The Elizabeth Van Cleaf Institute
A Workshop for Social Studies Educators Grades 6-12
The museum professionals at the Monmouth County Historical Association (MCHA) of Freehold, New Jersey have teamed up with local education professionals through the Monmouth-Ocean Educational Services Commission (MOESC) and Monmouth University to teach history through the sharing of specialized skills.
From Artifacts to AI:
Teaching History in the Age of ChatGPT
Thursday, October 16, 2025
from 9 am - 3 pm
Monmouth University
Rebecca Stafford Student Center
Second Floor, Anacon A
Parking in Lot 14 (see map below)
*Please bring fully charged laptop*
Breakfast and lunch served
During this free professional development institute, grades 6-12 educators will learn to curate primary sources & design lessons that develop critical thinking with the appropriate use of AI technology. Discover the benefits, pitfalls, and teachable moments in using AI to supplement your classroom!
Presentations led by AI Experts, Master Educators, Archeologists, and Historians
6 CEUs earned through Monmouth University
Registration for this year is full!
Meet The Team
Dr. Wendy Morales
Assistant Superintendent, Monmouth Ocean Educational Services Commission
Wendy Morales has been an educator for twenty-five years, beginning her career as a 6th grade teacher in the Newark Public School District. She earned a BA from George Washington University, her MA from American Public University, and an Ed.D. from Monmouth University. She currently serves as assistant superintendent of Monmouth-Ocean Educational Services Commission. Dr. Morales earned the Teacher of the Year award in her second year of teaching. After a rewarding five years in Newark, Dr. Morales accepted the role of middle school social studies teacher for the Middletown Township Public Schools where she was fortunate enough to serve as a fellow in the American Institute for History Education’s Teaching American History (TAH) Program. In 2014, she earned Teacher of the Year for the second time. As an early adopter of educational technology, Dr. Morales was accepted into the Google Certified Innovator Program and became a Google Certified Trainer soon after. She has worked in districts all over the country on increasing meaningful technology and personalized learning in the classroom. In 2015, Dr. Morales was accepted into the year-long Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms Program, an initiative of the U.S. Department of State. Through this program, she developed a passion for global citizenship education and was fortunate enough to work with a partner teacher in the Republic of Georgia. In 2016, Dr. Morales was selected as a TED-Ed Innovative Educator and was named State of New Jersey Exemplary Secondary Educator (2017). Soon after, she was appointed Director of Social Studies and Technology K-12 in the Middletown Township Public Schools. In this role, she supervised over 100 teachers and specialists, co-developed dozens of curricula, and spearheaded important initiatives such as Future Ready Schools New Jersey and the district’s equity and inclusion initiative. Dr. Morales also serves as an adjunct professor in the School of Education at Monmouth University. She regularly presents at regional and national conferences and has had several academic articles published.
Dr. Jason Fitzgerald
Assistant Professor, Curriculum and Instruction, Monmouth University
A scholar of civic thinking, Dr. Fitzgerald brings his years of social studies teaching experience to explorations of youth civic engagement. Widely published, he collaborates with schools in New York and New Jersey, training teachers to facilitate action civics and inquiry-based social studies practices in their classrooms. Drawing on his experiences as a middle school social studies teacher in the diverse communities of Montgomery County, Maryland, Dr. Fitzgerald’s research explores the ways in which social studies is taught to marginalized populations. His civics-specific research interests have led him to the psychological studies of civic planning as an ill-structured problem category. With this work, he has helped to develop action civics curriculum for Generation Citizen, a national non-profit educational organization, and for young African Leaders as part of President Obama’s Mandela Washington Fellows program, part of the Young African Leaders Initiative; he has been Co-PI on over $500,000 of grant money from the United States Department of State, managed by IREX. Dr. Fitzgerald has used his research on historical and civic ways of thinking used when planning civic action to inform teacher professional development for teachers in local and national contexts. In his local and national professional development work, he compared these heuristics to the popular models of action civics and public policy analysis in order to provide teachers with nuanced ways of teaching civic practice to youth. He has also used this research to undergird civic leadership instruction for over 100 young African leaders, as part of the federal Mandela Washington Fellows program. This not only supported those leaders’ civic development, but some participants took the civic heuristic model home and used it to structure their own non-governmental organization work. Additionally, Dr. Fitzgerald’s work with pre-service social studies teachers has enabled research-practice partnerships that serve to support civics instruction in middle and high school settings. He brought together undergraduate and high school students to collaborate on civic projects, incorporating this research into his social studies methods classes. This integration enabled students to establish their commitment to the NCSS C3 framework in their professional portfolios and in their teaching. Additionally, Dr. Fitzgerald helped synthesize civics education research to inform Ford Foundation funding directions. He has served on the Board of Directors for Generation Citizen and on the board of the New York State Council for the Social Studies.
Dr. Rich Veit
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Monmouth University
Richard F. Veit, Ph.D., currently serves as provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs for Monmouth University, and is a professor of Anthropology in the Wayne D. McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences. An experienced academic leader, he also previously served as interim and associate dean of the Wayne D. McMurray School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Veit received his B.A., summa cum laude, from Drew University in 1990, his M.A. in historical archaeology from the College of William and Mary in 1991 and his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997. In 2007, he was the recipient of Monmouth University’s Distinguished Teacher Award and in 2012 he received Monmouth University’s Donald Warnecke Award for outstanding university service. In 2019, he received Monmouth’s Eugene Simko Faculty Leadership Award. In addition to his administrative duties, he teaches courses on archaeology and New Jersey history. He is the author of eight scholarly books, two of which, “Digging New Jersey’s Past,” and “New Jersey: A History of the Garden State” (with Maxine Lurie), are listed on the New Jersey State library’s 101 Great New Jersey books list. A volume he co-authored with Maxine Lurie, “Envisioning New Jersey,” received an Award of Merit from American Association for State and Local History. Veit serves on the New Jersey Historical Commission and on the boards of the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology, Crossroads of the American Revolution, Preservation New Jersey and the Archaeological Society of New Jersey. He is the President of the Society for Historical Archaeology. His work research has been featured on NPR, in Archaeology Magazine and at TEDx Navesink in 2014.
Dr. Derek Tranchina
Director of Special Projects, Monmouth Ocean Educational Services Commission
Dr. Derek Tranchina has been an educator and administrator for more than 16 years. He currently serves as the Director of Special Projects for the Monmouth-Ocean Educational Services Commission, primarily overseeing New Jersey Virtual School, a GED program at Monmouth County Jail, and a Professional Development series for educators. As a consultant, speaker, and writer, Derek strives to inspire and empower educators through passion and innovative leadership in areas such as navigating Artificial Intelligence, Educational Technology, school and classroom culture, and more.
Joe Zemla
Senior Curator, Monmouth County Historical Association
Joe Zemla is currently the senior curator at the Monmouth County Historical Association (MCHA), which operates a museum, archives, and research library in Freehold, in addition to five historic house museums throughout the county. Along with MCHA Director of Collections Bernadette Rogoff, Joe researched and installed the permanent exhibition Beneath the Floorboards: Whispers of the Enslaved at Marlpit Hall, two-time winner of the New Jersey Historical Commission’s annual Giles R. Wright Award. The exhibition presents a reinterpretation of the c. 1756 Marlpit Hall farmhouse in Middletown from the perspective of the enslaved men, women, and children who once resided there, while exploring the often-overlooked topic of slavery in New Jersey. Joe currently serves as a Board member for the New Jersey Association of Museums (NJAM), and as a New Jersey representative for the Northeast Slavery Records Database, hosted by John Jay College. Joe holds a Bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Rutgers University, and a Master’s in Museum Studies from the Harvard Extension School.
Dana Howell
Archivist & Director of Education
Monmouth County Historical Association
Dana Howell is an archivist and the Director of Education at the Monmouth County Historical Association. She holds a BA from Rutgers University in Psychology and History and an MA in American History from Gettysburg College. She served as the MCHA Research Archivist for several years, during which time her focus was also education-driven. She created the Digital Diversity Oral History Project with her colleague, Joe Zemla, to proactively document the history of our underrepresented communities, and began the Remembering Covid-19 project, one of the earliest pandemic documentation projects launched in the country. MCHA's new digital education companion to the award-winning exhibit Beneath the Floorboards: Whispers of the Enslaved at Marlpit Hall makes the fascinating exhibit content accessible for students, and she is currently working on a curriculum-based high school resource to spotlight the rich and amazing history of Monmouth County, bringing the best of the MCHA archives to students across the state.
Elizabeth Van Cleaf was born into slavery at Marlpit Hall in 1806. The teaching institute honors her memory.
