This large district represents a diverse cross section of students and faculty across New York City. Each year of the project, up to 32 teachers (some continuing for more than 1 year) will participate in (1) a 3-day staff development workshop, which will demonstrate effective methods for teaching American history through historic sites in Philadelphia, New York City and elsewhere in New York state; (2) two 3-hour summer and two 3-hour Saturday workshops, in which teachers will practice using multimedia equipment at the new DiMenna Children's History Museum; and (3) a 3-day summer and a 3-day Saturday workshop to help middle and high school teachers convey the proper historiography skills to prepare their students for participation in National History Day. In addition to the outlined topics and historic site visits, the participants will receive guided tours of these New York Historical Society temporary exhibits: "Life for a Child: Insulin"; "John Rogers: American Stories"; "Swing Time: Reginald Marsh and Thirties New York"; and "New York in World War II." The project will focus on using multimedia and news broadcasting to disseminate facts about historic events, conducting extensive research via public and museum library resources, and engaging students in debates on historical topics and time periods. The strategies will include historical instructional methodologies, differentiated instruction tied to content, and flexible approaches to address various student needs, such as using picture symbols to facilitate communication. Project products will be shared online; these will include lesson plans, alternative assessments, student portfolios and video productions of students and staff.

A Teaching American History initiative was implemented in three of these low-income East Bronx districts beginning in 2003. This new project builds on this earlier grant's success by extending the program to all teachers and schools in the Bronx. Each year, teachers will attend a 2-week summer institute, featuring a morning seminar with a nationally known historian; presentations by educators from the partner organizations; a study of how historical art and artifacts can illuminate content, including curatorial lectures, gallery walks and tours of exhibits and collections; and a history media training workshop. During the school year, teachers will participate in walking tours of New York City, lectures and film study groups. Five cohorts of 25 teachers will receive one year of intensive training in U.S. history content knowledge and aligned pedagogical skills that integrate historical art, artifacts and media into the classroom. Hundreds of other U.S. history teachers also may participate in ancillary program activities. In-depth case studies of New York City history will offer a lens for viewing national events and themes across U.S. history. Teachers will translate their knowledge and skills into original content-rich materials and improved practices. Collaboration through peer networks will help teachers share and develop common strategies for instructing all students. Once teachers complete the program, they will become teacher historians, continuing to develop their content knowledge and supporting other teachers. The participants will develop classroom materials, including lesson plans, activities using media, History in a Box artifacts and documents, and curriculum units.

The districts participating in this project are all New York City charter schools with limited funds for professional development; this consortium will help them meet a common need. During the school year, teachers will have seven 3-hour workshops as well as six hours of classroom-based modeling and guided practice; summer activities will include three 5-hour sessions. All of these events will include both content and pedagogy, and locations will be split between Columbia University, the home school, local museums and historic sites. Five cohorts of 32 teachers, one each year of the grant, will participate. Each will study the same time periods, but will have a different annual focus (see topics, above). One project goal is to create a community of learners that will expand to other charter schools. Teachers will all study the same historical content, then learn grade-appropriate approaches to teaching it. For example, when studying Jacksonian Democracy (universal suffrage for white males, an economy that depended on slavery, the shifting understanding of citizenship), elementary students might work from an old photo to create a short biography showing how events impacted the person's life. Middle school students might create a board game based on an important industry of the time, and high school students might write newspaper editorials that take opposing views of an issue. Teachers will create a variety of products, including lesson plans, journal articles, conference presentations and videos; all will be available on the Web sites of local, regional and national organizations as well as through professional conferences and publications.

Middle and high school students in this diverse, low-income Bronx district have traditionally scored poorly on the New York statewide U.S. History Regents exam; also, teachers have little access to history-related professional development. Each year, the project will involve 32 teacher leaders in a week-long summer institute in which they will share primary and secondary sources to develop curriculum units and field-test U.S. history lessons with summer school students. At the institute, they will form curriculum design teams and participate in 11 meetings throughout the year to discuss content aligned with the targeted National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) periods. A total of 75 teachers will attend lectures twice a year, and 100 teachers will participate in two history forums per year, featuring lectures, primary source work and sharing of curriculum design team units. The participants will rotate each year with some overlap of teachers. The content will be based on a key premise—participation in society as educated citizens and voters requires students to understand the development of our democratic institutions and ideas. The project will extend teachers' ability to use primary sources, Web tools and inquiry strategies. Participating teachers will work within curriculum design teams—comprising a team historian, a teacher educator and eight high school teachers—to develop two units per year that align with the NAEP U.S. history themes and periods. A Web site will host these units, which will include primary and secondary sources, teaching strategies, lesson plans, activities and high-quality assessments. They will also share these materials through 2-day professional development history forums.

A large majority of history teachers in these New Jersey districts expressed interest in having professional development opportunities to interact with historical experts, enrich their content knowledge and integrate primary sources into classrooms. In this project, 45 middle and high school teachers will engage in a 5-year examination of the major ideas, people, events and developments in American history from a constitutional perspective. Each year, the focal point will be an 8-day summer seminar at Princeton University to address content and make teachers aware of the relatively recent emphasis on social history. An additional 3.5 days of after-school professional development will be conducted each year to focus on content, curriculum and pedagogy. At least 85 teachers will be recruited, with 45 selected randomly as the experimental group and approximately 40 constituting the control group. Content time periods were selected because of the dramatic and polarizing debates that decisively shaped American political and constitutional perspectives for succeeding generations. These historical developments demonstrate the evolution of freedom and democracy as well as constitutional norms and understandings. Attention will be given to developing pedagogical skills to guide teachers and their students in gathering, examining and organizing historical data to make historical explanations, with particular emphasis on historical writing. Participating teachers will receive New Jersey professional development credit hours and may also receive graduate credits from the College of Education at Ashland University in Ohio upon payment of tuition. The project Web site will feature video recordings of the scholarly lectures and examples of lesson plans and other materials developed by the teachers.

Based on a needs assessment, American history teachers in these New Jersey districts are dissatisfied with their lesson plans, particularly the lack of emphasis on primary sources. In this project, 45 middle and high school teachers will engage in a 5-year examination of the major ideas, people, events and developments in American history from a constitutional perspective. Each year, the focal point will be an 8-day summer seminar at Princeton University to address content and make teachers aware of the relatively recent emphasis on social history. An additional 3.5 days of after-school professional development will be conducted each year to focus on content, curriculum and pedagogy. At least 85 teachers will be recruited, with 45 selected randomly as the experimental group and approximately 40 constituting the control group. Content time periods were selected because of the dramatic and polarizing debates that decisively shaped American political and constitutional perspectives for succeeding generations. These historical developments demonstrate the evolution of freedom and democracy as well as constitutional norms and understandings. Attention will be given to developing pedagogical skills to guide teachers and their students in gathering, examining and organizing historical data to make historical explanations, with particular emphasis on historical writing. Participating teachers will receive New Jersey professional development credit hours and may also receive graduate credits from the College of Education at Ashland University in Ohio upon payment of tuition. The project Web site will feature video recordings of the scholar lectures and examples of lesson plans and other materials developed by the teachers.

Teachers in these New Jersey school districts recently expressed an interest in receiving more U.S. history professional development, interaction with historical experts and collaborative opportunities to develop new lesson plans and teaching strategies. In this project, 45 middle and high school teachers will engage in a 5-year examination of the major ideas, people, events and developments in American history from a constitutional perspective. Each year, the focal point will be an 8-day summer seminar at Princeton University to address content and make teachers aware of the relatively recent emphasis on social history. An additional 3.5 days of after-school professional development will be conducted each year to focus on content, curriculum and pedagogy. At least 85 teachers will be recruited, with 45 selected randomly as the experimental group and approximately 40 constituting the control group. Content time periods were selected because of the dramatic and polarizing debates that decisively shaped American political and constitutional perspectives for succeeding generations. These historical developments demonstrate the evolution of freedom and democracy as well as constitutional norms and understandings. Attention will be given to developing the pedagogical skills to guide teachers and their students in gathering, examining and organizing historical data to make historical explanations, with particular emphasis on historical writing. Participating teachers will receive New Jersey professional development credit hours and may also receive graduate credits from the College of Education at Ashland University in Ohio upon payment of tuition. The project Web site will feature video recordings of the scholarly lectures, examples of lesson plans and other materials developed by the teachers.