Programs

In addition to the website itself, we offer educators professional learning opportunities such as summer institutes and webinars. These learning experiences respond to educators’ needs in their communities and emphasize how local, national, and global contexts are connected. The offerings also help us to expand and disseminate the materials of the Doors to the World website. Our approach is to engage educators in learning about critical multiliteracies while they also develop materials for using the Doors recommended books in their teaching; these materials are in turn offered to other educators through posting on the Doors website.  

 

2015 Summer Institute for PreK-Grade 3 Educators: Global Children’s Literature for Critical Multicultural Literacies

Our first institute was held in July 2015 at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. The 12 participating educators from Massachusetts and New Jersey designed mini-units for our original selection of 12 books (see credits within those book pages). This institute and initial website development were funded by a generous grant from the Longview Foundation.

 

2016-2017 Professional Development for PreK-Grade 3 Educators: Puerto Rican and other Latino literatures, Holyoke and Springfield, MA

This year-long project began July 11-23, 2016, with a summer institute for 20 educators from schools in these two western Massachusetts communities, and continues with school-year application, reinforcement, and family engagement activities. This work wass generously supported by the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation.

 

2017 Doors to the World East Asia: Teaching China, Japan and Korea with Global Children's Literature

Our most recent summer institute took place July 9-14, 2017, bringing together 18 teachers and librarians from across the U.S. to learn about East Asian languages, histories, and cultures, and about how to integrate that knowledge into their teaching. Doors to the World 2017 Summer Institute was sponsored by the Five College Center for East Asian Studies and funded by the Freeman Foundation.