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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

 

Passport to Argentina: Performances, Interviews, Demonstrations, How-To Videos

<p>This collections comes from a Hispanic Heritage Month Family Day, held in the Kogod Courtyard of the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, as part of a larger "Argentina at the Smithsonian" series. Included here are music and dance interviews and performances about tango, and a how-to demonstration to make a clay llama.</p>
Philippa Rappoport
5
 

Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World (National Museum of Natural History)

<p>This collection complements Unit 8 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 to support the session presentation by Ashley Peery of the National Museum of Natural History.</p> <p>#MCTeach #EdXTeach</p>
Philippa Rappoport
12
 

Origami Cranes: Activity and Background Information

<p>People from all over the world have enjoyed doing traditional paper crafts for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. In this set, you'll explore the tradition of the origami Japanese paper crane, a symbol of hope. A demonstration video is included for those who want to make their own crane. Appropriate for classroom, home, or informal education settings.</p> <p>The Japanese word "origami" comes from two smaller words: "ori" which means "to fold," and "kami" meaning "paper." Although this is the most common word in the United States for the craft of paper folding, the tradition is known to have existed in China and Japan for more than a millennium, and from there it spread to other countries around the world. Japanese patterns tend to focus on animals and flowers, while Chinese designs are usually for things like boats and hats. Paper folding's earlier use was ceremonial, but with time the tradition became popular as a children's activity. <br /></p>
Philippa Rappoport
8
 

Native American Beading: Examples, Artist Interview, Demonstration and Printable Instructions for Hands-on Activity

<p>This collection looks at examples of bead work among Native American women, in particular Kiowa artist Teri Greeves, and helps students to consider these works as both expressions of the individual artist and expressions of a cultural tradition.</p> <p>The collection includes work samples and resources, an interview with Ms. Greeves, demonstration video of how to make a Daisy Chain bracelet, and printable instructions.</p>
Philippa Rappoport
6
 

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
 

National Museum of the American Indian: Saving Sacred Spaces

<p>This collection serves as a preview for the sixth 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>Four colleagues from the National Museum of the American Indian - Maria Marable-Bunch, Shawn Termin, Renée Gokey, and Hayes Lavis - will present and discuss the museum's <em>Living Earth</em> series and partners' work to safeguard sites sacred to Native peoples and nations. <br></p> <p>Resources included in this collection have been recommended by the presenters for participants to explore before the seminar session itself. A fuller description and presenter bios are included inside the collection.<br></p> <p>#MCteach<br></p>
Philippa Rappoport
16
 

Metadata and Tagging Activity

<p>This activity, designed as a group exercise, asks participants to assume the role of a college student researching American women's work in the early 20th century, as an entry point to consider what is useful when tagging, searching, and creating digital resources. The collection includes the images that participants considered, followed in each case by a PDF of their responses. For the activity instructions, see the second tile of the collection.</p> <p>This activity was conducted at the inaugural meeting of the Smithsonian Digital Resources Steering Committee, a group convened to share knowledge and explore best practices, issues, and strategies that arise in using and creating digital cultural museum resources.  </p> <p>Kayo Denda, Librarian for Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University and Visiting Fellow at the Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology, created the activity reproduced here.  As a Fellow, Ms. Denda is exploring how libraries, museums, and archives develop metadata for content on women in American history.  <br></p> <p>#DCRSC</p> <p><br></p> <p><br></p>
Philippa Rappoport
17
 

MAS Digital Archives: Integrating Digital Cultural Resources in your Curriculum (#EthnicStudiesY2)

<p>This collection includes digital museum resources and replicable activities that will serve as a springboard for discussion during the <em>MAS Digital Archives: Integrating Digital Cultural Resources in your Curriculum</em> workshop, held online with the University of Texas at San Antonio's Institute of Texan Cultures and Mexican American Studies Program, the Intercultural Development Research Association, and the Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology, on July 26 and 30, 2021.<em> </em>The collection models how digital museum resources can be leveraged to support critical thinking and deeper learning for Mexican American Studies curricula. The collection can be copied and adapted for use in your own classroom. </p> <p>This program received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.</p> <p>#MexicanAmericanStudies #EthnicStudies </p> <p>Keywords: TEKS</p> <p><br></p> <p></p>
Philippa Rappoport
58
 

Making "Family Memory" Storybooks: Fun for the Whole Family

<p>This collection includes a series of easy-to-do book projects designed to get families talking and creating together. Any of them can be used in the classroom (English, art, social studies), as a home project, or in an informal learning setting. All books are made from a single sheet of paper.</p> <p>Titles are ordered generally from most complex to least complex for topic, and include:<br />"Our Home" Nature Walk Album<br />Today I Am Here<br />Connections<br />My Hero<br />Music Memories<br />Kitchen Memories<br />Special Person<br />Family Treasure<br />Things That Make Me <em>Me!</em><br />I Am A Star<br />My Clubhouse<br />Family Flag<br />My Name</p> <p>At the bottom, you'll also find an interview with the creator of these design templates, book artist Sushmita Mazumdar, and a video of her reading one of her own books.<br /></p> <p>Click on any of these demos and accompanying downloadable instructions to make your own "family memory" storybook!<br /></p> <p>tags: art, crafts, crafting, how-to<br /></p>
Philippa Rappoport
47
 

Looking Past Words: An Exploration of Language, Systems, and Power through Three Case Studies

<p>This teaching collection explores the role of language and power in American and European history through three case studies: the Holocaust, Japanese American incarceration, and Northern Plains treaties. Paired with discussion questions from Project Zero's Global Thinking routines, "Think, Feel, Care" and "The 3 Y's," the collection aims to develop in students a sense of how individuals interact within a particular system, and the significance of these systems and interactions from personal, local, and global contexts.<br></p> <p>#EthnicStudies</p>
Philippa Rappoport
12
 

Learning Lab Training Collection on the Theme "The Search for an American Identity"

<p>This collection is designed to help educators bridge the classroom experience to a museum visit. It is intended 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. </p> <p>Included here: </p><ul><li>Section 1: a set of flashcards, a template document so that teachers can create and print their own specific sets, and strategies for their use in their classrooms. </li><li>Section 2: a variety of student activities and resources to explore artist Luis Cruz Azaceta's "Shifting States: Iraq," a metaphorical representation of the unrest taking place in Iraq, and more broadly, an exploration of the human condition during times of crisis.  This section includes an image of the work from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, an explanatory video with curator E. Carmen Ramos, two  Thinking Routines - "See, Think, Wonder" and "The 3 Y's" - from Harvard's Project Zero Visible Thinking and Global Thinking materials, and  an array of prompts and Learning Lab tools to help students think critically and globally.  </li><li>Section 3: a short assignment to get participants started using the Learning Lab.</li><li>Section 4: spacer tile template to serve as chapter headings in longer collections.</li></ul><p>This collection is adapted from a teaching collection on the same theme (Luis Cruz Azaceta's "Shifting States: Iraq" ( <a href="http://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll-c/mBWHa8fHUy9vJsE5" style="background-color:rgb(63,63,63);">http://learninglab.si.edu/q/ll...</a>), that includes extension activities. It was created for the 2019 cohort of the Smithsonian-Montgomery College Faculty Fellowship Program on the theme, "The Search for American Identity: Building a Nation Together," - the subject of the Montgomery College - Smithsonian 2019 Fellowship program. </p> <p><br /></p> <p>Keywords: #MCteach</p> <p><br /></p>
Philippa Rappoport
29
 

Learning Lab Training Collection on the Theme: “Social Justice in the Time of Pandemic"

<p>This collection is designed to help educators bridge the classroom experience to a museum visit. It is intended as a preview activity to our upcoming workshop demonstrating 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. </p> <p>Included here is a set of flashcards, a template document so that teachers can create and print their own specific sets, and strategies for their use in their classrooms, and some questions to guide users in exploring the objects.</p> <p>In the following activity, explore the objects in this collection and choose one you might want to use in your classroom. Be prepared to share at the workshop the object you selected, why you selected it, and how you might use it in your classroom.<br></p> <ul></ul> <p>Keywords: #MCteach</p> <p><br></p>
Philippa Rappoport
64