The Master Teacher Program is the cornerstone of the Teacher Innovation Network. The goal of the program is to build a cohort of educators in Southern California and across the United States and train them on the methodology for integrating testimony into classroom projects, creating original testimony-based lessons, and sharing these resources with colleagues. In Summer 2012, the Institute will conduct a “best practices” workshop with graduates from the first three years of the program. Graduates are ambassadors of the program, with expertise on the intersection between Holocaust and genocide education and digital literacy.

Merri Weir, a 2009 workshop participant and member of the Teacher Innovation Network
Merri Weir, a teacher from Carson High School and 2009 Master Teacher Workshop participant

About the Teacher Innovation Network

The USC Shoah Foundation Institute’s Teacher Innovation Network is a nationwide community for middle and high school educators dedicated to advancing the use of Holocaust eyewitness testimony across the curriculum to build 21st-century skills. The Network’s professional development training programs leverage the Institute’s digital video archive to support educators in developing the skills to integrate technology into the classroom and to promote the development of multi-literacy skills with their students through the use of online tools.

Join the Teacher Innovation Network today

View Lessons Our Master Teachers Developed

Our workshop graduates designed classroom lessons that incorporated testimony from the Institute's archive.

Past Workshops

2011

The participants for the 2011 Master Teacher Workshop were chosen from a pool of over 90 applicants.

2010

In 2010, enrollment opens up nationally, and eighteen new Master Teacher candidates from across the US attended the workshop at USC.

2009

The Master Teacher Program was piloted in 2009 with a weeklong workshop at the Institute, called Teaching with Testimony, for nine middle school and high school educators from the Southern California region.