An Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS) educator recently attended the C-SPAN Summer Educators’ Conference in Washington, D.C.  

Jess Morey, a social studies teacher at Buchholz High School, was one of 30 middle and high school educators from across the U.S. chosen to attend the three-day event, which provided a hands-on experience to learn about C-SPAN’s free educational resources and how to incorporate the materials into teaching practices. 

“My experience was excellent,” Morey said in an email to Mainstreet. “The conference was held mainly at the Phoenix Park Hotel, where we also stayed. This is a convenient location to C-SPAN, the Capital, and museums and monuments.” 

While at the conference, Morey said she the group toured C-SPAN and saw where much of the company’s content is filmed.  

“We had two days to delve into the C-SPAN Classroom resources and video library in order to find additional resources we could use in our classes or create video clips of our own that we might use to create new resources,” she wrote. 

Morey said she created a Google Docs with several ideas and resources to consider applying to her classroom; however, two stood out that she had not used before. 

The first resource, Morey said, was C-SPAN Classroom Deliberations. 

“I had not discovered this treasure trove before but found a number of deliberations that relate to the AP US Government curriculum and that set the stage for the types of questions that are posed within the AP exam’s free-response questions,” she wrote.  

Morey said she is also excited to try materials from the AP microeconomics resources. 

“I have used C-SPAN resources within my AP US History and Government courses, but I was unfamiliar with the materials they have for AP Mirco,” she wrote. 

According to a C-SPAN press release, Morey and the other educators were “selected by a team of C-SPAN representatives and evaluated based on their commitment to learning about new educational resources, applying them in a classroom environment and sharing their professional development experiences in their academic communities.” 

“I was excited to participate [in the conference], but I have no idea how competitive the process was to be selected,” Morey wrote about being one 30 instructors chosen. “I did feel like I had a strong application, as I attended a virtual C-SPAN conference in the summer of 2020 and have incorporated C-SPAN materials into my lessons ever since.” 

C-SPAN covered the costs of travel and lodging for each of the instructors attending the conference.  

Morey said she would recommend the conference to other educators “passionate about continuing to learn and advance their curriculum.” 

“Besides the great materials, the chance to tour the Capital again, and the opportunity to explore the new People’s House Museum, the best part of a conference like this is really the opportunity to interact with other motivated and passionate educators from across the country,” she wrote.  

Nick Anschultz is a Report for America corps member and writes about education for Mainstreet Daily News.