Owensboro Catholic High School teachers Cynda Wood and Bretnea Turner have attended the annual Advanced Placement Conference in Orlando, Fl. in past years. This year, the two will be attending the July conference as presenters, teaching living history to students.
Wood and Turner applied last November, and were notified in March that they would be presenting at the summer conference July 17-22.
Wood, a U.S. History, government and economics teacher for 12 years, has been teaching AP U.S. History for six years. Turner, who has taught World Civilizations and European History for seven years, has been teaching AP European History for four.
For their presentation, Wood and Turner will explain how to immerse students in specific events related to a time period.
“Using documents, profiles of specific historical characters and context for the time period, teachers either simulate an event or have students make decisions about something that happened in history,” Turner said. “We do this for various activities including trials, writing of documents, meetings between countries, and many others…Teachers can use living history lessons to illustrate the complexity of historical situations.”
Although both teachers are excited for the opportunity to present, they each said they are nervous to present at such a prestigious conference.
“We hope peers will be able to take a strategy away from something that we’ve found successful in our classrooms and our passion for the AP program,” Wood said.
Both Turner and Wood enjoy working with teenagers and feel rewarded when they make history interesting for their students.
“Going to these conferences allows us to find new strategies and techniques that we can bring back to our classrooms,” Wood said.
