These adjoining northwestern South Carolina districts share the challenge of students who are unprepared in history; the majority of middle and high school students fail to achieve proficiency on standardized and end-of-course history exams. During the school year, teachers will establish school-based professional learning teams, conduct book studies and attend several 1-day and 5-day workshops; in the summer, teachers will participate in a 5-day summer symposium and a 4- to 5-day traveling history institute. All events will deliver content and pedagogy, and the summer institutes will include activities focused on developing classroom curriculum. All middle and high school teachers of American history in the two districts will participate in this project with the goals of learning to think like historians and translating this skill to their students. As the learning moves from Reconstruction to the present, content will emphasize the struggles and perspectives of women and cultural minorities and their contributions to shaping American history. Instructional strategies will focus on using primary sources, aligning instruction to standards, developing critical thinking skills and thinking like a historian. Professional learning teams will also develop teachers' skills around using student data and analyzing student work. A project Web site will house all teacher-created materials and links to relevant sites, making them available to all teachers.

The northern Rhode Island districts involved in A New Birth of Freedom: Developing Historical Thinking in American History make up one-third of the state's districts. When some teachers who will be affected by the project took an Advanced Placement U.S. history test, their average score was about 47 percent. Every year, academic and public historians and educators will introduce content and teaching strategies through 1-day fall and spring workshops, a series of after-school sessions, and a 5-day summer institute with field experiences. Leading New England scholars will initiate substantive work with project teachers to increase content knowledge and create excitement for American history. Project leaders will encourage teachers to build horizontal and vertical relationships among schools and with historians as the partnering organizations. Separate cohorts of 60 teachers each year will participate; priority will be given to teachers with the fewest opportunities for history professional development. The project will stress the themes of communication and flexibility while working toward building a statewide learning community. Content will focus on the ideal of "freedom" and how this concept has been expressed by influential figures, founding documents and landmark cases that have transformed American history. Teaching strategies will focus on using primary sources, differentiated instruction, document-based questioning and performance-based authentic assessments to help students develop historical, critical and reflective skills. Teachers will be able to earn graduate or continuing education credits for their participation as long as they complete unit plans that consist of several lessons. Model lesson plans and student work will be posted on the Web site to help other teachers find materials and learn from colleagues.

In this diverse Philadelphia district, 72 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, and none of the targeted high schools has met its annual yearly progress goals. Teachers in this project will participate in (1) 10 day-long symposia at Saint Joseph's University, focusing on historical research through technology, student evaluations and core content-related teaching practices; (2) an annual 5-day summer institute, featuring historical content, teaching strategies, review standards, and the development of lesson plans and classroom-ready resources and materials; (3) a program of regular student pre- and post testing, in which teachers will meet in teams after school to review state standards and the district’s pacing guide, prepare monthly or unit pre- and posttests, and give the tests to their students; and (4) a teacher network, which will offer follow-up support between monthly meetings. The project will involve four overlapping cohorts of 30: Cohort A (Years 1-2), Cohort B (Years 2-3), Cohort C (Years 3-4) and Cohort D (Years 4-5). Each cohort will include two representatives from 15 schools. The most academically challenged schools will be targeted first for participation. The project will provide a standards-aligned study of American history from the crafting of the Constitution to recent times, examining the issues, themes, events and interpretations related to the question, "What did freedom mean?" Teachers will learn to use content-related teaching strategies, including primary documents, artifacts, first-hand accounts, illustrations and site visits to translate freshly mastered content into classroom lessons. Reviewed lessons and other resources generated by the teachers will be posted online.

Nine of this project's 13 districts have failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress, and few teachers have better than scant knowledge of American history. Three colloquia and a summer institute, totaling 11 days, will be offered each year, and sessions will be led by historians, instructional experts and master teachers. An annual book study will require reading, writing and discussions with professors and education specialists. Teachers will keep multimedia journals and compile collections of resources for classroom use. A cadre of 50 teachers will be recruited, with the goal of retaining all for the full 3 years to build an enduring, history-based professional learning community. By studying American history chronologically through the historian's academic lens, teachers will see the powerful cause and effect relationships and push/pull factors that have impacted our history. Teachers will engage in discourse and experiential learning with the goals of (1) developing historical reasoning skills, along with the ability to engage student learning and critical thinking; and (2) becoming trainers of colleagues in their schools and districts. Specific instructional methods will be introduced each year, and the historical reasoning approach will build a foundation for acquiring historical knowledge. Strategies will be bracketing history; E.Q.U.A.L., a strategy to study primary documents; and the Great Parley, in which students study events from multiple perspectives. All project work will be published on the Southern Oregon Education Service District Web site, and student- and teacher-created video resources will be posted to TeacherTube.

Project INSPIRE will serve rural districts with limited financial resources; many teachers have little background in American history and teach out-of-field. Activities will capitalize on experts in history and online learning to deliver in-person and distance learning experiences that are organized in five tiers: (1) a lecture series, (2) monthly online history activities, (3) annual colloquia at historic sites (e.g., Williamsburg, Boston, Gettysburg), (4) annual 2-day master teacher workshops, and (5) annual intensive summer workshops focused on a specific time period. Tiers 1 and 2 will be delivered mainly by 21st century technologies such as Skype, and all activities will be supported by such technology tools as Moodle, which will be used for lesson planning. The 57 teachers will be chosen on the basis of greatest need; all will participate for the first three years, and some will continue for the final two years, to be joined by additional colleagues. Each year 40 participants will rotate into the colloquium and master teacher workshop, with smaller groups of three per year selected for the intensive summer workshop. This 5-year training-of-trainers program aims to develop "teacher content specialists" who can sustain the professional development beyond the grant period. To build content knowledge of national and local history and to develop expertise in such research-based strategies as thinking like a historian, teachers will explore online resources and get hands-on practice with conducting research, using primary sources, and teaching from multiple perspectives. Participants will create lesson plans, book reviews, project activities and guides, and a Web site featuring student work and National History Day projects.

Teachers in Stark County schools often have limited American history knowledge—and limited resources available to improve their knowledge. Each year of The Meaning of Freedom will begin with a 1-week summer institute that includes scholar-led seminars and a 3-day visit to the National Constitution Center as well as nearby historic sites. During the school year, teachers will attend four theme-related seminars and visit two Ohio historic sites; in addition, mentor teachers will meet regularly with participants. In Year 1, intensive training will be provided to four teachers to prepare them as mentor teachers, and these teachers will support project staff to train an additional 30 teachers each remaining year of the project. The project theme looks at how the meaning of freedom—as first articulated in the founding documents of the state and nation—has been central to the struggles and achievements that have been key turning points in American history. The content outlined in the topic strands will be developed to align with state standards and to connect Ohio's people, places, documents and events to those significant to the nation's history; it will be delivered through a blend of in-person and proven online strategies. Applying a backward design process, teachers will learn to use and create inquiry-based lesson plans that integrate 21st century skills and technologies. When complete, the lessons and other project materials, such as seminar content and primary source documents, will be mounted on a Web site and made available to all teachers who want effective and engaging history resources.

Adapting Project HISTORY will serve seven districts in central New York State, where a 2010 needs assessment demonstrated that a large majority of secondary history teachers need professional development related to interacting with content experts, using new research-based teaching skills and strategies, developing primary sources, integrating new technology and examining local history resources. The project will combine historians' presentations, related technology integration sessions, and visits to these historic sites and museums: Oneida Community Mansion House, the Oneida County Historical Society, the Erie Canal Museum and Fort Stanwix. Each cadre of 25 secondary teachers will participate in 75 hours of seminars led by the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs; the professional development programs for the two cadres will be split into two consecutive 30-month periods. The seminars will follow the National Assessment of Educational Progress subject areas for U.S. history and focus on significant events, issues and turning points in American history. In addition to attending the seminars, the teachers will learn to align their content to state standards and analyze original American history documents. The project is adapted from Issues in American History, a professional development program established in 1976 to help teachers improve students' knowledge of American history and problem-solving skills. The project directors will develop a Web site that serves as a teaching, learning and research resource; the Web products will include teacher-prepared Webquests and PowerPoint presentations, which other teachers can access and replicate.