Dear Teacher,
It is with much excitement
that we introduce you to our CD. This CD will assist you making connections
for your classroom use. The State of Florida Department of Education has
named us as the educational service provider for Holocaust education. To
expedite that, we offer you this CD that contains state standards and benchmark
correlations that will enhance your teaching.
As educational institutions
throughout the state of Florida are
being called to meet defined benchmarks, Florida
standards and the FCAT testing now require that students demonstrate mastery
of specific skills at the fourth, eighth, and tenth grade levels. To provide
tools for you to help your students reach these benchmarks, we will explore
a broad definition of literacy, various types of literacy, and language
skills being identified and taught by educators throughout the country.
We will focus on literacy as it relates to the development of the skills
needed to successfully listen, speak, read and write and we will do it
in the context of the Holocaust and character and values education.
The definition of
literacy has changed in the last twenty years. With advances in technology,
students have access to information that we never thought possible in the
past. Students must be able to analyze and evaluate the sources of information
and their credibility. Museums can be the center for developing these skills.
Today's definition of literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate,
and produce communication in a variety of forms and in a variety of settings.
The National Training
Laboratories, Bethel, Main,
has created the following Pyramid of Learning and Average Retention Rates.
Looking at this pyramid, you will see that most retention takes place through
group discussion, practice by doing, and by immediate use of learning.
Through museum educational techniques that have been developed and widely
tested, we will assist you in applying these techniques.
Student learning and
understanding are enhanced by employing strategies that integrate concepts,
vocabulary, and sentence structure presented in age-appropriate, carefully
designed frameworks and materials. It is important not to overwhelm, but
to challenge our students. You will be provided with materials that allow
students and teachers to engage in dialogue, provide pedagogical approaches
that teach the history, build richness of experience through reading, writing,
listening, and speaking at all grade levels. The material will also promote
good reading. It will also encourage students to think creatively about
what they know and to set their own purpose and look for answers. The FloridaHolocaustMuseum
material will help you to provide students with a larger vocabulary, which
will lead to increased comprehension. We will illustrate how to memorialize
the victims, not to glorify the perpetrators, and to create thinking about
prevention and taking action.
Through tolerance
education (character education) young people will be prepared to wrestle
with choice, to be more aware of accepting diversity and understanding
others, and to be able to make ethical decisions in a moral climate.
This CD provides
links to proven and appropriate websites, links to downloads enabling access
to the most sophisticated portions of the CD, and access to survivor testimony
and related material. Teacher resource and pedagogical materials are available.
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