These rural Maryland districts front both sides of the Chesapeake Bay; all have pockets of poverty, and several have growing populations of children who speak English as a second language. Teachers want professional development that increases their knowledge of American and local history and that builds skills to help students find relevance to their lives. Annual activities will include 15 topical seminars that are one to three days long and that enroll no more than 10 participants; each teacher will attend four seminars a year. A 2-day fall conference will bring all teachers together; seminars and conferences will be instructed by various partners, depending on the topics. The project will develop five master teachers for each participating district, so 35 teachers will engage in the 3-year professional development program. The project uses the Chesapeake Bay as its unifying theme for exploring pedagogical goals and content areas related to the four topics. Because the Chesapeake was home to an early European settlement and has been an important region in the country’s history ever since, this project will examine the connections between local and national history. Teachers will learn strategies that help to improve student performance, including use of primary and secondary documents, active learning strategies (such as concept models and peer teaching), observation and interviewing, teaching with historic places and local resources, works of art and historic artifacts, and active questioning techniques. The project will produce a Web site that contains sample lesson plans and blogs from field experiences; materials intended for use with students will be available in English and Spanish.

This project will concentrate on a combination of public schools and the public charter schools that were established in the wake of two events in 2005: the Louisiana Board of Education's takeover and restructuring of New Orleans Public Schools and Hurricane Katrina. Although student achievement has approved dramatically since 2005, data still indicate high failure rates on fourth, eighth, and eleventh grade social studies tests. Each year of the project, teachers will participate in 10 colloquia that focus on the key issues, people, ideas and events in American history; a weeklong summer field-research workshop hosted by the Historic New Orleans Collection; and five staff development workshops in which scholars engage teachers on background information, current approaches and possible lessons. The project will recruit 50 new teachers each year. All 50 will participate in the colloquia and staff development workshops, while 20 will attend the summer workshop. The topics will explore the changes and continuity in American democracy, including ideas, institutions and controversies. The teachers will study the most up-to-date research, visit presidential libraries and other archives, and become familiar with American history Web sites and other technology resources. The teachers will have opportunities to study with Loyola University historians and distinguished visiting professors, receive stipends, and obtain continuing learning units. They will create traveling exhibits and History in a Box kits on various topics, featuring introductions, timelines, primary documents, teaching strategies, posters for classroom display, interactive CD-ROMs and DVDs.

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 eastern Indiana district, like many districts, has lacked resources for history professional development for many years. Teachers say they want to know about recent American history, and this project will help them gain content knowledge and professional credentials. Graduate courses, intensive summer institutes and field studies will provide content knowledge that will support teachers' involvement in the district's curriculum writing and mapping initiative. Classroom observations will help teachers improve practice, and the annual history resource project will engage teachers in deep learning about a topic as they create digital resources for all teachers to use. Two separate cohorts of teachers will participate: 15 in Years 1-3 and 15 in Years 3-5. Year 1 themes will include economics, entrepreneurship, transportation and communication; Year 2 themes will include leadership, social justice and social movements. These themes will guide explorations of the topics that the teachers selected for study (see topics, above). Teachers will learn to use technology and inquiry-based instructional strategies as they work to improve student engagement, increase the rigor of student performance and help students develop critical thinking skills. Professors from the university school of education will conduct observation sessions, help teachers reflect on their teaching by examining student work, and provide coaching support. Each year will culminate with a colloquium, during which teachers will make formal and informal presentations about their annual projects. Teachers' projects will contribute to resource banks of wikis, podcasts, virtual field trips, lessons and more, all of which will be available as open educational resources.

Located in northern Indiana, these districts have limited access to professional development. Many teachers have little American history background and lack confidence in their ability to teach the subject. Each year's activities will begin with a half-day kickoff that previews content and includes a keynote address. Teachers will attend three content workshops delivered by historians from partnering organizations and three grade-level methods workshops designed to bridge the gap between content and the classroom, plus a 5-day summer institute that combines content and methods. Each year, 10 teachers will travel on a 5-day field experience to sites that are related to the year's content. Book studies will include three content-focused books and one methods-focused book each year; these will be discussed during workshops and online. Teachers who complete all five years will receive 740 hours of professional development. The 35 teachers will come from all four participating districts and will stay for the full term. Should any teachers drop out, others will be recruited to take their places. American Liberty: Making Historical Connections will blend a chronological approach with a theme-based one, thus enabling historians to help teachers delve deeply into events in American history. Methods workshops will focus on specific skills, such as historical research, historical writing and investigations, and historical schools of thought. During summer field experiences, teachers will keep journals, gather resources and develop lesson plans. Coaches will provide classroom-based support through two visits every year to observe, model and give feedback. Teachers will learn to use Web-based technologies to share lesson plans and resources with other teachers.

A 2010 survey indicates that only a small percentage of U.S. history teachers in these Idaho districts currently place a significant emphasis on chronology, primary sources or connecting historical events with broader themes. Due to budget limitations, few teachers have had an opportunity to participate in history-related professional development over the past three years, and most would be interested in strengthening their knowledge of primary sources and interacting with historical experts. This project offers summer and daylong institutes during the school year featuring renowned national historians and twice-monthly half-day Saturday online workshops led by history faculty from Idaho's four institutions of higher education. The teachers will be organized into four cohorts of 10 based on location. Each of the three years, they will study a different chronological phase of American history, focusing on significant issues, episodes and turning points. They will use primary sources to learn how the words and deeds of individuals have determined the course of history, and create lesson plans using backward design and one of five teaching strategies: Binary Paideia, haunted history, content scene interpretation, cause-effect generalizations and cognition strategies. The teachers will produce four lesson plans for each unit. An academic advisory board will select the best teacher lesson plans and student products for inclusion on a consortium Web site. In addition, the online workshops will be recorded and made available as QuickTime movies.

Districts from both western Idaho and southeastern Washington will be involved in this project; focus groups with history teachers found that few have learned from or taught with primary documents, and many believe their history curricula need to be updated. Following a 2-day launch meeting, annual activities will include curriculum improvement team meetings, three days of summer historian seminars/field study, five Saturday seminars, monthly Talking History viewing and discussion sessions, and quarterly book studies. In addition, three master teachers each year will attend a 5-day Gilder Lehrman summer institute. The project will serve at least 33 teachers and a principal who have volunteered to participate for the full term of the grant. To support improvements in teaching and learning, activities will become more participatory each year; in Year 1, many activities will be passive — lectures, podcasts — and by Year 5, most activities will feature discussions, practice and teaching others; specific activities will include re-creations, simulations and debates. Each year, all major historical eras will be covered so as to coincide with the time line used in secondary classrooms; repetition and differing perspectives over the life of the project will help teachers build depth of knowledge. Teachers will develop habits of historical thinking as they study 100 significant documents, 100 court cases and 100 significant turning points in history. Curriculum improvement teams at the project, district and school levels will develop curriculum maps, pacing benchmarks and common assessments. All teacher-created curriculum maps, assessment tools and lesson plans will be posted on a Web site for other teachers to use.

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.

Located halfway between Atlanta and the Alabama border, this district's population has increased by 36 percent over five years, bringing greater diversity and more poverty to the area. In addition, many of the district's history teachers are novices who do not have degrees or endorsements in American history. Get WIRED With History will offer five full-day seminars each year, three lesson study sessions, a 10-day summer history alliance that includes field study, five podcast lectures, and the 3-day Georgia Council for the Social Studies conference. In addition, teachers will be encouraged to attend regional or state youth competitions, either to act as judges or to bring their students as competitors. The annual cohort of 38 teachers was designed to include one teacher from every elementary and middle school and two teachers from every high school, with some staying in for multiple years. The project hopes to develop a community of teacher and student historians. To this end, the project will focus on research-based instructional approaches, including essential questions, active learning (e.g., project-based activities) and problem-based learning. Teachers will employ lesson study groups to improve their practice. Running across the topic areas (see above) will be several conceptual threads, including ideas and beliefs; trade, industry and technology; social and political interactions; movement and migration; and globalization. The project Web site, "WIRED-Online," will host private discussion areas, program announcements and other project supports. In addition, its public space will make a variety of materials—including podcasts of lectures, related handouts, reading lists, teacher-created lessons and virtual tours—available to teachers elsewhere.