These schools in western New York are in a high-need, urban district—84 percent of the elementary students come from families that are economically disadvantaged. In addition, 5th-grade students have scored nine percent below the statewide average on the New York social studies learning standard. Each year of this project, a new cohort of 60 teachers will attend eight after-school workshops; 50 of these teachers will attend an annual summer institute, featuring visits to partner institutions, content lectures and workshops on pedagogical practices. Teachers will be encouraged to attend in teams of three teachers per school to foster collaboration and collegial support. The topics were selected after considering key ideas and major understandings in the New York state American history curriculum, particularly areas that challenge students in the Grades 5 and 8 social studies assessments. The project will increase the teachers' content understanding of key events, issues and people in American history and improve their pedagogical skills. The professional development will guide teachers in using documents, photos, objects and paintings to elicit and build on young students' understandings of history. Two lead teachers will provide classroom-embedded coaching; relevant lesson plans; and research-based, effective teaching practices to the participants. Instructional products developed as part of the project will be posted on the district's Web site and on the project's wiki. Teacher research, including case studies and reflections on how the project has transformed teaching practice, will be published in partnership with the University of Rochester's Warner School of Education.

In these New York state districts, teachers have minimal American history training and limited access to content-specific training or professional experiences. During each school year, monthly seminars will incorporate recent scholarship and historical thinking skills. These meetings will be supplemented by online book chats using the project's Blackboard site. After completing the 10 seminars, teachers will attend a 5-day summer institute and learn to integrate newly learned content as well as develop tools to evaluate existing teaching materials and student work. By attending the summer institute, teachers will earn three graduate credits from the State University of New York College at Cortland. They also will participate in hands-on field experiences and in a teaching fellows program. Each year, the project will organize four content teams of six teachers, paired with a project historian and master teacher. These teams will develop content-specific curriculum units using the Understanding by Design framework. The project content will emphasize the impact of the nation's foundational documents and events on the lives of ordinary Americans. Highlighting these individual stories will help teachers appreciate the ways Americans have experienced significant turning points in history. Historians will share significant primary sources, identify valuable online archives, and model analysis and interpretation of the materials. The project also will help teachers engage students in critical analysis and higher level thinking. The products will include unit-level teaching materials, a project that superimposes the curriculum onto a U.S. map, and other teacher-created resources, such as the team-developed curriculum units, which will be reviewed for historical accuracy and field-tested to ensure alignment with learning objectives.

This northern Kentucky district has some of the state's lowest student achievement scores; educators have spent two years rewriting the K-5 social studies curriculum to embed American history at every grade level. We the People will support implementation of this new curriculum by providing four content seminars each year, 3-day summer institutes, online and face-to-face discussions, visits to historic sites and explorations of primary source materials. Scholars, historians, curriculum specialists and instructional leaders will convey content and support lesson creation and planning. The project will involve 20 elementary and middle school teachers each year, many of whom will participate for multiple years. The project will explore annual themes (see topics above) drawn from the preamble to the U.S. Constitution to help teachers consider how important documents, events and people have influenced the preservation of a democratic republic. Teachers will examine texts and primary sources as they explore Kentucky and American history from colonization to the present. Strategies for improving teaching will include lesson study, and this process will be used as teachers collaborate to develop and refine lessons for classroom use. A public Web site will house products and resources, which include presentation notes, podcasts and video recordings; teacher-produced lesson plans and samples of student work; and a collection of primary source materials and related digital toolboxes, stories and historical scene investigations.

This project is centered in Savannah, Georgia, where the past is a microcosm of American history. Despite this heritage, a recent needs assessment found that the district's teachers in grades K-5 possess low levels of content knowledge in American history, ranging from 33 percent proficiency regarding the Revolution to 55 percent proficiency for the Civil War and Reconstruction. Each year, the project will include a keynote address by a nationally recognized historian; four day-long history symposia, featuring lectures, visits to local historic sites or museums, and pedagogy sessions; summer travel institutes to historic sites (25 teachers per year); and an instructional support program. The project will serve two multiyear cohorts of 40 teachers: Years 1-2 and Years 3-5. In addition, Cohort 1 will serve as peer coaches in three schools in Years 3-5. The project will link Savannah’s historic landscape and resources to parallel events in American history. It also will help teachers understand more thoroughly the principles of freedom and democracy as asserted in the nation's founding documents and as illustrated through historical figures and pivotal events. The teachers will read scholarly historical texts about major events, periods and ideas in American history; interact with professional historians; travel to historic sites; use primary sources and historical nonfiction; and collaborate to produce a stronger district-wide instructional program. A project Web site will include podcasts of historian lectures; instructional units; primary source lessons and activities; strategies- and skills-based audio training podcasts; a resource library; program analysis, including participant and student data; and student work samples.

Elementary teachers in this diverse Florida district—the nation’s sixth largest—have a significant need for professional development in American history. Each year of the project, 50 teachers will participate in (1) an intensive summer institute; (2) Saturday workshops, which immerse teachers in content and interactive instructional strategies and which develop six master teachers; and (3) book talks led by subject experts. In addition, 25 teachers in Year 2 and 25 teachers in Year 3 will participate in field visits to local museums and intensive content studies at historic sites in Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia and New York. Teachers in schools identified for improvement will be actively recruited for participation. Six teachers will become master teachers, serving as mentors for other participating teachers and content experts for all elementary teachers in the district. The specific events, people and topics were selected for their unique relevance to elementary students and teachers and the district's diverse population, particularly the foreign-born students who have not had a lifetime of firsthand experiences in this country. Teachers will receive training in differentiating the curriculum, creating authentic and engaging writing assignments, and infusing research-based reading strategies into their pedagogy. The project Web site will feature lesson plans, an American history discussion forum for all district teachers, primary sources, virtual field trips, educational blogs and academic games. Participants also will create educational videos that demonstrate effective teaching strategies and that model academic rigor.