This California county is halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento, and its population reflects the state's economic and ethnic diversity. Lack of teacher preparation to teach history is reflected in disappointing student performance. Activities will include four scholar seminars each year; these will provide insight into the history and examine primary source documents. After each seminar, teachers will participate in a history lab to consider how to apply the content in ways that engage students. The Year 1 cadre will include 30 elementary teachers; although they will be encouraged to stay for the full grant period, it is likely that many spaces will open up for middle and high school teachers in Years 2 through 5. Project content will focus on intensive reading of recent scholarship, considering its emphasis on how the United States has always depended on transactions with other nations for ideas, commodities and populations. As teachers learn to use lesson study in Year 1, they will produce one lesson each; thereafter, teachers will work in teams to develop curriculum kits that include a background essay, a multiday historical investigation that requires analysis of primary sources, a student assessment and related rubric, samples of student work, reflection on teaching the lesson and an annotated bibliography. The 10 best lessons each year will be published online and presented at the annual showcase, the 20 best lessons of the project will be presented at its summative conference, and the 30 best presenters among the teachers will go on a study and exchange trip to Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

The three rural California counties involved in this project often combine resources to provide teacher professional development, and this project will build teachers' content knowledge and help them learn to think like historians. Annual activities will include two symposia, during which historians and teachers will explore content, primary sources and lesson study practices. Four live, online seminars will bring scholars and teachers together to discuss historical questions. With support from content experts, teams of like-grade teachers will use lesson study to develop lessons based on the content. The year will end with a summer field study that augments the scholarly studies, and the next year will begin with a late-summer institute focused on scholarship and pedagogy. Each year, 35 teachers will participate, and increasing stipends will encourage multiple years of training. Years 1 to 3 will address eras taught by secondary teachers, and Years 4 and 5 will present content tied to elementary standards, but teachers will be welcome to join as openings are available. Working with teachers of different levels will encourage thinking about cross-grade connections. Teachers will explore California's gateways to the national narrative during field visits to San Francisco and Los Angeles. Historians and scholars will introduce historical thinking skills, such as deconstructing primary sources, and will help teachers see unifying themes in the state's history standards. The project model of blended in-person and online activities is designed to ensure advance preparation and active participation, while directing the focus to improved teaching practice; ongoing formative assessment will help project leaders adjust activities if necessary.

Given a high number of English Language Learners and California's emphasis on English language arts, this project chose an overall focus on integrating history into language arts. For five days in the summer, historians will present history content. For four days during the school year, a history educator and a technology specialist will present teaching strategies and Web 2.0 technologies. Teachers will also work with a university professor to research commercial teaching materials, using CICERO, History Alive! and other materials in their classrooms. They will analyze and review the software, print and online products, including games and simulations, to benefit other history teachers. A core group of 38 teachers&#8212two from each elementary school—will stay through the full five years, spending at least 13 hours a year mentoring a teacher outside the project. In keeping with elementary history standards, the project will address the foundations and founding documents of the United States. Content literacy will be developed by helping teachers build prior knowledge, apply structured note-taking, analyze images and evaluate historical materials. Specific pedagogical approaches will include Binary Paideia and historical thinking skills, and strategies will include bracketing history, E.S.P. (considering the economic, social and political aspects of events), analyzing primary sources and others. This project aims to be on the cutting edge of the "Facebook approach" to teaching American history; that is, it will use Facebook, Twitter, blogs and discussion threads as important communication and dissemination tools. A project Web site will host all lesson plans, reviews of history teaching materials and other products as freely available resources.

Due to the emphasis on language arts and mathematics, this California district has not had a professional development program for history teachers in more than a decade. Each year of the project, teachers will participate in (1) a 7-day institute on content and differentiated instruction; (2) 10 after-school or Saturday learning meetings, including four quarterly reading groups; (3) extended learning opportunities through four professional learning community meetings; (4) field study trips; (5) content/pedagogy mentoring and demonstration lessons to address diverse student needs; (6) a week-long summer institute; and (7) expanded learning through technology. Thirty teachers will have the option of participating in a master's degree program. In addition, two facilitators and 24 teachers who have completed 85 percent of the required hours will be eligible for a week-long study trip to Philadelphia, Gettysburg and Washington, D.C. In the first three years, the project will offer grade-level professional development on history and pedagogy to three cohorts of U.S. history teachers: 50 elementary, 30 intermediate and 30 high school. In Years 4 and 5, the project will provide 4-day institutes to support continued learning. Through the Professional Learning Communities, the teachers and mentors will review student performance data with a data-analysis model from Response to Intervention. They also will review state standards and the district pacing guide, and create pretests and posttests for the next study unit. The teachers will collaboratively develop curricula with a special focus on document-based writing lessons.

Very few teachers in the Burbank and Glendale, California, districts have history degrees, and history professional development has been hard to get. Also, 64 different languages are spoken in these schools, adding another challenge for teachers whose students have little understanding of the nation’s history. Annual activities will include five after-school workshops, a summer institute or workshop, a spring break or summer field trip, 10 hours of one-on-one lesson development and coaching support, and visits to local museum and archive resources.

Cohorts of 25 teachers will participate each year, based on content appropriate to their grade level, with an additional 20 teachers per year having access to workshops and summer institutes. The participants will explore historical turning points, key individuals and founding documents through four interconnected themes: the setting, the stories of the people, the government policies and Western influence on the nation as a whole. Teachers will learn research techniques, use of primary source documents, lesson development and evaluation. Their visits to local and distant sites will help teachers better understand the content they teach. Participants will develop rigorous, standards-based lesson plans to be disseminated through presentations at professional conferences and at special professional development events sponsored by the project. In addition, the project Web site will house model lesson plans, recorded lectures and presentations, and other resources for content and pedagogy.

This northern Arizona consortium is located in a geographically isolated area. Half the students are minorities—mostly Native Americans—and 44 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. The project will offer three-credit elective graduate-level courses that include content seminars, hands-on workshops, field study research, grade-based professional learning communities, lesson study sessions, online discussions and one-on-one mentoring. The courses will be taught at Northern Arizona University over six days during the school year and three days in the summer. The courses will explore pivotal events, people, legislation and judicial cases; the concepts of local, state and national significance; and the intersection of native and national storylines. Teachers may pursue two paths. An intensive 2-year track will help teachers partially complete their master’s degrees in history; in addition to the regular content, these courses will feature 3-day field study trips, online discussions and small group studies. This master's track will involve two cohorts of 15 teachers: Cohort A from summer 2011 to spring 2013, and Cohort B from summer 2013 to spring 2015. Cohort A teachers will be encouraged to continue participating after spring 2013 and serve as teacher leaders with the project and in their schools and districts. In addition, two biannual cohorts of 15 teachers will pursue a less-intensive professional recertification track. The project's key strategies are the "learn, do, teach" and "local-to-global" approaches that focus on primary sources, historical scholarship, local significance and engaging instructional strategies. Teacher-created lesson plans, activities, annotated primary sources and book critiques will be posted on a Moodle site.

Defining America is a combined effort of two regional educational service agencies—one in northwestern Wisconsin and the other in northeastern Minnesota. Together, they serve 55 mainly rural districts plus several Native American schools and have a total of 10 schools in need of improvement. Project activities will provide opportunities for history teachers to work directly with master teachers, curriculum experts, and archivists. Face-to-face experiences will include 5-day summer colloquia and one and a half-day retreats and seminars of various lengths. Online activities will include creation of a Moodle site where project staff and participants can share ideas and practices and conduct online discussions. When project staff select the 40 teaching fellows, their priority will be on recruiting teachers from schools in need of improvement. The theme of Defining America is examining critical eras when, at the national level, the meaning of "America" was created or significantly redefined. History content will include the relevant national events and people, and will also make connections to local and Native American history. Teachers will learn to identify historical resources, incorporate historical thinking into teacher-created lesson plans and classroom activities, and use best practices in instruction. When teaching fellows complete their 3-year Defining America experience, they will have a pool of lesson plans to share with other teachers and will be a resource for colleagues in their districts to improve history instruction across all schools.

In the nine southern West Virginia counties that have organized for this project, few history teachers at any level have taken an in-field graduate class. Prism-WV and America's Founders will connect teachers with prominent scholars, university faculty, guest lecturers, mentors and master teachers during 1- or 2-week summer academies, 2-day colloquia during the school year, and occasional visits to schools. In addition, participants will enroll in Concord University's graduate certificate program in American History to take five online courses that address the project's annual topics. In Year 1, 40 teachers will be admitted, and they will be joined by another 50 teachers in Year 2. The 90 teachers will continue as a single cohort for the remainder of the five years, and education students from Concord University will also participate. The professional development will focus on principle (understanding the seminal principles of freedom and democracy); perseverance (studying how the founders implemented these principles); and perspective (enhancing an individual’s world view through knowledge of the nation's history). To incorporate these themes into history instruction, teachers will use primary source materials, learn to think like historians, and engage in conversations about principles as the nation's founders did. Content and instruction will incorporate technologies networked through Concord University's Innovative Technology Application Project, which supports interactive simulation, modeling, animation, and visualization. Prism-WV will produce regional teaching and research partnerships among K-12 teachers of different grade levels, a Teaching Historians Web site, participant-created reports, lesson plans and teaching modules, and a collection of research sites and sources.

All six of the countywide, southwestern West Virginia districts involved in this project have failed to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress for three or more consecutive years. Two districts are in corrective action, and 18 of the region's elementary, middle, and high schools have been identified as in need of improvement. Project TAH-21 will engage teachers and administrators in learning communities focused on American history, led by Marshall University professors. Two-hour monthly meetings will develop content knowledge and employ lesson study to support instructional skills. Online courses, 1-day mini-institutes, 3-day summer field experiences, and weeklong intensive summer institutes will help teachers develop content knowledge, history thinking skills, and history Habits of Mind. Each year, a new cohort of 30 teachers will participate, and project staff will recruit first from schools that are most in need of improvement. Project TAH-21 aims to link history content, curriculum design, and instruction within a comprehensive American history plan. Teachers will review and analyze original, core documents in a setting that models the strategy for use with students and Professional Learning Communities will foster sustained and purposeful conversations about teaching practice and content delivery. When the grant ends, the project will continue through Professional Learning Communities, ongoing access to online courses on American history topics, and a living Web site of resources for teachers.

Virginia Beach is located in southeastern Virginia, about 200 miles south of Washington, D.C. Although none of its schools are classified as being in need of improvement, several elementary schools are performing below expectations on social studies assessments, and teachers in these schools will be targeted by SAIL for recruitment. Annual professional development activities will include a 10-day summer academy that includes historical site visits, four "history days" during the school year that feature lectures and activities, independent book studies supplemented by online book discussions, mentoring associated with the Lesson Study approach, and online collaboration. Because SAIL targets elementary school teachers who have been prepared as generalists rather than historians, program activities will emphasize best practices in history education, and 10 participants will be selected as master educators who will mentor and train other teachers in the district. SAIL will serve 100 teachers in four cohorts of 25 each, with each cohort receiving two years of history instruction and pedagogical training, beginning with one cohort in Year 1. The unifying theme for SAIL will be the considerable contributions that "ordinary" men and women have made over the course of American history.

Strategies for developing students' literacy and historical thinking skills as they interact with historical fiction and nonfiction will be aligned with the SAIL blueprint, a description of an ideal elementary school history classroom that is based on the Concerns-Based Adoption model. The program will sustain a community of practice by creating an online workspace where teachers can collaborate and share student artifacts and lessons plans.