connection to the LAC region and a strong need for outside resources.

CLAS looks forward to further educational outreach efforts this summer with the continuation of the Miami Consortium Faculty Exchange, the Miami Consortium FLAC Lecture Series, and the innovative Integrated Marine Program and College Training (IMPACT) initiative, which takes groups of Upward Bound high school students to UM’s research station at Broad Key to assist UM researchers in the field and learn firsthand about the marine ecosystems of South Florida, the Caribbean, and Latin America.  To learn more about CLAS initiatives and events, visit our website at www.as.miami.edu/clas.