Digital technologies have expanded access to a wealth of resources stored in archives. But authenticating, describing, and indexing these resources requires painstaking work. Most cultural institutions (e.g., museums and libraries) lack the financial resources and workforce to optimize searchability and readability of digitized records, which…

The author wanted help in learning how to be more effective at supporting his students to learn how to conduct effective research so he interviewed several historians, artists, and educators about the ways in which they carry out their research, and how those researchers who are currently in classrooms help their students to learn and develop…

A visitor to a random sampling of Modern World History classes in the United States will find that the subject of "revolution" is a favorite for many students. Reading about and researching individuals and topics such as Tsar Nicholas II, Rasputin, Marie Antoinette and guillotines is never boring. Unfortunately, in too many classrooms,…

The Battle of Bull Run is routinely cited as the first land battle of the Civil War. This battle between Union and Confederate forces took place near Manassas, Virginia, on July 21, 1861. But was this battle really the initial skirmish between the North and the South? Historians today concede that the first land battle actually took place on June…

A "podcast" (an amalgam of the word broadcast and the iPod digital audio player) is essentially a broadcast of digital audio files on the web that users can listen to on their computer or digital audio player (e.g., iPod). Podcasts can be automatically delivered to an iPod or computer whenever new content is available. This unique feature of…

During our careers as teachers, professional development specialists, and teacher educators, we have made perpetual attempts to develop instructional strategies and tools for engaging students in historical inquiry. Emphasis in recent years in the field of social studies education has been on the development and use of digitized historical…

This article offers lessons from the David Irving trial. These lessons about Holocaust denial allow educators to identify how deniers violate certain scholarly tenets. This also serves as a safeguard against legitimizing deniers' efforts, while also reinforcing important principles of historical inquiry. (Contains 11 notes.)

Understanding history is a challenge. In order to provide teachers with a tool that can help students acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to interpret primary sources and reconcile various historical accounts, the authors developed the SCIM-C strategy. Grounded in research on teaching and learning history and building upon Riley's layers of…

Economists and historians have struggled for almost 80 years to account for the American Great Depression, which began in 1929 and lasted until the early years of World War II. In this article, the authors discuss three major schools of thought on the causes of the Great Depression and the long failure of the American economy to return to full…

There is a lot of talk these days about thinking historically. Policy makers use the term. So do teachers, curriculum writers, test makers, and administrators. And above all researchers use it--a lot. A number of articles have been published in this very column concerning the topic, many by those who do history-education research. Some might argue…

Today's students are generally accustomed to seeing timelines of events, lists of names, and bulleted items, yet they lack an understanding of the complexity of historical analysis. Learning to read historical information from charts, for example, teaches students to evaluate the significance of change. Comparing related primary sources can…

Discusses the purposes of history in the curriculum. Presents several examples of using history to explain contemporary events. Argues that historical knowledge is essential for effective citizenship in a democratic society. (CFR)

Students' views on history inspired the author to reflect on her own teaching and to explore historical thinking. She decided to research the impact of a three-step approach to reading primary documents on ninth grade world history students, she was curious as to whether developing and using a consistent series of strategies with various primary…

Anniversaries of major historical events, such as the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision, "Brown v. Board of Education," provide social studies teachers with the opportunity to connect their classroom study to broader public conversations about the event and its significance. This article reports on one such…

Contends that the freedom to discover and debate the past is essential to a democratic society. Presents a high school lesson in historical methodology to illustrate how historians search for what happened in the past. Includes seven classroom activities to help students examine historical evidence. (CFR)