Summer Seminars Report 2008

We have continued to improve our systems and communication such that data collection for 2008 summer seminars has been the most complete ever. We achieved a 92% response rate with 826 respondents across 36 seminars, which took place between May and September 2008.
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99.6% of these 826 respondents would recommend Facing History's professional development to others. This figure means that just three people did not recommend Facing History, one from each type of seminar, providing an overwhelmingly positive endorsement of the quality of Facing History's professional development.

Global professional impact continues to be very high (4.62, weighted average), comparable with 2007. The two main types of seminars, Holocaust and Human Behavior (HHB) and Race and Membership (R & M) are comparable on this first global rating, at 4.66 and 4.62, respectively (on a 5-point scale of no impact to very high).

Respondents rated the specific impacts of their seminar very highly, with stronger overall average scores across the 7 prompts, than last year, in large part because of the revised wording of one of the prompts. Namely, "The seminar provided me with online tools and resources that are useful to my teaching and classroom" elicited stronger levels of agreement than the version used in previous years. For the 5 statements related to specific impact areas of the seminar that were asked of both HHB and R and M participants, mean scores ranged from 4.55 to 4.72, suggesting that, on average, Facing History seminars continue to offer high and meaningful value to participants.

Respondents gave high marks, on average, to the questions about the functioning of the seminar. Facilitator collaboration ("worked well together") was the prompt with the highest average (4.81), followed by the prompt about inclusive learner-centered methods at 4.74 ("provided a wide range of opportunities for my participation"). These very high averages, across all types of seminars, confirm the organization's reputation for skilled learner-centered facilitation. The prompt that received the lowest, and the only average score below 4.5, was for pacing at 4.30. We explored the pacing question with an additional opportunity to rate the pacing as "too fast," "just right" or "too slow." We found that on average, many HHB and all the R&M and new seminars hovered closer to the ideal pacing, but that participants rated a small number of HHB seminars as "too fast." Similarly, we tapped respondents' comfort in discussions on a three-point scale, where 3= comfortable, 2= mixed level of comfort, and 1= uncomfortable. Respondents rated the seminars on average from 2.5 to 3.0, with a modal response (the most frequent value, 5 seminars had this average) of 2.71. On average, respondents from the "new" seminars rated their comfort in discussions as slightly higher than those in other types of seminars, at 2.77, with the averages for HHB and R&M, close behind, at 2.74, and 2.72, respectively.

Only HHB and R&M respondents rated prompts re their capacity to teach their students particular skills, attitudes, or knowledge areas. The prompt with the strongest levels of agreement was "to relate history to own lives" at 4.63 and the lowest among the 5 prompts common to both seminars, was "to understand roles and responsibilities in a democratic society" at 4.46. Each seminar had two prompts specific to their content, with the R & M prompts receiving slightly stronger levels of agreement at 4.57 and 4.64, and the HHB content-specific prompts averaging 4.44 and 4.54 across all of those seminars.

Teachers plan to teach Facing History by infusion and by teaching distinct units. More than a third of HHB respondents plan to teach in-depth units (4 weeks or longer), as do slightly more than a quarter of R&M teachers, and slightly more than a fifth of the teachers in "new" seminars.

This trend mirrors the age of each type of seminar and perhaps the accrued materials, resources and experience guiding teaching of this topic.

Teachers appreciate follow-up support and resources. Borrowing resources from Facing History's library, and email from Program Associates are, on average, across all types of seminars perceived as most useful by most respondents. For HHB, the Educator Guide ranks second, after borrowing resources. Midway in the ranking are attending follow-up seminars and online resources, on average. The activity consistently ranked lowest (fewest respondents rank it as "most useful") are phone calls.