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Philippa Rappoport

Lead, Education and Engagement
Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology
Smithsonian Staff

I work in education and engagement, teacher professional development, and outreach at the Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology (OET), and have a particular interest in developing and producing trainings, programs, teaching techniques, and platforms that foster deep learning and contribute knowledge to improve practices in museum and preK-16 education and engagement. At OET over the last decade+, I created digital assets for schools, families, and new immigrant English Language learners to complement teacher professional development and pan-Smithsonian programming, including Learning Lab teaching collections, YouTube videos with tradition bearers, a handmade family stories book-making website, and online heritage tours.

Philippa Rappoport's collections

 

Replicable Activities to Become Conversant using Digital Museum Resources in the Classroom: Flashcards

<p>This collection is designed to help educators think about how to incorporate museum content into the classroom experience. Along with its <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/replicable-activities-to-become-conversant-using-digital-museum-resources-in-the-classroom-close-looking-global-thinking/PSwYlJyjKTWfGxXE" target="_blank">companion collection of close-looking activities</a>, it is intended to demonstrate various ways to use the Learning Lab and its tools, while offering specific, replicable, pre-engagement activities that can be used directly, or copied to a new collection and then edited, to help students engage with museum resources. </p> <p>Included here is a set of resources, connected to the theme of 21st-century challenges, that can be used as flashcards in both a virtual or in-person classroom. The benefit of this type of activity is that students begin to make a personal connection to the objects and issues they are exploring. They take ownership and, as a result, the conversation, sense of community, and any further activity become deeper and more meaningful. As you explore the resources yourself, be sure to click on the paper clips to see additional instructions and information. At the end of the collection, you'll see a template document that can be used to create and print your own specific set of flashcards. </p> <p>This collection complements the opening unit, "Introduction to the Learning Lab and Museum Resources," of the EdX course, <em><a href="https://www.edx.org/course/teaching-with-the-smithsonian-addressing-21st-century-challenges-in-the-community-college-classroom" target="_blank">Teaching with the Smithsonian: Addressing 21st-Century Challenges in the College Classroom</a></em><em>. </em></p> <p>#MCTeach #EdXTeach</p>
Philippa Rappoport
43
 

National Portrait Gallery / Gallery Educators Introduction to the Learning Lab: Opening Activity

<p>This Learning Lab collection complements an introductory Learning lab training for National Portrait Gallery (NPG) gallery educators. We will explore artwork from the Smithsonian digital collections, including NPG's exhibition, <em><a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/IgLygJNprGf3JA%20and%20https:/npg.si.edu/exhibition/eye-i-self-portraits-1900-today">Eye to I: Self-Portraiture as an Exploration of Identity</a></em>, a way to consider the functionality of the Learning Lab and how the platform can support gallery educators in their teaching. <em>Eye to I </em>compels viewers to consider how self-portraits reflect an artist’s identity through what is revealed and concealed.</p> <p></p>
Philippa Rappoport
26
 

Deep Time: A Planetary Heat Wave 56 Million Years Ago (National Museum of Natural History)

<p>This collection complements Unit 6 of the EdX course, <em>Teaching with the Smithsonian: Addressing 21st-Century Challenges in the Community College Classroom. </em>It includes resources to support the session presentation by Scott Wing, Research Scientist and Curator of Fossil Plants, at the National Museum of Natural History. </p> <p></p> <p>#MCTeach #EdXTeach</p>
Philippa Rappoport
21
 

Hung Liu: Portraits of Promised Lands (National Portrait Gallery)

<p>This collection complements Unit 5 of the EdX course, <em><a href="https://www.edx.org/course/teaching-with-the-smithsonian-addressing-21st-century-challenges-in-the-community-college-classroom" target="_blank">Teaching with the Smithsonian: Addressing 21st-Century Challenges in the College Classroom</a></em><em>. </em>It includes resources to support the session presentations by artist Hung Liu and curator Dorothy Moss of the National Portrait Gallery, discussing the exhibition, <em>Portraits of Promised Lands.</em></p> <p>#MCTeach #EdXTeach</p>
Philippa Rappoport
17
 

Replicable Activities to Become Conversant using Digital Museum Resources in the Classroom: Close Looking, Global Thinking

<p>This collection, along with its <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/replicable-activities-to-become-conversant-using-digital-museum-resources-in-the-classroom-flashcards/r0h2qObCwQZvSGxR" target="_blank">companion flashcard activity collection</a>, is designed to demonstrate various ways to use the Learning Lab and its tools, while offering specific, replicable, pre-engagement activities that can simply be copied to a new collection and used to help students engage with museum resources. The activities below can be used in both a virtual and in-person classroom in a variety of ways - to introduce concepts, to develop observational skills in students and confidence in their ability to express their ideas, perhaps as an activity to prepare them to visit a museum, and much more. <br></p> <p>Included here are three sets of looking activities that pair works of art and other resources from the Smithsonian collections with thinking routines - "See, Think, Wonder," "The 3 Y's," "Step In, Step Out, Step Back," and "Think, Feel, Care" - from Harvard's Project Zero Visible Thinking and Global Thinking materials, to help participants develop their observational skills and to encourage a cross-disciplinary approach to help students think critically, globally, and empathetically. As you explore the objects below, we encourage you to move directly to the padlet so that you can do the first part of the activity - the "See, Think, Wonder" routine - before you have read the title and supplementary information next to the artwork itself. After doing the first part of the close-looking activity, you can then return to the Learning Lab collection to view the correlating video in the second part of each looking activity, and then record your next set of comments in the padlet. </p> <p>Content in the "Additional Resources" section will help you in creating your own Learning Lab collection. Be sure also to check the <a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/help" target="_blank">Learning Lab Help Page </a>for specific guidance in creating your collection. </p> <p>This collection complements the opening unit, "Introduction to the Learning Lab and Museum Resources," of the EdX course, <em><a href="https://www.edx.org/course/teaching-with-the-smithsonian-addressing-21st-century-challenges-in-the-community-college-classroom" target="_blank">Teaching with the Smithsonian: Addressing 21st-Century Challenges in the College Classroom</a></em><em>. </em></p> <p>#MCTeach #EdXTeach</p>
Philippa Rappoport
36
 

Power of Storytelling (National Museum of African American History and Culture)

<p>This collection complements Unit 3 of the EdX course, <em><a href="https://www.edx.org/course/teaching-with-the-smithsonian-addressing-21st-century-challenges-in-the-community-college-classroom" target="_blank">Teaching with the Smithsonian: Addressing 21st-Century Challenges in the College Classroom</a></em><em>. </em>It includes resources recommended by session presenter Kelly Elaine Navies of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. </p> <p><br></p>
Philippa Rappoport
12
 

Educating to Create Change: Let’s Talk About Race (National Museum of African American History and Culture)

<p>This collection complements Unit 2 of the EdX course, <em><a href="https://www.edx.org/course/teaching-with-the-smithsonian-addressing-21st-century-challenges-in-the-community-college-classroom" target="_blank">Teaching with the Smithsonian: Addressing 21st-Century Challenges in the College Classroom</a>. </em>It includes resources recommended by presenters Candra Flanagan and Anna Hindley of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) - links to:</p> <ul><li>the museum's website (3rd tile),</li><li>the <em>Let's Talk About Race </em>portal (4th tile),</li><li>the Learning Lab profile page of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (5th tile), and</li><li>recommended reading (6th tile).</li></ul> <p>Click on these tiles to open up content in a new window. In each case, you'll find information, objects, resources, and strategies that will help you think about how to incorporate these ideas in your classroom. </p> <p>The Learning Lab profile page (from the 5th tile) is split into multiple content sections, and within sections, each tile leads you to a curated collection of content, with objects and strategies, from the NMAAHC Education team.</p> <p><br></p> <p>#MCTeach #EdXTeach</p>
Philippa Rappoport
6
 

Learning Lab Introduction and Training for DC Embassy Adoption Program Teachers: Exploring Luis Cruz Azaceta's "Shifting States: Iraq"

<p>This student activity explores Luis Cruz Azaceta's "Shifting States: Iraq" using Project Zero Thinking Routines to help students think critically and globally.  The work is a metaphorical representation of political unrest in Iraq, and more broadly, an exploration of the human condition during times of crisis.</p> <p>Included here are an image of the work from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, an explanatory video with curator E. Carmen Ramos, several  Thinking Routines from Harvard's Project Zero Visible Thinking and Global Thinking materials, an array of prompts and Learning Lab tools and support, as well as a sample training assignment. <br><br></p>
Philippa Rappoport
19
 

Social Justice in the Time of Pandemic: the National Museum of American History

<p>This collection serves as a preview for the third of six seminar sessions in the 2022 Smithsonian-Montgomery College Faculty Fellowship Program. This year's theme is “Social Justice in the time of Pandemic."<br><br>Patty Arteaga and Orlando Serrano will discuss how the National Museum of Amerian History is addressing issues of social justice through collecting, projects, programming, exhibitions, education, and engagement. </p> <p>Resources included in this collection have been recommended by the presenters for participants to explore before and after the seminar itself.<br></p> <p>#MCteach</p>
Philippa Rappoport
26
 

Carnival Celebrations: Masks (Lesson Plans, Activities, and Background Information)

<p>This collection comes from a set of lessons plans to introduce students to the culture of Puerto Rico by looking at customs and objects - specifically masks - connected to the annual celebration of Carnival. The lessons are split into four levels, covering grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. They were originally adapted from a set of activities that appeared in <em>Our Story in History: A Puerto Rican Carnival</em>, a website produced by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History - also shown in a link inside the collection, along with instructions for students to make their own masks. The lessons include objects from the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in New York, the George Gustav Heye Center, and the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History. </p> <p><br /></p>
Philippa Rappoport
6
 

Using Technology to Explore Our Nation’s Difficult Past

<p>This collection serves as a preview for the fifth of six seminar sessions in the 2018 Smithsonian-Montgomery College Faculty Fellowship Program. This year's theme is “We the People: America’s Grand and Radical Experiment with Democracy.”</p> <p>Kinshasha Holman Conwill, Rex Ellis, Helsynia Brown, Adam Martin, and Jessica Johnson will engage participants in an exploration of the National Museum of African American History and Culture's efforts to use technology to make the museum a participatory environment. A fuller description and presenter bios are included inside the collection.</p> <p>#MCteach</p>
Philippa Rappoport
9
 

Close Looking at Edward Reep's "Italian Shrine," and the Nazi Occupation of Bologna, Italy, during WWII

<p>This teaching collection guides  viewers through a close looking exercise to explore American artist Edward Reep's painting of a shrine in Bologna, Italy, based on photographs and notes from his time as a combat artist in Italy during World War II. The collection is set up for students to look closely at the painting using Harvard's Project Zero Thinking Routine "See, Think, Wonder," and then to consider the historical and political context of the time, as well as the artist's personal experiences in Italy during WWII, in order to better understand Reep's homage in painting to the thousands of Italian Resistance fighters and citizens who lost their lives fighting against the Nazi occupation during World War II. The activity concludes with another Project Zero Routine from the Global Thinking series, "The 3 Y's."</p> <p><br /></p>
Philippa Rappoport
5