A needs assessment of these 16 districts in the greater Boston area indicates that the teachers are interested in taking graduate-level courses and working with the museum and higher education partners involved in this project. Each year, a new cohort of 35 teachers will participate in a week-long summer institute with full-day workshops at the partner sites; immersion experiences at places like Gettysburg, Antietam and Washington, D.C.; training to incorporate technology nto history instruction; the Using Primary Source for Critical Thinking and Understanding course; graduate-level colloquia; and online professional development courses. In addition to the five 35-teacher cohorts, 100 new teachers per year will attend graduate courses—taught by Suffolk University faculty—to develop core content knowledge in American history and historical thinking skills. The overarching project focus is to examine how America's founding documents have defined freedom and democracy and to trace these ideals and the lived realities for different groups of Americans over 300 years. The content will explore the evolving struggle for human rights and justice, emphasizing the essential framework of American democracy, 19th-century social movements that challenged constitutional guarantees of freedom, the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction with regard to these freedoms, and 20th-century challenges to human rights at home and abroad, including the civil rights movement. The teachers will work together in district-based teams and develop Web-based teaching resources. At the conclusion of the coursework, participant teams will create a comprehensive unit that will be disseminated across the consortium districts and beyond.

Teachers in this project's western Massachusetts districts noted that they are least knowledgeable about recent history, which also is the most likely historical period to be limited by time constraints at the end of a year; therefore, it will be addressed in Year 1 of the project. Each year will begin with an immersion field trip to visit monuments and historic sites; the Veterans Education Project will provide personal accounts of people who witnessed related history, and funding will help teachers create "archive boxes" of primary sources and artifacts for classroom use. During the school year, participants will attend four seminars that deliver content, pedagogy and historical thinking skills; they will also take part in after-school workshops that include book groups and technology training. The number of teachers participating each year (35) will eventually produce a cadre of teacher leaders who can support their colleagues and sustain the benefits of the grant. The theme of American democracy will serve as the medium through which the content of each historical period will be filtered. The content addressed during each 50-year block of history will be presented so as to align with state standards. Teachers will learn to use fiction and graphic novels for history teaching, along with differentiated instruction, primary sources and technology tools, such as wikis, podcasts, digital storytelling and Web-based archives. Grant activities and products will be posted on a Web site, giving all history teachers access to virtual museum tours, videos of activities and examples of classroom teaching, examples of student work, blogs, podcasts and more.

This project will concentrate on a combination of public schools and the public charter schools that were established in the wake of two events in 2005: the Louisiana Board of Education's takeover and restructuring of New Orleans Public Schools and Hurricane Katrina. Although student achievement has approved dramatically since 2005, data still indicate high failure rates on fourth, eighth, and eleventh grade social studies tests. Each year of the project, teachers will participate in 10 colloquia that focus on the key issues, people, ideas and events in American history; a weeklong summer field-research workshop hosted by the Historic New Orleans Collection; and five staff development workshops in which scholars engage teachers on background information, current approaches and possible lessons. The project will recruit 50 new teachers each year. All 50 will participate in the colloquia and staff development workshops, while 20 will attend the summer workshop. The topics will explore the changes and continuity in American democracy, including ideas, institutions and controversies. The teachers will study the most up-to-date research, visit presidential libraries and other archives, and become familiar with American history Web sites and other technology resources. The teachers will have opportunities to study with Loyola University historians and distinguished visiting professors, receive stipends, and obtain continuing learning units. They will create traveling exhibits and History in a Box kits on various topics, featuring introductions, timelines, primary documents, teaching strategies, posters for classroom display, interactive CD-ROMs and DVDs.

In this area of south central Kentucky, many high school students have been performing below state average in history on both the state accountability test and Advanced Placement exams, and many high school history teachers have said they want to improve their history content knowledge and instructional skills. Each year, Project ATLAS: Analyzing Themes to Learn America's Story historians, scholars and educators will offer teachers 75 hours of professional development, including a 3-day theme-focused summer institute, a 1-day midyear workshop and eight 2-hour after-school network meetings. In addition, specialists will provide 18 hours of observation and instructional coaching for each teacher. The project's 41 participants, all eleventh grade teachers of history as a stand-alone course, will form a cadre that will stay together for the duration of the grant. Project ATLAS aims to give teachers a roadmap for a rigorous, content-based U.S. history course. As teachers explore historical eras through themes (see topics, above), they will also learn and practice four specific pedagogical skills: (1) creating effective assessment items, (2) implementing document-based questions, (3) utilizing Socratic seminars, and (4) integrating technology. In addition, teachers will use the lesson-study process (plan-teach-observe-revise-report) to collaborate on building a set of lessons that can be shared with other teachers; it will have the additional benefit of helping project teachers build a professional learning community to sustain their improvement beyond the grant period.

This project targets underserved populations in urban and rural areas of south-central Kentucky, where student test data for social studies have shown little or no improvement, especially in high schools. Each year, the project will provide 15 days of professional development for two cohorts of 50 teachers (overlapping in Year 3 of the project), including (1) historical encounter sessions, consisting of intensive visits to museums and historic sites, seminars, historical research and grade-level collaborative work to integrate content in the curriculum; (2) a 2-day summer colloquium hosted by the National Council for History Education; (3) historical field institutes, in which participants experience past times and deeds that relate to the yearly topic; (4) a peer-mentoring and observation program; (5) Web lessons; and (6) a teachers curriculum institute. Teachers also will attend lectures by professional historians and local historians. Participants will be recruited by district superintendents, the project director and the curriculum specialist, with preference given to teachers in schools in high-need districts. The project strategies comprise a combination of curricular resources, including an electronic resource notebook containing reproductions from the Kentucky Historical Society collections, access to intranet-based discussion boards and online lesson plans, membership in professional history organizations, and ongoing instructional support from the project director and Campbellsville College history professors. In terms of products, the project teachers will create interactive, hands-on, standards-based lessons and traveling trunks.

In this Kansas City metropolitan district, budget cuts have significantly altered teaching assignments, resulting in more American history teachers who need better preparation. For each semester during the three years, the same 20 teachers will participate in eight semester-long colloquia, three 3-day lecture series, and three 5-day travel research workshops led by faculty from the University of Kansas history department. Over the course of the project, the teachers will conduct independent research, create lesson plans and attend 10 professional development sessions for additional training on historiography, pedagogy and local American history resources. Instructional resource teachers will provide feedback to the teachers through classroom observations. The project will explore continuity and change in American history by examining how the founding fathers drafted the Constitution to facilitate changes, recognizing that the nation was not yet perfect. It will also examine the economic, social and political factors that shaped the meaning of "We the People" over time, tracing the causes and effects of the events that have pushed the nation toward becoming a "more perfect union." Participating teachers will learn how to locate and use evidence in primary and secondary sources to interpret the past and explore different perspectives and points of view. They can earn 19 hours of graduate credit through the University of Kansas or receive professional development points through the district. A Web site will feature all the project products and resources, including faculty lectures, classroom videos of teachers and students, lesson and unit plans, electronic field trips, book reviews, and course and workshop syllabi.

This eastern Indiana district, like many districts, has lacked resources for history professional development for many years. Teachers say they want to know about recent American history, and this project will help them gain content knowledge and professional credentials. Graduate courses, intensive summer institutes and field studies will provide content knowledge that will support teachers' involvement in the district's curriculum writing and mapping initiative. Classroom observations will help teachers improve practice, and the annual history resource project will engage teachers in deep learning about a topic as they create digital resources for all teachers to use. Two separate cohorts of teachers will participate: 15 in Years 1-3 and 15 in Years 3-5. Year 1 themes will include economics, entrepreneurship, transportation and communication; Year 2 themes will include leadership, social justice and social movements. These themes will guide explorations of the topics that the teachers selected for study (see topics, above). Teachers will learn to use technology and inquiry-based instructional strategies as they work to improve student engagement, increase the rigor of student performance and help students develop critical thinking skills. Professors from the university school of education will conduct observation sessions, help teachers reflect on their teaching by examining student work, and provide coaching support. Each year will culminate with a colloquium, during which teachers will make formal and informal presentations about their annual projects. Teachers' projects will contribute to resource banks of wikis, podcasts, virtual field trips, lessons and more, all of which will be available as open educational resources.

Located in northern Indiana, these districts have limited access to professional development. Many teachers have little American history background and lack confidence in their ability to teach the subject. Each year's activities will begin with a half-day kickoff that previews content and includes a keynote address. Teachers will attend three content workshops delivered by historians from partnering organizations and three grade-level methods workshops designed to bridge the gap between content and the classroom, plus a 5-day summer institute that combines content and methods. Each year, 10 teachers will travel on a 5-day field experience to sites that are related to the year's content. Book studies will include three content-focused books and one methods-focused book each year; these will be discussed during workshops and online. Teachers who complete all five years will receive 740 hours of professional development. The 35 teachers will come from all four participating districts and will stay for the full term. Should any teachers drop out, others will be recruited to take their places. American Liberty: Making Historical Connections will blend a chronological approach with a theme-based one, thus enabling historians to help teachers delve deeply into events in American history. Methods workshops will focus on specific skills, such as historical research, historical writing and investigations, and historical schools of thought. During summer field experiences, teachers will keep journals, gather resources and develop lesson plans. Coaches will provide classroom-based support through two visits every year to observe, model and give feedback. Teachers will learn to use Web-based technologies to share lesson plans and resources with other teachers.

A 2010 survey indicates that only a small percentage of U.S. history teachers in these Idaho districts currently place a significant emphasis on chronology, primary sources or connecting historical events with broader themes. Due to budget limitations, few teachers have had an opportunity to participate in history-related professional development over the past three years, and most would be interested in strengthening their knowledge of primary sources and interacting with historical experts. This project offers summer and daylong institutes during the school year featuring renowned national historians and twice-monthly half-day Saturday online workshops led by history faculty from Idaho's four institutions of higher education. The teachers will be organized into four cohorts of 10 based on location. Each of the three years, they will study a different chronological phase of American history, focusing on significant issues, episodes and turning points. They will use primary sources to learn how the words and deeds of individuals have determined the course of history, and create lesson plans using backward design and one of five teaching strategies: Binary Paideia, haunted history, content scene interpretation, cause-effect generalizations and cognition strategies. The teachers will produce four lesson plans for each unit. An academic advisory board will select the best teacher lesson plans and student products for inclusion on a consortium Web site. In addition, the online workshops will be recorded and made available as QuickTime movies.