Welcome to Best Practices
Spotlight on Elementary Education
Example of Historical Thinking
Watch Suzannah Niepold of the Smithsonian American Art Museum guide teachers [...] »
Watch Smithsonian curator Barbara Clark Smith discuss John Smith’s Map of [...] »
Today, we accept paper—and electronic—money as a fact of life. Historian [...] »
Written primary sources only tell you so much. To learn about history that [...] »
Historian Christopher Hamner introduces educators to the World War II [...] »
Teaching in Action
The fictional Alphonse the Camel provides insight for one classroom.
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Trying to promote more productive and engaging discussions?
[...] »Using Primary Sources
Analyze art in the classroom with these resources from the Picturing [...] »
Every town has a scattering of historical markers and statues. Discover what [...] »
Teaching with Textbooks
Allow students to see that history as we know it is interpretation, [...] »
Class discussion and personal inquiry builds an interactive relationship [...] »
Turn your textbook into a conversation by scanning its language for biases [...] »
Help students identify with the past via children who lived through the [...] »
Show your students how to challenge the authority gap between the textbook [...] »