The CHARMS Collaborative in Massachusetts is instituting A More Perfect Union in consortium with selected school districts from the Bi-County and North River Collaboratives. The program will work most intensely in three districts located south of Boston that have not met annual instructional goals. Teachers who receive professional development through the program will do a significant amount of reading in the philosophy and pedagogy of history. Each year, they will participate in an 8-day summer seminar, a field trip, and four half-day meetings during the school year that address implementation of seminar content. Classroom implementation of teacher-created lesson plans will be facilitated by three coordinators and a pedagogical specialist. The same 45 teachers will participate throughout all three years of the program. They will explore the origins and evolution of America's fundamental political ideals, traditions, and constitutional institutions. Because the targeted districts include an increasing number of English Language Learners, A More Perfect Union will emphasize strategies that complement the Sheltered Instructional Observation Protocol. Also, teachers will learn to situate events within narrative frameworks and incorporate biography in their teaching. A project Web site will include the syllabi of the summer seminars and advice for their use in venues beyond the collaborative. The site will also house historical materials, essays, model lesson plans, and other teaching materials.

Prince George's County, the 15th largest district in the country, has a student population more than 95 percent minority—a reflection, in part, of its large African American middle class. The district is classified as in need of improvement and has a disproportionate number of inexperienced, unlicensed teachers at low-performing schools. Its proximity to the nation's capital and to some remarkable experiments in suburban living (e.g., the New Deal community of Greenbelt) makes visits to key sites accessible for experiential learning by teachers and students. Each 2-year program of American History at Home will include a 2-day introduction, six 2-day bridge sessions and three 5-day summer institutes, all of which will be integrated with pedagogy sessions that transfer the content knowledge into practice. For participating in these activities, teachers will earn six graduate-level history course credits and three graduate-level education course credits. The project will train two 2-year cohorts of 50 teachers each. Because of the great need among ninth grade students, the goal will be to recruit 30 percent of teachers from this grade level. American History at Home will explore two thematic questions: (1) How did depression, war, and postwar growth reshape local communities? and, (2) What role did science and technology play in the histories of the county and of the nation during this period? Beginning with assigned readings and writing tasks, teachers will explore several interpretive frameworks and historiographic debates (e.g., consensus vs. conflict, technological momentum, statism and anti-statism). Pedagogical strategies will include creating multimedia classroom activities and employing strategic historical thinking.

The Project PAST consortium includes both the regular and special education cooperatives for central Kentucky. They serve six districts that are in some phase of corrective action. Teachers in this rural region have had few opportunities for history professional development, and many would not be considered highly qualified to teach American history. Each year, the project plans to address a broad topic through six components: six historical encounters, a 3-day summer colloquium, a 2-day historical field institute, a mentoring and observation opportunity, three 5-hour online learning sessions, and two day-long curriculum institutes. Two cohorts of 50 high school teachers will participate; the first in Years 1 to 3 and the second in Years 4 and 5. As one strategy to achieve its goal of fusing immersion in content with training in practical classroom application, Project PAST will prepare the members of Cohort 1 to act as coaches to teachers in Cohort 2. All teachers will gain experience with using original documents, collaborating in grade-level teams, addressing the multiple abilities of students, and spiraling content to lead students from basic to critical thinking. Strategies will include theory-based instruction, creating standards-based lessons and authentic assessments, peer mentoring, and observation using a standard walk-through protocol, and integrating the fine arts and the humanities into history instruction. Project products will include a Moodle site—an Intranet-based learning platform that houses online lessons, discussions boards, curriculum, and interactive teaching resources—and a collection of standards-based lessons created by participants that will be available to all teachers in the consortium.

The Clio Project serves Iowa's capitol, where the student population is diverse and gaps in student achievement are becoming urgent in the middle and high schools. The district intends to redesign its history curriculum to include primary sources and historical thinking, along with a learner-centered approach to instruction. Clio will address student achievement through activities that strengthen teacher knowledge about increasing student engagement, providing experiences with primary sources in print, multimedia and digital formats, and studying artifacts, historical sites, and oral history with historians and scholars. During project activities, Clio teachers will contribute to redesigning the American history curriculum and developing authentic student learning assessments. The project will recruit teacher participation at three levels: Level I teachers will be core group members (35 each for middle and high school) and will work toward leadership roles to support implementing the new curriculum. These teachers must attend at least 80 percent of activities. Level II teachers will attend 75 percent of activities to receive professional development credit, and Level III teachers will attend sessions of their choice with no participation requirement. Clio, the Greek muse of history, serves as the project's thematic guide for deepening teachers' knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of American history. The instructional strategies for this purpose include developing historical thinking skills, working with primary sources, and using authentic research. Attention will be paid to differentiating instruction, teaching literacy in content areas, problem-based learning, and other research-based approaches. In addition to teacher-created lessons, the Clio Project will make an important contribution to the district's new curriculum and assessment tools.

The Monroe County Community School Corporation in southern Indiana is a comprehensive school district with a large research university in its midst. The district includes both high and low-achieving schools, and its students come from ethnically, economically, and socially diverse backgrounds. Teachers in Monroe County's lowest-performing schools will be targeted for recruitment to the History Education Project. In Year 1, professional development activities will include three weekend retreats that incorporate seminars and field trips, two evening book discussions, lesson planning consultations, a classroom observation, and a culminating spring conference. Years 2 and 3 will feature a 5-day summer seminar, spring and fall retreats, two evening book discussions, lesson planning consultations, two classroom observations, and a culminating spring conference. A historian-in-residence, along with master teachers, will assist each teacher in the development of 15 powerful lessons in American history. Up to 30 of the district's 133 history teachers will be recruited, and they will participate in all three years of the program. Each year's themes will be investigated through case studies of the period, with an emphasis on connecting Indiana people, places, events, and historical turning points to the larger American scene. The History Education Project will integrate four dimensions of instruction: thinking historically, utilizing primary resources, teaching big ideas, and posing multiple perspectives. The program will maintain an interactive Web site as a repository of field-tested U.S. history instructional resources.

Located in a rural town near Boise, the Kuna district is in its fifth year of improvement: only one of eight district schools made Adequate Yearly Progress in 2007-2008. In project Year 1, master teacher trainees will spend 175 hours in field studies, collaboration with partners, workshops, book studies, and design of summer institutes for subsequent years. Thereafter, teachers will receive more than 75 hours of research-based professional development as they participate in workshops, book studies, and summer institutes. Year 1 will develop four master teachers; Years 2 to 5 will bring in about 35 more teachers overall. The project goal is to develop 19 teacher-leaders and approximately 20 additional teachers with strong content knowledge, pedagogical background, and resources. The underlying purpose of the Struggles and Resilience project is to develop American history as a separate academic subject that is supported by resident historians and pedagogical experts. In Year 1, master teachers will participate in individualized and collaborative field study, primary source research, and intense learning sessions with local and national history experts. In the following years, the master teachers will work with historians and other educators to help participating teachers build their content knowledge and instructional skills. History content will draw connections between traditional American history and state and local histories. Pedagogy will be based on nine essential strategies outlined in Classroom Instruction That Works. Participating teachers will earn college credits and/or history endorsements or certifications. All district teachers will benefit from lesson plans created during project activities.

Within the districts in this northeast Georgia region, 15 schools did not make Adequate Yearly Progress in 2008, and 13 schools are in need of improvement. On the 2008 history tests for Grades 4, 8, and high school, 35 percent or more of the region’s students did not meet state standards. Teaching American History in Georgia's Classic Region will expand teachers' content knowledge and help them develop their pedagogical skills. Seminars, field studies, and summer institutes will be led by historians and master educators who will help teachers gain an increased appreciation of traditional American history. Professional Learning Communities, meeting both face-to-face and online, will collaborate to create lesson plans. A cohort of 60 teachers will include 30 from Grades 3-5 and 30 from middle and high schools; priority will be given to teachers from the schools most in need of improvement. Instructional strategies for this project include Understanding by Design and using historical thinking skills. Each year, these will be applied to content from the selected topic area/historical period. The project will produce technology-based collaborative instructional units that incorporate primary sources, local history resources, Web sites, and databases. All units will be reviewed by an advisory board and mounted on the project Web site to share with teachers in Georgia and across the nation. In addition, materials related to the book studies, blogs, podcasts, lectures, and presentations will be available online for all teachers in the project service area. In addition, teachers will conduct model demonstration lessons in their local schools and districts to sustain the project's impact over time.

Located in the Atlanta metro area, this district's students are predominantly minority, ethnically and linguistically diverse, and from low-income families. Twenty-five of its 125 schools are in need of improvement. SHIFT participants will interact with respected historians at annual kick-off events, through two hybrid graduate-level courses each year, and during annual summer academies located at historical sites. Teachers will have funding to gather resources for their classroom libraries during field experiences and will receive other resources during SHIFT activities. The project will serve five cohorts of 30 teachers each, with teachers coming from all school levels and each cohort participating for two years. SHIFT will explore a variety of themes, including interactions of peoples, cultures, and ideas; change and continuity in American democracy; and the changing role of America in the world. Instructional strategies will focus on applying thoughtful exploration and critical analysis to understand history, and on making history an engaging, immersive, and relevant academic subject. Teachers will reflect, collaborate, and refer to the SHIFT blueprint for guidance on building an ideal classroom environment for history teaching and learning. Teachers who complete the professional development will have classroom libraries with multimedia resources, an expanded repertoire of teaching practices, deeper content knowledge, and collegial relationships that will support their future practice.

Located on Florida's Gulf Coast, Sarasota County has several elementary schools with a diverse student population in need of improvement. Casting the Net teachers will participate in summer institutes, book studies, and independent studies as they work with partners and historian mentors to develop a rubric for historical quality, revise curriculum, and build learning materials. Summer institutes will focus on NAEP eras, and related book study topics will be determined as the project progresses. Annual cohorts, with an expected enrollment of 25 teachers each year, will be open to all county teachers and pre-service teachers in Grades 5-12 who teach, or expect to teach, history. The project's overarching theme is to cast a net to the next generation of Americans and engage them in examining the relationships among national, state, and local history to create a dynamic picture that provides relevance and sets a context for studying the past and learning from experience. Casting the Net content and instruction will focus on incorporating critical reading strategies, primary sources, and technology into history instruction, and using research to develop materials and lessons that are relevant and hands-on. To this end, the project will provide mini-grants for action research and independent studies. With project staff and the steering committee, teachers will contribute to a new district curriculum that aligns with new state standards and that fosters rigorous study of American history. They will also create high-quality, field-tested learning materials and kits to accompany the core texts and a collection of video case studies that demonstrate student learning using engaging materials.

Pinellas County, on Florida's west coast, has embarked on a high school redesign plan intended to improve the performance of all district high schools. To that end, the Circle of We project will be paying special attention to the 10 low-performing high schools in the district. The district's increased focus on academic rigor and student engagement will be reflected in the project's annual activities, which will include three 3-hour lectures followed by full-day colloquia, two day-long workshops, a summer institute, and an ongoing virtual learning community. Each year a cadre of 20 teachers, ranked by need, will be recruited to participate in 175 hours of professional development. In addition, teachers will receive tuition-free graduate coursework toward dual-enrollment certification. The project will examine the ideas behind "We the People" and how it has been debated, defined, defended, challenged, and redefined over the past 200 years. This examination will extend to the democratic principles of freedom, justice, inclusion, and equal opportunity that underlie our constitutional rights, and to the social, legal, and civic institutions that embody these principles. Middle school teachers who completed a similar TAH project in 2008 will open their classrooms so that the high school teachers can observe effective teaching practices, such as document-based questioning. Circle of We will create a Moodle site that will become part of a permanent infrastructure to support history professional development, and teachers who complete the professional development will constitute a high school cadre with period-specific content expertise and content-specific pedagogy.