This project will serve the public schools of Queens, where nearly 50 percent of 8th-graders have failed the Intermediate Social Studies test and 25 percent of high school students have failed the U.S. History and Government Regents exam. Each year, the project teachers will attend eight 1-day workshops, in which professional historians examine how people have shaped events through interactions, collaborations and conflicts; the teachers will align this content with pedagogical skills and will receive classroom materials, books and history resources, with an emphasis on biographies. An annual 5-day summer institute will cover topics too large in scope to be addressed in a 1-day workshop and will feature field trips to New York City sites. The first cohort of 30 teachers will participate for the first two years, followed by a second cohort of 30 teachers over the next two years. During the fifth year, 30 teachers—selected from the two cohorts—will participate in eight full-day Master American History workshops. The project activities will show teachers how to align content with the New York State Core Curriculum in U.S. history by using strategies that students find engaging, such as curating museum exhibits, writing newspaper articles, role playing and oral history. The teachers also will learn to use media, library and museum collections, and maps; modify primary sources for different learning levels; plan effective field trips; differentiate learning for students with diverse needs and backgrounds; and find easily accessible resources. The teachers' lesson plans and materials will be disseminated through the project's Open Educational Resources Commons Web site.

This large district represents a diverse cross section of students and faculty across New York City. Each year of the project, up to 32 teachers (some continuing for more than 1 year) will participate in (1) a 3-day staff development workshop, which will demonstrate effective methods for teaching American history through historic sites in Philadelphia, New York City and elsewhere in New York state; (2) two 3-hour summer and two 3-hour Saturday workshops, in which teachers will practice using multimedia equipment at the new DiMenna Children's History Museum; and (3) a 3-day summer and a 3-day Saturday workshop to help middle and high school teachers convey the proper historiography skills to prepare their students for participation in National History Day. In addition to the outlined topics and historic site visits, the participants will receive guided tours of these New York Historical Society temporary exhibits: "Life for a Child: Insulin"; "John Rogers: American Stories"; "Swing Time: Reginald Marsh and Thirties New York"; and "New York in World War II." The project will focus on using multimedia and news broadcasting to disseminate facts about historic events, conducting extensive research via public and museum library resources, and engaging students in debates on historical topics and time periods. The strategies will include historical instructional methodologies, differentiated instruction tied to content, and flexible approaches to address various student needs, such as using picture symbols to facilitate communication. Project products will be shared online; these will include lesson plans, alternative assessments, student portfolios and video productions of students and staff.

The districts participating in this project are all New York City charter schools with limited funds for professional development; this consortium will help them meet a common need. During the school year, teachers will have seven 3-hour workshops as well as six hours of classroom-based modeling and guided practice; summer activities will include three 5-hour sessions. All of these events will include both content and pedagogy, and locations will be split between Columbia University, the home school, local museums and historic sites. Five cohorts of 32 teachers, one each year of the grant, will participate. Each will study the same time periods, but will have a different annual focus (see topics, above). One project goal is to create a community of learners that will expand to other charter schools. Teachers will all study the same historical content, then learn grade-appropriate approaches to teaching it. For example, when studying Jacksonian Democracy (universal suffrage for white males, an economy that depended on slavery, the shifting understanding of citizenship), elementary students might work from an old photo to create a short biography showing how events impacted the person's life. Middle school students might create a board game based on an important industry of the time, and high school students might write newspaper editorials that take opposing views of an issue. Teachers will create a variety of products, including lesson plans, journal articles, conference presentations and videos; all will be available on the Web sites of local, regional and national organizations as well as through professional conferences and publications.