Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Caroline Pryor, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning, has been selected to serve on the Archeological Society of Saint Louis’ (ASSTL) Education Committee.
Pryor will focus her committee work on aligning resources, such as historic sites and artifacts, with states’ K-12 content area of learning standards.
“I’m incredibly excited to serve on the ASSTL Education Committee and join other regional scholars in the mission of outreach to the bi-state K-12 schools,” said Pryor.
Pryor’s scholarly work includes the development of workshops for teachers nationally to study Abraham Lincoln and related sites in Springfield. She has published several scholarly articles that describe how teachers can easily and efficiently use a range of standards, such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) within the social studies, in classroom lessons.
“I’ve developed a workbook for teachers to learn how the sites they visit and the artifacts located there are related to the learning standards they use to develop lessons for their students,” Pryor explained. “The studies I’ve conducted indicate that when teachers use a range of resources, such as primary source documents, photographs, artifacts and online site visits or field trips to museums, city spaces and historic locations, students become highly engaged in learning.”
As a teacher-educator in SIUE’s School of Education, Health and Human Behavior, Pryor teaches undergraduate and graduate level social studies methods and curriculum courses.
“In the past few years, I have revised my course content in order for my students to experience the passion and excitement of using real artifacts, site visits and technology to create efficient, integrated lessons for K-12 students,” she said. “Once they experience a site visit, their excitement about using real-life or place-based education, artifacts and resources permeates their lessons, and children greatly benefit.”
ASSTL is an affiliate of the American Archeological Association and has provided research on archeology in the bi-state region for the past 110 years. Those interested in educational outreach information from ASSTL may contact Pryor at capryor@siue.edu.
Photo: Dr. Caroline Pryor, associate profession in the SIUE Department of Teaching and Learning.