Grants Support Choices Program's Digital Initiative

June 24, 2011

The Watson-affiliated Choices Program is expanding its digital teaching materials to advance teenagers’ understanding of international policy under two new grants.

The United States Institute of Peace is supporting the expansion of Choices’ curriculum on human rights into an interactive digital edition, as well as new online professional support for secondary school teachers on this topic, under a two-year, $106,000 grant.

An eBook will be produced with embedded Scholars Online videos. A fully integrated, interactive digital edition of its human rights curriculum will integrate online tools that build skills in critical reading comprehension and analytical thinking. And a summer institute for teachers will focus on both human rights and digital learning.

Separately, Choices will work to deepen secondary level social studies teaching in Rhode Island Schools – particularly in the area of history and civics education – under a new $10,000 grant from the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.

The core of the project is developing and offering webinars tailored to Rhode Island high school social studies teachers on such subjects as slave trade and genocide. Each will be 30 minutes long and offered “live.” A recorded version of the webinar will then be available for hosting on any Rhode Island high school’s information system.

The Choices Program is an educational outreach program of Brown University. Through its curricular resources, professional development programs, and special projects, Choices reaches high school students and teachers in more than one-third of American high schools.