Courses for Teachers

The K-16 Education Outreach Program partners with several organization to support the development of courses for teachers. The following courses are recommended for our Teaching Africa Teacher Certificate program teachers in the completion of their certificate.

Teaching Africa across the Disciplines

This course exposes and explores the ways in which dominant discourses about Africa are the products of historical forces that reflect a Western, Eurocentric bias. This course offers an overview of the study of Africa from the perspectives of African knowledge producers, as it looks at the continent and its peoples through various disciplinary angles.

Over the course of six weeks, participants will learn to identify key time-periods, societies, political institutions, and movements in Africa that existed prior to European colonization. Module topics will examine literature, art, music, scientific knowledge, politics, and popular culture through African scholarship and primary sources.

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Dynamic Societies of Ancient & Medieval Africa

Course description

Africa has a history of complex societies and rich cultures which has not, traditionally, been appreciated fully despite its deep and lasting contributions to humanity. This course will illuminate the longevity and dynamism of African civilizations, cultural developments, and connectedness to the world, with an emphasis on sub-Saharan regions in the ancient and medieval eras. Each of four sessions will trace a different theme across a set of case studies and contexts: geography and environment; trade, exchange and cultural diffusion; knowledge and belief; and social structure and governance. Participants will explore a wealth of new websites and sources for the art, archaeology, technological achievements and literatures of pre-modern African societies. Inquiry-centered approaches using interactive maps, material objects, and 3-D archaeological re-creations will also be featured. The course is highly relevant for teachers of geography, world history, ancient societies and world religions. All educators who seek a deeper understanding of Africa’s dynamic history are welcome.

Teachers in the Teaching Africa Teacher Certificate program receive a 25% discount to relevant Primary Source courses.

To see available dates for this course and to register, go to “Courses” on Primary Source’s page.

Africans in the Age of Atlantic Slavery

Course description:

New scholarship has placed Africa and Africans at the hub of a
historical process critical to the early modern history of four continents. In this fully online course, we will examine the making of the Atlantic world and the transatlantic slave trade with special attention to African perspectives and experiences. Through readings, activities, collaboration with colleagues and discussion with leading scholars, you will explore the wealth of virtual exhibits, databases, and digital document collections for Black Atlantic history, and will craft a curriculum project for your own classroom.

This course will be offered completely online and will require a basic comfort level and interest in the use of computer technology as a medium for learning. The time for completing each week’s work is approximately 3-4 hours.

Teachers in the Teaching Africa Teacher Certificate program receive a 25% discount to relevant Primary Source courses.

To see available dates for this course and to register, go to “Courses” on Primary Source’s page.

Modern African History: Colonialism, Independence & Legacies

Course Description:

This four-session online course will help you find new entry points in your curriculum for teaching about modern Africa and new strategies and resources to support your teaching. In a community of online learners you will advance your knowledge of African history in the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries, understanding the continent’s history not as a “single story” but a multifarious one. The course will also emphasize Africa’s relationship to world historical developments. Course topics include European colonization, the multiple forms of African resistance to colonial control, the rise of independence movements and leaders, Africa’s experience of the Cold War, the political upheavals and economic crises of the late 20th century, and the hopes and challenges of the continent today. Each session will highlight a unique teaching strategy and explore exceptional web-based resources for the topic.

The contents of this these two courses were developed under grant #P015A140088 from the U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and endorsement by the Federal Government should not be assumed.

Teachers in the Teaching Africa Teacher Certificate program receive a 25% discount to relevant Primary Source courses.

To see available dates for this course and to register, go to “Courses” on Primary Source’s page.

Worldly Republic: The U.S. and the World in the Nineteenth Century

After the stormy Age of Revolutions, the nineteenth century is often thought of as an inward-looking century.  But in fact it was engaged with the wider world in a myriad ways, from whaling voyages to territorial annexations, from cultural imports to forced and willing migrations, from missionaries and reformers to travelers and adventurers. As participants investigate U.S. connections to every settled continent, four key themes will structure the learning: culture and commodities, expansionism (westward and beyond) and national identity, slavery and freedom, and immigration/migration and travel. In other words, the course addresses core U.S. history content standards of the pre- and post-Civil War eras, viewed through a global lens. As new identities were forged in this period, we will consider how Americans of different backgrounds felt about internationalism and international connections, and how different cultural groups expressed what it meant to be American. The course offers several opportunities to choose differentiated pathways depending upon interests. 

Medieval Africa and Africans 

The National Humanities Center (NHC) offers affordable courses for teachers which provide 35 Professional Development Points for $135/course. Boston University African Studies Center supported the development of Medieval Africa and Africans at the National Humanities Center. Some courses are 4 weeks long and some are 1-week courses.

Given the wide popularity of Eurocentric medieval fantasies, it has never been more important that we teach our students about the reality of the Middle Ages rather than the fictionalized fantasies with which they are accustomed. In order to examine Medieval Studies and expand the “Global Middle Ages” beyond the traditional boundaries of Western Europe, this course will concentrate on premodern Africa. While often overlooked, the civilizations that spanned the vast African continent produced great achievements, in conditions of relative parity with their European contemporaries, before the oceanic dominance of a few Western powers. This course will contextualize Medieval Africa in terms of its contemporary relationships with the medieval globe as well as its modern impact.

To see available dates for this course and to register, go to the NHC’s course page.

Understanding the Modern Middle East

Far too often, the Middle East appears as doubly alien: out of place and out of time. A century of popular culture caricatures, at least two centuries of Orientalist representations, and decades of American military interventions, have all fed into the notion of the Middle East as a turmoil-laden, sectarian, and tribal premodern region. In this course, we will go beyond these stereotypes to look at the historical forces that shaped the region across the twentieth century to understand the complexities of its peoples and societies.

To see available dates for this course and to register, go to the NHC’s course page.

The Where of Why: GIS in the Humanities Classroom

Often, when teaching about historical events, there is an over-emphasis on chronology without strong enough consideration given to geography. The use of geospatial technologies allows interactions of place, space, time, and scale to be more obvious, allowing students to develop the ability to answer not only “where?” but “why there?” “GIS in the Humanities Classroom” will introduce participants to the transformative power of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Over five weeks, the course will detail approaches to embedding geospatial technology in existing classroom instruction, as well as methods for using geography to enrich humanities narratives. By focusing on inquiry-based instruction, the course will provide insights into the ways that GIS tools contribute to a deeper understanding of humanities subjects.

While this course does not focus on Africa specifically, participating teachers may choose to apply their learning to African geographies.

To see available dates for this course and to register, go to the NHC’s course page.