Educator Conference 2024: Digging Deeper—Abstracts

Keynote Address

Teaching with inquiry can be exhilarating. Inquiry learning engages and empowers students to take responsibility for their beliefs and actions. Inquiry teaching enables educators to inspire young people and facilitate the unique learning paths of individual students by trusting themselves and their students to do their best. At the same time, inquiry may seem daunting and, when done poorly, even detrimental. The goal of this session is to explore the philosophical grounding of inquiry teaching and learning with a focus on the C3 framework and the Inquiry Design Model (IDM). We will examine how inquiry can respect and lift up students as they examine compelling questions, work with sources, and complete tasks toward making arguments. In learning about the IDM and developing new inquiry ideas, special attention will be given to the ways that inquiry may support the study of archaeology and the history of the Bible.

King David is one of the most developed characters in the Hebrew Bible. The Bible presents him as the second king of a united Israel, but archaeology raises questions about the biblical portrait of David. This workshop will look at the interplay between the biblical text, archaeology, and extra-biblical texts in relationship to David to see how the historian is a tour guide to the past who enables students to both appreciate that we can have reliable information about the past while still having questions that do not come to a definitive conclusion.

This session introduces participants to the C3 Inquiry Design Model (IDM) and a process for educators to use to create an inquiry-based lesson. Attendees will also explore the museum's latest C3 Inquiry, “How Has Archaeology Contributed to Our Understanding of the Bible?” designed specifically for our second annual Educator Conference. Lastly, you will have the chance to create a mini-inquiry using the IDM that you can share with your colleagues and community.

This session will assist secondary school educators in using historical resources to supplement and support the biblical text. It will survey significant points in biblical history that are aligned with other primary and secondary source materials, providing a curriculum outline that can be implemented in the classroom.

Numerous excavations in the land of Israel have revealed decorative mosaic floors in structures, many in public areas such churches and synagogues, while others can be found in palaces, bathhouses, and private dwellings. In this workshop, we will reveal stunning examples of mosaic art from the classical period of ancient Israel and focus on the artistic motifs and inscriptions found in churches and synagogues. Then you will create a small mosaic to take home with you. Delve into this world with us as we explore the art of making mosaics. 

Educators will step into an immersive classroom experience and participate as a student in our Archaeological Discoveries program! A museum educator will guide your "class" through the People of the Land gallery, which surveys more than 2,000 years of history in the Land of Israel, where you will collaborate with your "classmates" in a scavenger hunt. Gain understanding of what an archaeologist does, how the scientific field of archaeology informs research of the Bible, and how to spark an interest in archaeology that students (and you) may not know was there!