This northern Arizona consortium is located in a geographically isolated area. Half the students are minorities—mostly Native Americans—and 44 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. The project will offer three-credit elective graduate-level courses that include content seminars, hands-on workshops, field study research, grade-based professional learning communities, lesson study sessions, online discussions and one-on-one mentoring. The courses will be taught at Northern Arizona University over six days during the school year and three days in the summer. The courses will explore pivotal events, people, legislation and judicial cases; the concepts of local, state and national significance; and the intersection of native and national storylines. Teachers may pursue two paths. An intensive 2-year track will help teachers partially complete their master’s degrees in history; in addition to the regular content, these courses will feature 3-day field study trips, online discussions and small group studies. This master's track will involve two cohorts of 15 teachers: Cohort A from summer 2011 to spring 2013, and Cohort B from summer 2013 to spring 2015. Cohort A teachers will be encouraged to continue participating after spring 2013 and serve as teacher leaders with the project and in their schools and districts. In addition, two biannual cohorts of 15 teachers will pursue a less-intensive professional recertification track. The project's key strategies are the "learn, do, teach" and "local-to-global" approaches that focus on primary sources, historical scholarship, local significance and engaging instructional strategies. Teacher-created lesson plans, activities, annotated primary sources and book critiques will be posted on a Moodle site.

The project will serve public schools on the five islands of American Samoa, where all students qualify for free school lunches. A needs survey demonstrated that 96 percent of history teachers had not majored in history and that student achievement in history needs to improve—58 percent of fourth graders, 36 percent of eighth graders and 38 percent of twelfth graders scored below average on the history cluster of the 2009 SAT-10. Through this project, two cohorts of 25 teachers will participate in 480 hours of American history instruction and professional development regarding classroom-ready teaching techniques. This training will include (1) 10 day-long symposia on American history content, six core content-related teaching practices and response-to-intervention implementation; (2) a 3-day summer institute and field study focused on topics that align with grade-level curriculum content, including training in teaching strategies, standards review and lesson development from the field study; and (3) teacher networking through after-school meetings held twice monthly to review student performance and develop intervention strategies. Cohort 1 (Grades 5-8) will receive training in the first 3 years, with Cohort 2 (Grades 9-12) following in the final two years. After the summer institutes of 2012 (for Cohort 1) and 2015 (for Cohort 2), the project teachers will travel to the mainland to visit historic sites most have only read about. They will learn to use content-related teaching methods, including primary source documents, artifacts, fine art, illustrations and maps to translate newly mastered content into their classes. The project will post online curriculum developed by the project, best practices and other materials.

Defining America is a combined effort of two regional educational service agencies—one in northwestern Wisconsin and the other in northeastern Minnesota. Together, they serve 55 mainly rural districts plus several Native American schools and have a total of 10 schools in need of improvement. Project activities will provide opportunities for history teachers to work directly with master teachers, curriculum experts, and archivists. Face-to-face experiences will include 5-day summer colloquia and one and a half-day retreats and seminars of various lengths. Online activities will include creation of a Moodle site where project staff and participants can share ideas and practices and conduct online discussions. When project staff select the 40 teaching fellows, their priority will be on recruiting teachers from schools in need of improvement. The theme of Defining America is examining critical eras when, at the national level, the meaning of "America" was created or significantly redefined. History content will include the relevant national events and people, and will also make connections to local and Native American history. Teachers will learn to identify historical resources, incorporate historical thinking into teacher-created lesson plans and classroom activities, and use best practices in instruction. When teaching fellows complete their 3-year Defining America experience, they will have a pool of lesson plans to share with other teachers and will be a resource for colleagues in their districts to improve history instruction across all schools.

All six of the countywide, southwestern West Virginia districts involved in this project have failed to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress for three or more consecutive years. Two districts are in corrective action, and 18 of the region's elementary, middle, and high schools have been identified as in need of improvement. Project TAH-21 will engage teachers and administrators in learning communities focused on American history, led by Marshall University professors. Two-hour monthly meetings will develop content knowledge and employ lesson study to support instructional skills. Online courses, 1-day mini-institutes, 3-day summer field experiences, and weeklong intensive summer institutes will help teachers develop content knowledge, history thinking skills, and history Habits of Mind. Each year, a new cohort of 30 teachers will participate, and project staff will recruit first from schools that are most in need of improvement. Project TAH-21 aims to link history content, curriculum design, and instruction within a comprehensive American history plan. Teachers will review and analyze original, core documents in a setting that models the strategy for use with students and Professional Learning Communities will foster sustained and purposeful conversations about teaching practice and content delivery. When the grant ends, the project will continue through Professional Learning Communities, ongoing access to online courses on American history topics, and a living Web site of resources for teachers.

Located in the eastern mountains and Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, the eight county-wide districts involved in Framing Our History have 20 middle and high schools that have not made Adequate Yearly Progress for one or more of the past three years, and many teachers in these schools are not highly qualified to teach history. The project will address participant needs through colloquia, institutes, field studies, and other activities that promote greater content knowledge, build pedagogical skills, and create a Professional Learning Community. The project also will provide interventions to nonparticipants at struggling schools and conduct a research study in one district on the project's long-term effects. A total of 40 teachers will participate for the full 5-year period, 30 of whom will be selected from low-performing schools and 10 of whom will be teacher-mentors, who will participate in all project activities. Framing Our History aims to develop teacher-historians who make history relevant to today's students by instilling historical thinking skills and habits of mind. During the summer colloquia, teachers will interact with historians, master teachers, learning/curriculum specialists, and preservice teachers from the higher education partner to explore content as professionals and develop pedagogical skills such as action research. All activities will integrate educational technology and emphasize the use of a variety of resources and delivery media. Teachers will create instructional guides and problem-based learning modules to be published on the state department's Teach 21 Web site. These resources will help other history teachers improve their classroom practice.

This capital city district serves students who are overwhelmingly minority and who receive special education services at a higher than average rate (20 percent). The district has never made Adequate Yearly Progress, and five middle schools and three high schools are underperforming. The Teaching American History Academy II (TAHA II) will offer two 3-year professional development pathways: (1) the master's track, in which 15 teachers will complete courses worth 30 graduate hours, plus workshops, an annual 1-day field trip, and an annual 4- to 7-day summer trip; and (2) the professional development (PD) track, which will provide 50 to 60 teachers with 100 or more hours of training in meetings during the school year and a 4- to 7-day summer trip followed by a 3-day institute (15 PD track teachers will participate in extra technology training). When cohorts are recruited, priority will be given to history and special education teachers who teach American history in the underperforming schools. TAHA II will focus on building collegiality among teaching colleagues and university historians. History content and instructional strategies will be delivered by historians, museum curators, and National Park historians, and retired mentor teachers. The master’s track teachers will earn a master's of education in curriculum and instruction for history and social studies from the University of Richmond; professional development track teachers will prepare curriculum materials to be posted on the project Web site. Over the course of the project, leaders anticipate that several teachers will attend and present at regional and national conferences.

Newport News, near the Chesapeake Bay in southeastern Virginia, is a high-need district with achievement gaps across all school levels and between student subgroups. Voices of a Nation will focus on vertical aspects of teaching U.S. history with the aim of creating a more cohesive program. Cohort members will commit to participating in activities, most of which will also be open to other teachers who have a U.S. history teaching assignment. Activities will include lectures, seminars, and Professional Learning Team (PLT) meetings during the school year, supplemented by summer graduate courses and technology institutes. Annual cohorts will have 40 teachers in Grades 4 to 12. Each cohort will become a Professional Learning Community and will break into four vertical PLTs of teachers from schools that feed into each other. The theme of Voices of a Nation is embedded in its name. Although all topics and eras will be covered each year, activities will vary and involve different partners. PLTs will meet several times to chat with professional historians, share teaching ideas, review primary sources, create collections of resources, discuss differentiating instruction, or conduct other activities; all activities will be documented online. Each PLT will complete three products: a curriculum map of one U.S. history strand from the state standards, a digital resource such as a SMART board lesson or virtual field trip, and one product to be determined by the team.

The Navasota, Bryan, and College Station Independent School Districts in Brazos Valley, Texas, serve a growing number of English Language Learners. Overall, student scores on state reading and math assessments are below the state average, surveyed students' interest in history is low, and most history teachers do not hold a history certification. The Mystery and Power of History will offer intensive professional development throughout each year of the program, beginning with a 3-day colloquium and continuing with lectures, workshops, guided readings, 1 to 3-day seminars, opportunities for teachers to attend weeklong historical immersion experiences in the field and/or 5-day summer institutes sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and several evening platform discussions led by scholars. Participants can also receive support for obtaining a history certification. The Mystery and Power of History will accommodate 40 teachers, each of whom will commit to participating for one or more years and completing at least 75 percent of the professional development activities offered. The thematic goal of the project is to deepen teachers' and students' understanding of how the principles of liberty and democratic government have helped to shape America's social, political and legal institutions. Instructional strategies derived from Historical Habits of Mind will enhance students' higher order thinking skills and their knowledge of American history. In addition, teachers will use technology to enhance history education. The program will develop a group of master teachers and mentors who can facilitate professional development and sustain a Professional Learning Community among teachers of history in all three districts.

McAllen Independent School District in southern Texas serves mostly Hispanic students, a fourth of whom are classified as English Language Learners. Five of the district's 34 schools have not achieved Adequate Yearly Progress: the average Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) score for these five schools is 55 percent, compared to the state average of 72 percent. Most history teachers in the district have minimal credentials in the subject area and few opportunities for professional development. McAllen ISD Project TEACH (Teachers Engaged in American Culture and History) will target low-performing schools and engage 50 teachers annually in four 2-day colloquia, eight 3-hour seminars, and a 4-day summer institute. At least half of the teachers will participate in a 5-day historical site visit each year. The project will also provide support and tuition for five participants interested in pursuing a master's degree in American history. Themes explored in Project TEACH will include complex political, economic, and social dynamics that have shaped America from colonial times through the present. Through training, observation, and feedback, teachers will implement an instructional strategy called document-based questioning. Participating teachers will also share their work with colleagues face-to-face and online, mentor other history teachers, and use Texas's Web-based curriculum management tool to align classroom instruction to district curriculum. The teachers will create thematic "toolbox libraries" for classroom use.

The Fort Bend and Spring Branch Independent School Districts serve a diverse population from disadvantaged communities across Houston, Texas, where many students are first-generation Americans. Through the Teachers as Historians program, the two-district consortium will deliver teacher training and support to 14 schools that have not made Adequate Yearly Progress and to 49 additional Title I schools. Annual activities will include a 2-week summer seminar at Rice University, followed by a week-long experiential field study, two workshops and a field study during the school year, three district planning meetings, access to an online community network and digital library, a community lecture by a distinguished historian, and a mentor network facilitated by district curriculum specialists. Each participating teacher will research and create two lessons with the help of a content specialist and a master teacher. Participants who fulfill their grant obligations may apply for a $750 grant, which they can apply toward personal professional development opportunities and classroom resources. A new cohort of 30 teachers will be involved in the program's core activities each year and will be encouraged to continue their participation in the mentor network. The goal of the program is to teach students to think critically about what it means to be an American. Interactive instructional strategies will emphasize critical thinking in response to primary source documents. Lesson plans and resources focused on traditional American history will be presented by teachers at local, state, or national events and will also be uploaded to a digital library and made accessible to history teachers nationwide.