Powerful Content.
Engaging Instructional Strategies.

From civic learning to core curriculum, we’ve got you covered.

Our professional development programs provide rich and unique experiences with history. Connect with the Museum’s exhibitions and resources. Engage with staff and experts.

We are monitoring the COVID situation, and if a program format changes, you will be notified no later than one week in advance with updated details. Learn more about the Museum’s safety policies and procedures.

Back Home: Polish Chicago Teacher Seminar Series

Saturdays, October 14 and 21, 9:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.
Free; earn up to 6 PD hours (3 per session)

Join us as we explore CHM’s Back Home: Polish Chicago exhibition and connect it to your classroom instruction in this two-part seminar. Through the lens of Chicago’s Polish communities, experience the journeys immigrants have taken to get to the city, the ways they have established themselves in its neighborhoods, and the duality of feeling a deep connection to two places at once. Sign up for one or both sessions!

Saturday, October 14

Dominic A. Pacyga, professor emeritus of History at Columbia College Chicago, will join us to help us build our content knowledge about the city’s vibrant Polish communities. We will also explore the exhibition using a set of discussion questions designed to help students look closer and make connections to historic and contemporary immigrant and migrant groups.

Saturday, October 21

This session explores classroom connections to the exhibition. Peter T. Alter, Back Home curator and CHM’s Gary T. Johnson Chief Historian and Director of the Studs Terkel Center for Oral History, will share more about the Polish Chicago oral history project that supported the exhibition and ways to incorporate oral histories into classroom instruction. Artist Grace Bazylewski will also lead us in a Polish folk art activity called wycinanki, which is a type of paper cutting.

2024 Virtual Teacher Book Club: Scritch Scratch by Lindsay Currie

Zoom sessions on Saturdays, January 20, and February 24, 9:00 a.m.–Noon
Asynchronous online engagement in between
$50; earn up to 18 PD hours

CHM’s Virtual Teacher Book Club is back! This time we’ll follow middle schooler Claire as she races to figure out what—or who—has been haunting her after she helped on her father’s ghost-themed Chicago bus tour. Scritch, Scratch: A Ghost Story was written by Chicago author Lindsay Currie for a middle school audience and features many familiar Chicago haunts and histories. A second, secret book, revealed midway through book club, will give us more historical context about the events surrounding Claire’s haunting. During the final zoom session, we’ll be joined by author Lindsay Currie to discuss the book and answer any questions you might have!

Online engagement fosters rich discussions, practical resources, and strategies to incorporate both fiction and nonfiction writings into classroom instruction.

Books are included with the registration fee. 18 PD hours; must attend both sessions and participate in online.

Customized Planning with CHM Education Staff

Our educators are here to match Chicago History Museum resources to your needs, answer questions, and help brainstorm ideas. Simply email school programs staff and let us know what you’re working on. We’ll set up a FREE, one-hour Zoom meeting with you to share materials and answer questions. We look forward to meeting you and learning about all the amazing work you are doing! 1 PD hour per session.

Please email both Heidi Moisan moisan@chicagohistory.org and Megan Clark clark@chicagohistory.org to make an appointment.