Interactive Learning Hub by Sarah Austin

Hello, my name is Sarah Austin and I have been an educator for 24-years. My teaching experience extends from teaching social studies to middle school, high school students and into university, where I taught a methods course to prospective teachers involving how to teach social studies to middle/high school students.

In my classroom, I attempt to create the conditions for my students to become critically engaged with the topic at hand. I utilize a variety of resources, primary materials, & teaching methods in aims of inviting students to become participants. I prompt students to use their imagination, expose them to a series of different perspectives and layers of narratives that have shaped how history is presented or is not presented. It is through this critical lens that students begin to see the ‘politics” of history, and it is at this point, their approach to history as passive consumers of knowledge transcends into a critical one.

Received 2018 Gilder Lehrman Institute's Arizona History Teacher of the Year (Runner-up) Received Runner-up: Best Middle School Teacher of the Year (East Valley Tribune, 2012) Attended and offered a professional presentation at an International Consortium on Experiential Learning at the University Of Auckland, New Zealand. Worked side by side with Maori educators and administrators at all levels of Maori Language Immersion Schools for one month in New Zealand.

B.A. Psychology Master's Degree Multicultural Education

Sarah Austin