Welcome to Best Practices
Spotlight on Elementary Education
Example of Historical Thinking
How can you get teachers thinking about monuments and memorials as secondary [...] »
How does a political cartoon use popular beliefs about women to make its [...] »
What was it like being a small farmer in the 1700s? Follow a tour group [...] »
Watch Smithsonian curator Barbara Clark Smith discuss John Smith’s Map of [...] »
Historian Christopher Hamner visits the original Franklin D. [...] »
Teaching in Action
Teacher Bill Kendrat demonstrates the techniques he uses to draw students in [...] »
A 4th-grade teacher shows strategies for encouraging and supporting student [...] »
Using Primary Sources
Integrate these two guides into your curriculum to help students develop [...] »
So you don't live near Gettysburg or the Alamo—can you still teach with [...] »
Teaching with Textbooks
Make the most of your textbook—engage students in close reading and analysis [...] »
Show your students how to challenge the authority gap between the textbook [...] »
The language of history textbooks challenges English language learners and [...] »
Turn your students into 'master chefs' by using learning menus that allow [...] »
Help students identify with the past via children who lived through the [...] »