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.

As it neared the end of a Teaching American History grant for teachers in Grades 8, 11 and 12, and as the state completed a new social studies curriculum, this north-central Florida district recognized the importance of addressing vertical alignment and acted to add professional development for teachers in earlier grades. Each cohort will participate in six days of concentrated, content-focused seminars; field studies at historic sites, including historical reenactment, document study and instructional materials; workshops and mentoring on the use of primary documents, historical simulations and other strategies; quarterly meetings of the professional learning community; online discussion forums that include history scholars; training in lesson planning; and classroom modeling and mentoring to support implementation of content and strategies. Each year, a new cohort of 22 fourth and fifth grade teachers and three seventh grade teachers will participate. Over the five years, teachers from all elementary and middle schools will be represented, and they will be mentored by project staff and teachers involved in the previous grant. To move away from passive learning activities, the project will strive to actively involve teachers and students in American history education. Teachers will be included in the district's curriculum mapping activities, which will prepare them for the instructional design assistance, resource materials and collegial support they will receive to design and implement hands-on instruction that integrates American history with reading and writing activities. Strategies will include problem-based learning and other inquiry-based approaches. As teachers complete their year of professional development, they will provide support to colleagues in their schools, expanding the project's reach.

These districts—the two largest in Delaware—are rated below target in terms of Adequate Yearly Progress. In addition, their American history teachers lack adequate preparation in their subject area. Each year of the project will include four 2-day American history workshops and two week-long summer institutes with field trips for two cohorts of 25 teachers and administrators, who will work in professional learning communities and lesson study teams. Cohort A will learn about events through the Civil War, while Cohort B will focus on post-Civil War history. To prevent attrition and ensure full impact, the project will employ an incentive system in which teachers and administrators who participate for three years will receive annually enhanced stipends. All topics are related to the theme of freedom. The project will concentrate on major eras of American history and more focused case studies of selected turning points in the evolution of freedom. The project Web site will feature videotaped sessions that allow visitors to view guided practice lesson presentations by the instructional specialist, a reader-response blog in which visitors can respond to recommended readings and research lessons, a forum in which visitors can recommend and discuss American history resources and best practices, an "Ask the Historian" component that allows participants to communicate with the project's guest historians, and a featured book site that draws attention to new and notable books.