National Museum of Bermuda (NMB) will be holding a free webinar for educators on Thursday June 4, 2020 called Online Learning and Engagement: Transatlantic Slave Trade Unit. This webinar will present a recently designed e-book on the transatlantic slave trade and offer an opportunity for educators to provide feedback on the unit.

Following NMB’s successful Teacher Professional Development workshop held in March, this webinar is a way to reconnect with educators and discuss new remote lesson content while abiding by current social distancing guidelines.

At a time when people are increasingly using technology to work, learn and collaborate, NMB has accelerated its educational efforts and developed online learning units and platforms to support teachers and parents during this time and beyond. Based on current research and with contributions from Dr. Clarence Maxwell, the first online unit Transatlantic Slave Trade is an extension of the exhibits on The Slave Trade & Slavery in Bermuda, featured at the NMB in the Commissioner’s House.

Designed as an e-book to be used in conjunction with traditional school materials (notebooks, dictionaries, pencil crayons), the unit is set up as a series of investigations that follow the path of ’thinking like an historian’. Learners engage with the materials by asking questions, both of themselves and of the content to which they are being introduced. To provoke investigation, the unit includes a diverse selection of art and artefacts from the museum collection, as well as global sources.

Lisa Howie, NMB Director of Learning & Engagement will be leading the presentation and will be joined by Dr. Deborah Atwood, NMB Curator; Dr. Janet Ferguson, NMB Chair of Education Committee; Dr. Clarence Maxwell, Professor of History, Millersville University and NMB Education Committee; and Nicole Grant, Social Studies Officer, Department of Education. The panel will share information on NMB’s robust library of online resources, discuss key terms in the unit, and discuss the ways in which critical analysis and empathetic responses are developed through the investigations of artefacts, personal reflections and creative responses.

Attendees to the webinar will have a chance to meet the contributors, enhance their understanding of the e-book’s objectives and learning approach and will have the opportunity to investigate and interrogate the e-book content with several of the contributors.

Endorsed by the Department of Education, participating public school teachers will receive a Professional Development hour. Teachers are encouraged to have read the e-book prior to the webinar; the e-book has teacher and student versions.

Teachers are asked to register with Lisa Howie by June 3rd: education@nmb.bm

Full information on the unit and webinar can be found at:

https://nmb.bm/2020/05/26/nmb-education-webinar-online-learning-and-engagement

• Press release from the National Museum of Bermuda