Eleven schools in this district had failure rates exceeding 70 percent on South Carolina's 2008-09 U.S. History High School End of Course assessment. To meet the needs of teachers as identified through assessment and anecdotal data, the project will offer two 2-day colloquia focused on historical content aligned with teachers' instructional assignments, ongoing instructional planning to help teachers share knowledge and resources, and a summer institute that combines historical content, pedagogy and field studies at historic sites in South Carolina. During five days of field studies outside of South Carolina, master educators will model how to convey content in classrooms using effective methods, including primary documents, artifact research, the incorporation of literature to help young students grasp historical complexity and learning/digital technologies. The project will involve 50 teachers per year: 30 from the 4th and 5th grades in an elementary cohort, and 20 from the 8th and 11th grades in a middle/high school cohort. The Palmetto Project: Perspectives in American History will include direct content instruction in the eight National Assessment of Educational Progress historical periods, effective pedagogy for content instruction and the production of high-quality resources. The project curriculum will focus on traditional American history and correlate to South Carolina educational standards, with an emphasis on the Civil War. The project will help teachers use primary documents and integrate technology into classroom instruction as they apply pedagogical methods based on effective practices. Some participants will present at regional and national conferences. A project Web site will share teacher-developed lesson plans and resources, and the project evaluation findings will be published.

Nine of this project's 13 districts have failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress, and few teachers have better than scant knowledge of American history. Three colloquia and a summer institute, totaling 11 days, will be offered each year, and sessions will be led by historians, instructional experts and master teachers. An annual book study will require reading, writing and discussions with professors and education specialists. Teachers will keep multimedia journals and compile collections of resources for classroom use. A cadre of 50 teachers will be recruited, with the goal of retaining all for the full 3 years to build an enduring, history-based professional learning community. By studying American history chronologically through the historian's academic lens, teachers will see the powerful cause and effect relationships and push/pull factors that have impacted our history. Teachers will engage in discourse and experiential learning with the goals of (1) developing historical reasoning skills, along with the ability to engage student learning and critical thinking; and (2) becoming trainers of colleagues in their schools and districts. Specific instructional methods will be introduced each year, and the historical reasoning approach will build a foundation for acquiring historical knowledge. Strategies will be bracketing history; E.Q.U.A.L., a strategy to study primary documents; and the Great Parley, in which students study events from multiple perspectives. All project work will be published on the Southern Oregon Education Service District Web site, and student- and teacher-created video resources will be posted to TeacherTube.

Teachers in Stark County schools often have limited American history knowledge—and limited resources available to improve their knowledge. Each year of The Meaning of Freedom will begin with a 1-week summer institute that includes scholar-led seminars and a 3-day visit to the National Constitution Center as well as nearby historic sites. During the school year, teachers will attend four theme-related seminars and visit two Ohio historic sites; in addition, mentor teachers will meet regularly with participants. In Year 1, intensive training will be provided to four teachers to prepare them as mentor teachers, and these teachers will support project staff to train an additional 30 teachers each remaining year of the project. The project theme looks at how the meaning of freedom—as first articulated in the founding documents of the state and nation—has been central to the struggles and achievements that have been key turning points in American history. The content outlined in the topic strands will be developed to align with state standards and to connect Ohio's people, places, documents and events to those significant to the nation's history; it will be delivered through a blend of in-person and proven online strategies. Applying a backward design process, teachers will learn to use and create inquiry-based lesson plans that integrate 21st century skills and technologies. When complete, the lessons and other project materials, such as seminar content and primary source documents, will be mounted on a Web site and made available to all teachers who want effective and engaging history resources.

This project will recruit teachers from mainly rural, small, relatively disadvantaged Ohio districts with significant instructional deficiencies (50 percent are in school improvement) and a lack of professional development opportunities in history. Each year, the project will present new historical materials and concepts during three all-day seminars and a 5-day summer institute. Between seminars, teachers will participate in guided discussion, assessment of digital resources and other activities organized through the project Web site. Project activities, such as lesson plan presentations and team collaboration, will take place across each year. In Year 1, 50 teachers will participate; in each succeeding year, 25 new recruits will join 25 veterans of the project. This mix will allow some teachers to continue their development while simultaneously reaching additional teachers in more schools. The teachers will explore the central issues and turning points of traditional U.S. history through the lenses of regional, state and local history. The project will incorporate a rigorous curriculum of graduate-level history founded on recognized milestones and movements in American history. In terms of strategies, the seminar instruction and teacher-generated products will emphasize detailed analyses of key documents, and the professional development format will offer three graduate credits in history from Miami University. A project Web site will include portfolios of instructional activities and resources developed by the teachers, presentations given by the content providers, and videos and other documentation from the most effective activities and content seminars.

The overall average of teachers with master's degrees in these southwest Ohio districts is 64 percent, but only one percent of teachers of American history and related courses have a master's degree in history. In addition to boosting their content knowledge, teachers want to learn to use historical thinking skills and Web 2.0 technologies. Each year, project activities will include a 5-day summer institute and three 1-day seminars, plus online discussions and a 1-day field experience. Seminars will be presented by historians, professors and teacher leaders to combine scholarship, primary source analysis and teaching strategies; summer institutes will be intensive explorations of content, historical thinking skills and pedagogy. Teachers may elect to participate in more than one year and enter the teacher leader component of the project; this will prepare them to provide ongoing professional development to their colleagues. Voices of America aims to free teachers from textbook-based teaching and to re-ignite their enthusiasm for American history. Annual themes will be developed with an emphasis on using founding documents, determining the impacts of the actions of individuals, connecting national themes to state and local history, understanding economic development, and examining population movement and growth. All content will connect to state standards and will be eligible for graduate or continuing education credits. Field visits to local and regional sites will be tied to the year's theme and state standards. Project participants will create original multimedia history resources, lessons, document-based questions and more, all of which will be available on a Web site ("Gateway to History") and through presentations at professional conferences.

Of the 223 elementary history teachers in these mid-Hudson Valley districts, only one has an undergraduate degree in American history and none has a graduate degree in the field. And although professional development in reading, math and science is readily available, this is not true for history. An American Story: Struggles and Triumphs will engage teachers in U.S. history through lectures and discussions during week-long summer institutes, monthly workshops and other traditional approaches. It will take a notably 21st-century approach—teachers will learn to use multimedia software to create an interactive virtual museum that will be curated by project staff, partners, teachers and students. In Year 1, 40 teachers and three teacher coaches will participate; in Years 2 through 5, nine teachers and the three teacher coaches from Year 1 will continue, and they will be joined by annual cadres of 31 new teachers. Institute topics will explore the thesis that the American story is one of continual struggle toward an ideal—freedom to pursue and equal opportunity to achieve the "American Dream." Content will focus on local, regional and national events and people, making use of primary sources available through partner organizations and nearby historic sites. For example, the New York Historical Society will offer workshops titled "Nueva York" and "Revolutions! America, France and Haiti." Participants will visit the Erie Canal, the Tenement Museum, and the Vanderbilt Mansion. The project will produce the virtual museum, a variety of classroom materials and a cadre of teacher leaders who can support their colleagues in building American history expertise.