The South Central Service Cooperative is a consortium of districts in mostly rural south central Minnesota, where 73 percent of the schools have not achieved Adequate Yearly Progress at the district or building level. Each year of the Minnesota River Valley program will include a kick-off celebration, seven Professional Learning Community meetings throughout the academic year to discuss a historical work that corresponds with that year's National History Day theme, three topical school-year seminars that emphasize Minnesota connections within the national narrative, and an 8- to 10-day summer institute that concludes with a travel immersion experience. Participating teachers will also receive school and classroom support for involving their students in History Day, a program that requires students to select, research, analyze and present on a historical topic using primary and secondary sources. Additionally, each year, 10 teachers will attend a Summer Teaching Institute for Advanced Placement U.S. History. The Minnesota River Valley program will engage a new cohort of 35 teachers annually. A supplemental emphasis on southern Minnesota history will be embedded in each year's theme. To help teachers address the learning needs of the district's English language learners and children with special needs, professional development will incorporate differentiated instruction and evidence-based practices for teaching history. Enduring benefits will include a Professional Learning Community among teachers working in small, rural schools and increased participation in National History Day.

History Connected is being implemented through a consortium of nine school districts in southeastern Pennsylvania. Eighteen low-performing schools within the consortium will be given preference during recruitment. A variety of annual professional development activities will prepare participating teachers to deliver American history as a stand-alone course: six school-day seminars (five on connecting history content to state standards and one on technology integration); a pre-institute orientation day in June with an online component; a 5-day summer content institute; five 2-hour book discussion/study groups based on biographies, memoirs, and historical works related to the year's theme; an online Professional Learning Community; and a 3-hour after-school "sharing conference" in Years 2 and 3. Each teacher will also develop two work products such as book reviews, lesson plans, and multimedia presentations. At least one participant in each district will be designated as a teacher fellow. Fellows will provide leadership and support for improving history education within their districts. History Connected will serve 40 teachers annually (120 over the life of the grant). Some teachers may participate in a "part-time" track if they are unable to complete all project activities. Teachers will learn to draw connections across time and place to the enduring themes and issues of American history. Instructional strategies will incorporate differentiated instruction, technology, historical thinking skills, and research skills using primary source documents and cultural artifacts. Project evaluation reports, historical resources, teacher work products, and curricula and lesson plans that incorporate differentiated instruction will be published on the program Web site.

Ouachita Parish School System in rural northeastern Louisiana is joining with four other school districts to implement ,em>North Louisiana: Exploring the American Experience. Thirty-nine of the 84 schools in these districts are performing below expectations, and no schools in the district offer in-service programs in American history. Each summer, participating teachers from all five districts will attend a grade-level-specific summer institute that meets three hours a day, four days a week, for four weeks. Two hours of each day will be devoted to content and one hour will be allotted for a master teacher to work with teachers on pedagogy. Teachers will receive three hours of graduate credit upon completion of each summer institute, which will be supplemented throughout the year by spring and fall in-service workshops, readings, field trips to local museums and historic sites, and study of primary and Internet-based sources. The program will serve a 5-year cohort of 69 elementary, middle, and secondary school teachers. These teachers will study significant issues, episodes, events, and turning points in national history and explore their connections to art, music, literature, Louisiana history, and foreign relations. The instructional emphasis will be on the use of new media and online resources at national repositories to enrich students' learning experiences. During and after the grant period, a program Web site will inform history teachers of additional professional development opportunities, house teacher-developed lesson plans, and link teachers to one another and to state and national history repositories.

The Monroe County Community School Corporation in southern Indiana is a comprehensive school district with a large research university in its midst. The district includes both high and low-achieving schools, and its students come from ethnically, economically, and socially diverse backgrounds. Teachers in Monroe County's lowest-performing schools will be targeted for recruitment to the History Education Project. In Year 1, professional development activities will include three weekend retreats that incorporate seminars and field trips, two evening book discussions, lesson planning consultations, a classroom observation, and a culminating spring conference. Years 2 and 3 will feature a 5-day summer seminar, spring and fall retreats, two evening book discussions, lesson planning consultations, two classroom observations, and a culminating spring conference. A historian-in-residence, along with master teachers, will assist each teacher in the development of 15 powerful lessons in American history. Up to 30 of the district's 133 history teachers will be recruited, and they will participate in all three years of the program. Each year's themes will be investigated through case studies of the period, with an emphasis on connecting Indiana people, places, events, and historical turning points to the larger American scene. The History Education Project will integrate four dimensions of instruction: thinking historically, utilizing primary resources, teaching big ideas, and posing multiple perspectives. The program will maintain an interactive Web site as a repository of field-tested U.S. history instructional resources.

Located in a rural town near Boise, the Kuna district is in its fifth year of improvement: only one of eight district schools made Adequate Yearly Progress in 2007-2008. In project Year 1, master teacher trainees will spend 175 hours in field studies, collaboration with partners, workshops, book studies, and design of summer institutes for subsequent years. Thereafter, teachers will receive more than 75 hours of research-based professional development as they participate in workshops, book studies, and summer institutes. Year 1 will develop four master teachers; Years 2 to 5 will bring in about 35 more teachers overall. The project goal is to develop 19 teacher-leaders and approximately 20 additional teachers with strong content knowledge, pedagogical background, and resources. The underlying purpose of the Struggles and Resilience project is to develop American history as a separate academic subject that is supported by resident historians and pedagogical experts. In Year 1, master teachers will participate in individualized and collaborative field study, primary source research, and intense learning sessions with local and national history experts. In the following years, the master teachers will work with historians and other educators to help participating teachers build their content knowledge and instructional skills. History content will draw connections between traditional American history and state and local histories. Pedagogy will be based on nine essential strategies outlined in Classroom Instruction That Works. Participating teachers will earn college credits and/or history endorsements or certifications. All district teachers will benefit from lesson plans created during project activities.

Located on Florida's Gulf Coast, Sarasota County has several elementary schools with a diverse student population in need of improvement. Casting the Net teachers will participate in summer institutes, book studies, and independent studies as they work with partners and historian mentors to develop a rubric for historical quality, revise curriculum, and build learning materials. Summer institutes will focus on NAEP eras, and related book study topics will be determined as the project progresses. Annual cohorts, with an expected enrollment of 25 teachers each year, will be open to all county teachers and pre-service teachers in Grades 5-12 who teach, or expect to teach, history. The project's overarching theme is to cast a net to the next generation of Americans and engage them in examining the relationships among national, state, and local history to create a dynamic picture that provides relevance and sets a context for studying the past and learning from experience. Casting the Net content and instruction will focus on incorporating critical reading strategies, primary sources, and technology into history instruction, and using research to develop materials and lessons that are relevant and hands-on. To this end, the project will provide mini-grants for action research and independent studies. With project staff and the steering committee, teachers will contribute to a new district curriculum that aligns with new state standards and that fosters rigorous study of American history. They will also create high-quality, field-tested learning materials and kits to accompany the core texts and a collection of video case studies that demonstrate student learning using engaging materials.

Lake County School District in central Florida includes 42 schools, 12 of which have been identified through Florida's Differentiated Accountability Model as in need of improvement. Since 2001, Lake County's population has increased by more than 38 percent, and the district has hired hundreds of new teachers in response to increased student enrollment. Inheriting a Legacy of Freedom will target schools in need of improvement and address district-identified gaps in teachers' content knowledge and qualifications through a program of interrelated activities: 8-day summer academies that focus on document-based questioning strategies, school and district-level Professional Learning Communities that meet throughout the grant period, technology-based learning that includes monthly book study sessions and podcasts of historians' lectures, and action research that encourages participants to examine their teaching practices. Four separate cohorts of 35 teachers will receive professional development, and lead teachers will be chosen from these cohorts each year to coach other teachers of American history on topics such as meeting individual student needs and integrating technology into classroom practice. Lead teachers will also model effective teaching practices for American history teachers at schools in need of improvement. Inheriting a Legacy of Freedom will incorporate several overarching themes, including constitutional interpretation and American identity, culture, and religious development. The primary instructional strategy employed to convey content will be document-based questioning, which develops students' skills in reading, writing, and critical thinking. Teacher participants will create museum-like interactive exhibits, accompanied by curriculum support guides, for use by educators across the district.

Florida Virtual School, the first and largest statewide Internet-based public high school in the United States, serves 64,000 students across Florida. It has been charged by the state legislature to give priority to minority and rural students and students in low-performing schools. Teachers will be recruited for Turning Points in American History (Turning Points) through an application process that incorporates a needs assessment as the main selection tool. Each year, participating teachers will engage in a 3-day, face-to-face National Council for History Education colloquium; online professional development and networking that includes readings, workshops, book discussions, and lesson development; and 3- to 5-day field study academies at historical sites and museums. All American history teachers in Florida Virtual School will have access to WebLessons, an online lesson development resource. A cohort of 30 teachers will receive services throughout all five years of the program. Project coordinators will identify a subgroup of 10 lead teachers who will provide ongoing professional development to all Florida Virtual School history teachers; six of these teachers will be eligible to attend a national history conference each year. Turning Points will explore watershed events that have changed American history—political and cultural revolutions, social and religious changes, new technologies, and explorations of unknown places. Teachers will learn to integrate primary documents, art, and thematic connections between literature and U.S. history into their instruction, as required by Florida’s new state social studies standards. Teacher-created lessons and enrichment activities such as podcasts and virtual field trips will be shared through the Florida Virtual School Web site.

Citrus County, Florida, is rural and remote—teachers must drive about 75 miles each way to pursue university training opportunities. The district has not made Adequate Yearly Progress for six years, and district schools have performed only somewhat better. Because reading and writing have been weak, Nature Coast Liberty Fellowship activities will include a focus on integrating literacy into history instruction. Each year teachers can attend two 2-day colloquia, two half days of research, a 3-day summer institute, and 12 videoconferences (which are open to all district teachers). The project will offer turnkey replication of training. An annual cohort will consist of a core group of 35 fellows and five teacher leaders. The teacher leaders will train intensively to replicate project activities to nonparticipating district history teachers in Year 2. To help teachers take a professional historian's approach, the project will instruct fellows on how to conduct research, write historical narratives, and create substantive lessons and lively Web-based activities. Approaches will include Binary Paideia, Understanding by Design, and classroom coaching to support transfer of new strategies into practice. Fellows will study the American Institute for History Education's historical frameworks, signature strategies, and 12-step process for creating classroom lessons, and they will participate in its Talking History network. All district teachers will have access to fellows' lessons and to training on creating substantive lessons themselves (through CICERO, a Web-based collection of history resources). After receiving turnkey training, every history teacher will create one lesson a year. Partner organizations will maintain ongoing contact with fellows in support of their efforts to replicate training across the district.

Windham Public Schools is collaborating with a regional education service center (EASTCONN) in rural northeastern Connecticut to implement Themes of History. Windham Public Schools has been identified as a district in need of improvement, and 10 middle schools among the other participating districts have also been so identified. The program's core professional development activities include a week-long summer institute, three evening presentations by guest historians (open to all educators in northeastern Connecticut), and three full-day workshops. Supplemental activities include three seminars on content-related pedagogy and three evening lesson-planning sessions based on the Lesson Study approach. Participants will also receive in-class support from master history teachers, participate in an online Professional Learning Community, and attend the annual conference of the state's Council for the Social Studies. Fifty history teachers will participate for all three years of the program. Also, each year, five graduate students who are preparing to teach history will be invited to participate. The thematic focus of Themes of History is on helping students see and understand recurring patterns and themes in American history, with an emphasis on significant events, people, documents, and turning points. Participating teachers will learn to incorporate primary and secondary documents, artifacts, and historical materials as they use inquiry-based instructional strategies in developmentally appropriate ways. Exemplary history lessons will be posted online, and work accomplished through the program will contribute to the development of a stand-alone American history curriculum for statewide use.