USC Shoah Foundation will host a no cost interactive, in-person professional development workshop open to all middle school and high school educators (5th-12th grade) April 6, on the campus of the University of Southern California, Asbarez reports.

In honor of Genocide Awareness Month, the workshop, “Teaching with Testimony: The Armenian Genocide” offers educators the opportunity to learn how to effectively teach the Armenian Genocide across the curriculum with audiovisual testimonies of Armenian survivors, foreign witnesses and scholars of the Armenian Genocide and Armenian descendants.

“Testimony offers us the opportunity to hear story from the individual perspective, which adds to our understanding beyond the dates and humanizes history. In a month where we are memorializing such atrocities, we must uphold the individual,” Head of Programs, Education at USC Shoah Foundation Lesly Culp, a 20-year English Language Arts educator said about the importance of using testimony in the classroom.

By attending this workshop, educators will discover USC Shoah Foundation’s educational website, IWitness. It provides unique primary and secondary sources that strengthen students’ understanding of the life of the Armenian people before, during and after the Armenian Genocide. With access to multimedia testimony-based resources, educators will gain confidence to navigate IWitness to build historical understanding of the Armenian Genocide and responsibility in students.

Space for this workshop is limited Register online. Participants are requested to bring laptops and headphones.