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 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.

In this Kansas City metropolitan district, budget cuts have significantly altered teaching assignments, resulting in more American history teachers who need better preparation. For each semester during the three years, the same 20 teachers will participate in eight semester-long colloquia, three 3-day lecture series, and three 5-day travel research workshops led by faculty from the University of Kansas history department. Over the course of the project, the teachers will conduct independent research, create lesson plans and attend 10 professional development sessions for additional training on historiography, pedagogy and local American history resources. Instructional resource teachers will provide feedback to the teachers through classroom observations. The project will explore continuity and change in American history by examining how the founding fathers drafted the Constitution to facilitate changes, recognizing that the nation was not yet perfect. It will also examine the economic, social and political factors that shaped the meaning of "We the People" over time, tracing the causes and effects of the events that have pushed the nation toward becoming a "more perfect union." Participating teachers will learn how to locate and use evidence in primary and secondary sources to interpret the past and explore different perspectives and points of view. They can earn 19 hours of graduate credit through the University of Kansas or receive professional development points through the district. A Web site will feature all the project products and resources, including faculty lectures, classroom videos of teachers and students, lesson and unit plans, electronic field trips, book reviews, and course and workshop syllabi.

The districts involved in this project are located in central Kansas, where budget cuts and prioritization of reading and math have reduced the amount of professional development available to history teachers. A Century of Progress: Thinking Historically Through the 1800s teachers will commit to a series of school-year workshops and 4-day summer institutes led by professors, visiting historians, authors and specialists in history teaching strategies and technology integration. These in-person events will be complemented by online conversations, classroom visits and attendance at the Kansas Council for History Education annual conference. The 40 participating middle school teachers will be selected according to interest and need. Three overarching themes will guide this project: (1) the significant issues, episodes and turning points in U.S. history; (2) how the words and deeds of individual Americans have determined the course of our nation; and (3) how the principles of freedom and democracy have shaped this country's struggles and achievements as well as its social, political and legal institutions and relations. All content will align with the state's eighth grade standards and will be aimed at cultivating an awareness of America's multi-ethnic history. Instructional strategies will range from the time tested, such as effective use of primary resources, to the cutting edge, such as use of the iPod touch to store, access and share teacher-created lessons and activities among participants. Methods instruction will also include understanding points of view, formulating research questions and improving reading comprehension. Teacher-created materials will be posted on a Web site, and teachers will provide training to colleagues in their schools and districts.

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.

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 will serve the Florida Keys—1,700 islands spread over 120 miles. A 2010 survey determined that only two percent of upper-elementary and middle school American history teachers in this district feel qualified to teach their subject; 77 percent have not had training in historical thinking skills. The project will build on a new series of advanced U.S. history courses being introduced into middle schools. Each year, 20 teachers will participate in (1) history content seminars, guiding them through readings and assignments; (2) content presentation workshops in the schools; (3) history teaching workshops, focusing on specific historical-thinking skills; (4) professional learning communities, and (5) immersive summer institutes, featuring travel to historic sites. The project teachers must participate in nearly 100 annual hours of professional development. The themes will intertwine primary sources and historic sites, including visits to Massachusetts; Philadelphia; the Washington, D.C., area; and selected locations in the Keys. The strategies involve teachers in planning, using sound approaches to historical content, paying attention to pedagogy and active learning, emphasizing historical thinking skills, and promoting collaboration to help teachers address appropriate assessment methods. The key principle is that content, pedagogy and historical thinking should be interwoven and related to classroom experience. Every participating teacher will create one content-based lesson plan, which will be vetted; the highest rated plans will be uploaded to the project Web site as models. Teachers will also develop additional lesson plans and materials to share with their students and colleagues.