Within the districts in this northeast Georgia region, 15 schools did not make Adequate Yearly Progress in 2008, and 13 schools are in need of improvement. On the 2008 history tests for Grades 4, 8, and high school, 35 percent or more of the region’s students did not meet state standards. Teaching American History in Georgia's Classic Region will expand teachers' content knowledge and help them develop their pedagogical skills. Seminars, field studies, and summer institutes will be led by historians and master educators who will help teachers gain an increased appreciation of traditional American history. Professional Learning Communities, meeting both face-to-face and online, will collaborate to create lesson plans. A cohort of 60 teachers will include 30 from Grades 3-5 and 30 from middle and high schools; priority will be given to teachers from the schools most in need of improvement. Instructional strategies for this project include Understanding by Design and using historical thinking skills. Each year, these will be applied to content from the selected topic area/historical period. The project will produce technology-based collaborative instructional units that incorporate primary sources, local history resources, Web sites, and databases. All units will be reviewed by an advisory board and mounted on the project Web site to share with teachers in Georgia and across the nation. In addition, materials related to the book studies, blogs, podcasts, lectures, and presentations will be available online for all teachers in the project service area. In addition, teachers will conduct model demonstration lessons in their local schools and districts to sustain the project's impact over time.

The two metro-Atlanta districts participating in this project include several schools identified as in need of improvement, and one district has not made Adequate Yearly Progress for four years: student scores on state and other standardized tests have been below state averages. Building Connections teachers will interact with historians and colleagues from different grade levels as they attend summer institutes and evening lectures and visit national and local historic sites and archival facilities. Small cohorts will meet during the school year to discuss content and instruction and to collaborate on assignments. Stipends and a competitive application process will be used to recruit 250 Tier 1 teachers (50 per cohort, with one cohort in Year 1, two cohorts in Year 2, and two cohorts in Year 3) and 50 Tier 2 teachers (one cohort for three years, starting in Year 1), with preference given to those from low-performing schools. Throughout the project, themes will center on placing significant individuals, events, and issues into the context of our nation's foundation and civic ideals. Around this content, Building Connections will help teachers learn to integrate several instructional approaches into their practice, such as using nonfiction materials and primary source documents, conducting research, using technology, and incorporating history into reading and writing. During the 5-year project, each Tier 1 teacher will compile a portfolio that includes lesson plans, primary sources, visuals, portraits, and objects. Tier 2 teachers will produce learning packages that include lesson plans, artifacts, and primary documents. All lesson plans will be compiled and shared with other teachers.

Located in the Atlanta metro area, this district's students are predominantly minority, ethnically and linguistically diverse, and from low-income families. Twenty-five of its 125 schools are in need of improvement. SHIFT participants will interact with respected historians at annual kick-off events, through two hybrid graduate-level courses each year, and during annual summer academies located at historical sites. Teachers will have funding to gather resources for their classroom libraries during field experiences and will receive other resources during SHIFT activities. The project will serve five cohorts of 30 teachers each, with teachers coming from all school levels and each cohort participating for two years. SHIFT will explore a variety of themes, including interactions of peoples, cultures, and ideas; change and continuity in American democracy; and the changing role of America in the world. Instructional strategies will focus on applying thoughtful exploration and critical analysis to understand history, and on making history an engaging, immersive, and relevant academic subject. Teachers will reflect, collaborate, and refer to the SHIFT blueprint for guidance on building an ideal classroom environment for history teaching and learning. Teachers who complete the professional development will have classroom libraries with multimedia resources, an expanded repertoire of teaching practices, deeper content knowledge, and collegial relationships that will support their future practice.

Volusia County is located in central Florida and includes Daytona Beach. The suburban school district serves a growing Hispanic population and includes 56 schools that have not achieved Adequate Yearly Progress in reading and math. Each year, through the Preserving Our Nation fellowship program, participating teachers will receive professional development during a 1-day fall colloquium; a 3-day winter colloquium; a 2-day field-study trip; four and a half days of directed historical research and lesson development; classroom coaching; and a 5-day summer institute. Supplemental resources, including the American Institute for History Education’s monthly Talking History Webinars, and online access to CICERO teaching resources, will be available to all teachers in the district. The program will serve 40 fellows, including five teacher leaders who will deliver turnkey sessions for history teachers throughout the district. Each teacher leader will attend a certified Advanced Placement training course and a week-long turnkey training. Teachers will explore how geography, economics, and political thought contributed to events in traditional American history. Classroom instruction will incorporate CICERO, an online compilation of multimedia history resources; the Binary Paideia approach for developing historical thinking; and the American Institute for History Education’s Signature Strategies for delivering effective, grade-appropriate instruction. The project will publish a compilation of its events, teaching resources, and fellow-created materials (such as virtual field trips and lesson plans) on a Web site.

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.

Polk County Public Schools in central Florida includes 37 elementary schools identified by the state as being in need of Improvement. The district serves a growing number of Spanish-speaking migrant students whose knowledge of American history is limited. To meet the needs of elementary and secondary American history teachers, Our Heritage: Our Future will offer a dual-track program of professional development. Track 1 (Grade 5) teachers will participate in a summer institute consisting of a 3-day colloquium, a day with a historian, and a 5-day field study; a 2-day spring training on using Reader's Theater and primary sources; a 1-day fall seminar on a history topic; a 1-day curriculum alignment workshop; regular online "meet the historian" mini-courses; and lesson development activities. Track 2 (Grades 8 and 11) will involve teachers in a variety of day-long and after-school professional development events and collegial learning. Track 1 will include 144 teachers (one 36-member group a year for 4 years, followed by a year of collegial work and delivery of district wide professional development). Following the same pattern of cohort engagement, Track 2 will expand the district's existing teacher-leader development network. In addition, eight to 12 teacher leaders will revise district curriculum maps based on new Florida American History standards. Our Heritage: Our Future will involve teachers and students in reading and experiencing American history to help them become more informed, productive citizens. Classroom instruction based on the Learning-Focused Strategies model will emphasize vocabulary in context, visual tools such as graphic organizers, and Reader's Theater. Teachers will create lesson plans and materials for district-wide dissemination.

Miami-Dade County has many students from immigrant or first-generation families and many teachers who feel underprepared to teach American history. Teaching American History activities will address these needs in a variety of ways. Elementary teachers will meet for six Saturday workshops, a one-week summer institute, and two online workshops on using Web lessons. Intensive study teachers will have seven 2-day workshops, and master teachers will complete a 3-year program to earn 30 graduate credits. The three types of cohorts will be constructed as follows: elementary cohorts will include 30 teachers, with a new group participating each year of the project; intensive study cohorts will have 30 different teachers each year for four years; and the master teachers cohort will consist of 20 teachers who participate for three and a half years. An overall goal of the project is to build capacity within the district, and the three types of cohorts will enable both immediate improvement in the classrooms and long-term support for history teaching. During elementary workshops, everything will be structured around essential questions: historians will present content and discuss its application in the classroom, and then participants will complete project-specific assignments. During five intensive study workshops, teachers will focus on content; the remaining two workshops will address instructional strategies. The master teachers program will include 10 graduate-level courses and an original research paper. In Years 2 to 5, scholar-guided travel will take 20 participants to national historical sites for five to seven days. The Professional Learning Communities that develop among cohort members will contribute to sustaining and expanding the project's impact.

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.

Brevard County, Florida, is home to the Kennedy Space Center and a range of technology industries, yet the district has never made Adequate Yearly Progress. More than half of Title I schools are in improvement, corrective action, or restructuring, and few teachers have adequate history backgrounds. Becoming an American historians and scholars will support teachers as they research and discuss history during summer colloquia and workshops. Field experiences will immerse teachers in living history, and academy coaches (secondary teachers from a previous project) will mentor the participants. Early in their experiences, teachers will take online courses; by completion, they will be qualified to conduct such courses. Two groups of 40 elementary and middle school teachers will participate for three years (overlapping in Year 3), and selection criteria will favor teachers from schools with the greatest needs. The project theme is embedded in its name—Becoming an American: Continuity Through Change—and it will address the five turning points in American history named in the topics above. The project will focus on instructional strategies that include project-based learning, using technology and practicing differentiated instruction. Teachers will learn to identify historical patterns, establish cause-and-effect relationships, find value statements, establish significance, apply historical knowledge, weigh evidence to draw conclusions, and make defensible generalizations. The project's continuing impact on history teaching will come from its products, including a quasi-experimental study measuring student gains, teacher-created lessons on the project Web portal, classroom instruction that incorporates online lessons or virtual visits, mentoring of other history teachers in the district, and a teacher-designed standards-based student history assessment.

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.