• Calendar of Events
• Academic Awards Banquet
• Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute
• Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trips
• Schusterman Mentor Program
• Local Education Foundation Outreach
• Teacher Scholarships for Professional Development
• Return to OFE Home

OFE News Release

Fellowship Applications Now Available for Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute

November 6, 2006
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Applications are now available for Oklahoma fifth-grade teachers interested in attending the 2007 Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute June 12 through 19 in the restored capital city of 18th-century Virginia.

The Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence coordinates the selection of Oklahoma teachers to participate in the renowned teacher institute. Applications are available on the Foundation’s web site at www.ofe.org. Completed applications must be postmarked by March 1, 2007.

Fellowship recipients will receive all-expense paid trips to Williamsburg, as well as $100 for classroom materials. While at Colonial Williamsburg — the world’s largest living history museum — Oklahoma teachers will have the opportunity to meet character interpreters of 18th-century people and be immersed in early American history through hands-on activities and reenactments of historic events.

Participants will visit nearby Jamestown, the site of the first permanent English colony in America, and spend a day at Yorktown visiting the battlefields where the Continental Army forced the British to surrender. Participants also will meet daily with a peer facilitator to discuss interactive teaching techniques and develop creative lesson plans based on their experiences.

“No textbook can replace the inspiration and knowledge gained by walking in the footsteps of early Americans, both famous and ordinary,” said Wewoka teacher Linda Goodnight, who recently attended the Teacher Institute. “Visualizing George Washington and his troops at Surrender Field, debating in the very courtroom where Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry pled the cause of liberty, and learning to make rope in Jamestown colony will ignite my teaching – and my students – forever.

“The Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute is by far the finest, most comprehensive teacher training I have ever attended,” Goodnight added. “I am a better American and a better teacher because of it.”

Oklahoma’s teacher institute program is designed for fifth-grade social studies/history teachers and resource teachers, such as librarians, who plan to teach U.S. history in their schools in 2007-2008. Participants are asked to share materials, skills and experiences with fellow teachers through two workshops or in-service programs upon their return from the institute.

The Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence has coordinated Oklahoma’s participation in the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute since 1993, thanks to the leadership and support of the late Oklahoma City businessman Edward C. Joullian III, who was an active supporter and former board member of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Joullian was also a trustee of the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence, a nonprofit organization that recognizes and encourages academic excellence in Oklahoma’s public schools.

For more information, contact the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence at (405) 236-0006.