McAllen Independent School District in southern Texas serves mostly Hispanic students, a fourth of whom are classified as English Language Learners. Five of the district's 34 schools have not achieved Adequate Yearly Progress: the average Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) score for these five schools is 55 percent, compared to the state average of 72 percent. Most history teachers in the district have minimal credentials in the subject area and few opportunities for professional development. McAllen ISD Project TEACH (Teachers Engaged in American Culture and History) will target low-performing schools and engage 50 teachers annually in four 2-day colloquia, eight 3-hour seminars, and a 4-day summer institute. At least half of the teachers will participate in a 5-day historical site visit each year. The project will also provide support and tuition for five participants interested in pursuing a master's degree in American history. Themes explored in Project TEACH will include complex political, economic, and social dynamics that have shaped America from colonial times through the present. Through training, observation, and feedback, teachers will implement an instructional strategy called document-based questioning. Participating teachers will also share their work with colleagues face-to-face and online, mentor other history teachers, and use Texas's Web-based curriculum management tool to align classroom instruction to district curriculum. The teachers will create thematic "toolbox libraries" for classroom use.

Located in South Carolina's Lowcountry, Berkeley, the state's largest school district, includes rural areas, military bases, and the bedroom communities of Charleston. Although the region has a well-developed appreciation for its rich history, the district has never met Adequate Yearly Progress and is in corrective action. Foundations of American History will help history teachers improve their performance through graduate courses, workshops, book studies, and online professional development that emphasize deep content knowledge, strong pedagogical skills, and the use of primary sources and educational technologies. Teachers who participate in required hours during the year can attend the summer institutes, which will include field studies at historical sites. Annual cohorts of 50 elementary teachers will be selected beginning in Year 1. In Year 2, annual cohorts of 10 secondary teachers (participants in a previous Teaching American History project) will join to complete master’s degree requirements and to become mentors and content specialists for the elementary cohorts. The project is designed to establish a strong foundation in elementary school to prepare students for a true understanding of our country's past and its potential for the future. With scholars and specialists, teachers will explore primary sources, the professional learning community, and the creation of a seamless K-5 program of study. Instructional approaches will include balanced literacy for integrating social studies with reading, 6+1 Writing Traits for integrating social studies with writing, and integrating the arts (dance, music, and visual arts) into the social studies. Foundations teachers will contribute to common assessments and benchmarks for elementary-level American history and will become teacher leaders within their schools and the district.

Keystones of the Federal Union (Keystones)is a joint project of the Central Susquehanna and Capital Area Intermediate Units in Pennsylvania, which serve 33 low-performing schools. Teachers in these schools will be given priority status during recruitment. The project's professional development activities will include a day-long forum to introduce historical research and interpretation skills, a week-long summer institute that includes field trips to historical sites, development of a lesson and three extended learning station activities, a series of six to eight Wiki conversations on scholarly works, historical children’s books, electronic resources, and cultural artifacts, and a daylong final forum to share lessons. Teacher librarians will be asked to develop a collection of American history resources and to collaborate with a participating teacher on the development of lessons and activities. The program is aimed at 30 teachers and teacher librarians each year. These participants will explore the keystone principles embodied in some of Pennsylvania's and the nation's most iconic documents and see how those principles applied to their forbears' day-to-day lives. Teachers and librarians will learn about instructional strategies that incorporate primary sources and artifacts, higher order thinking, and extended learning activities. Specific strategies will include use of extended thinking skills, summarization, vocabulary in context, advance organizers, and nonverbal representations. All lessons and learning activities created through the program will be posted on a Wiki to be shared with current and future Keystones participants.

Rochester ranks highest among New York State's urban districts for poverty, and its mainly non-White students speak more than 35 languages. Six district elementary schools are designated as in need of improvement, and 30 percent of district social studies teachers have less than three years of teaching experience. Each year, Elementary Historians will provide a 20-hour summer institute, on-site coaching, and four 2-hour theme-based lectures with hands-on exploration of documents and artifacts and lesson development. The participant cohort will emphasize fourth and fifth grade teachers, with a goal of reaching 100 percent of such teachers in the six neediest schools and 30 percent of such teachers across the district. Bilingual and special education teachers, certified library media specialists, reading coaches, art and music teachers, and English language arts specialists will be invited to participate if space permits. The project will focus on building a bridge between teachers, historians, and students, and on connecting schools to community institutions. In addition to university and local historians, full-time content area coaches will work with participants. These coaches will deliver school-based strategic teaching sessions and model classrooms to help teachers transfer what they learn to their practice. Strategies will include using primary documents and historical thinking skills to help students recognize connections between historic and present-day events. The project will establish an ongoing teacher resource library, and participants will develop lesson plans that align with state standards and employ engaging, research-based strategies. All workshops will be videotaped and mounted on the district's intranet, where all teachers can access the content and discussions.