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University of Kansas, African Studies Center“Teaching Africa and the Middle East in the Great Plains”, a project of the Kansas African Studies Center (KASC) at the University of Kansas, is developing and disseminating teacher training and curricular materials on Africa, including the African Diaspora, North Africa, and the Middle East. Teachers in Kansas and Missouri are currently on their own when they seek to address Africa in their classrooms because no clearing-house for relevant educational content exists in the state. As a consequence, the materials they use and their approaches to teaching about Africa vary greatly. To address this need, KASC staff is working with a select group of teachers who know the education standards of Kansas and Missouri, the National History Standards, and the College Board Advanced Placement Program to transform existing materials. The project extends KASC’s on-going efforts to develop appropriate, accessible Africa-and Middle East-related instructional materials for use by teachers in the Great Plains region. Materials will be disseminated through professional workshops offered by the Kansas Committee for International Education in the Schools (KCIES), Mid-America Alliance for African Studies (MAAAS), and State Social Studies Conventions. The Center will work with teachers and USDs to plan strategies for adoption of the materials and to evaluate their effectiveness through review of test scores, teacher and student interviews, and expert evaluation by outreach coordinators from other centers.
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