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 Atlanta district, like many U.S. districts, has seen scores on end-of-course history tests fall dramatically—from about 639 points in 2005 to 429 points in 2009. Examining Years of Economic Strides, or EYES, will immerse high school teachers in a 1-day kick-off event, eight 1-day education matters events, a 5-day summer academy, three days at the American History Conference, two book study circles, five resource library activities and five days of field research each year. With additional activities, teachers will be involved in more than 400 hours of professional development during the grant period. Four cohorts of 37 or 38 teachers each will participate in two years of professional development; this will enable every high school history teacher in the district to be part of the project. EYES aims to use the lens of economics to make American history fresh, engaging and relevant, and to encourage critical thinking and historical investigation into central themes and concepts. For example, the content of Unit A (1) will include examination of the colonial economy in a global context, property rights among American Indians, and the costs and benefits of American independence. EYES will use a blueprint, or rubric, to help teachers and project leaders track instructional strategies, such as using primary documents and applying historical thinking skills. Participating teachers will post materials about their studies and the lessons they create to the district’s social studies Web site, and they will present at conferences, including state and national conferences, plus a local one that they will host in conjunction with historians who lead project activities.

Cobb County is northwest of Atlanta, near the borders of Tennessee and Alabama. Student performance on the history portion of state graduation tests has fallen in recent years, and district history teachers have had access to little or no professional development. Each semester, this project will deliver three symposia and two field trips, a book study, and workshops for developing curriculum materials. Each year, leading historians will present a 5-day summer seminar that will include lectures and materials, historian guidance during a field study, and opportunities for teachers to confer with experts in the field. The project will serve an annual cadre of 30 high school teachers; Year 1 participants will be encouraged to stay on, and any who leave will be replaced by new teachers. Applicants will be screened to select those who have the greatest need. By providing a cutting-edge professional development experience, the district aims to develop a cadre of lead teachers and mentors who can work across the district and the state. Symposia will be led by guest historians, and primary source materials will be reviewed for historical interpretation, point of view and analysis. Field studies will be designed to include history content and exploration of primary sources. Strategies will include use of History Habits of Mind, document-based questioning and the Understanding by Design process. Every teacher will design at least one lesson per year, and these resources will be available on the district and project Web sites. Participants will present at local and state conferences and will be encouraged to apply to national conferences.

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.