For over a decade at the University of Minnesota, I have used social media tools in my introductory global history course to improve engagement and final grades. Students and I work as partners in using the tools to engage them more in the class, prepare for exams, and develop these skills for other courses. Our approach is guided by principles of…

The result of a three year state-led collaborative effort, the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards was developed to serve two audiences: for states to upgrade their state social studies standards and for practitioners--local school districts, schools, teachers and curriculum writers--to strengthen…

In order to be well-educated citizens in the 21st century, children need to learn computing in school. However, implementing computing education in schools faces several practical problems, such as lack of computing teachers and time in an already overloaded curriculum. A solution can be a multidisciplinary approach, integrating computing…

Despite the perception that face-to-face classrooms provide speaking opportunities, studies by Fassinger (1995), Nunn (1996), and Weimer (2013) have conveyed that there is limited interaction in a traditional college lecture setting. Social media networks such as Twitter provide an opportunity for instructors to utilize popular mobile technology…

Disappointed that the use of the "PEEL" writing scaffold had led her Year 11 students to write some rather dreary essays, Claire Simmonds reflected that a lack of specific training on historical writing might be to blame. Drawing on genre theory and the work of the history teaching community, Simmonds attempted to theorise the…

This study examined the 4th-grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) assessments (history, geography, and civics) and 3rd- and 4th-grade social studies standards from nine randomly selected states and organized the content around three global concepts (conflict, movement, discovery) and six specific concepts (war, rebellion,…

This article advances a continuing line of inquiry into an innovative teacher-support program intended to help in-service history teachers develop professional teaching knowledge for inquiry-based history instruction. Two prior iterations informed our design and use of professional development materials; they also informed the implementation…

At present, quality earth science education in grade school is rare, increasing the importance of post-secondary courses. Observations of post-secondary geoscience indicate students often maintain errant ideas about the earth, even after direct instruction. This qualitative case study documents model-building activities of students as they…

The research objective of this study was to compare the relative effectiveness of history of science (HOS) integrated instruction and curriculum-oriented instruction on sixth grade students' understanding of nature of science (NOS). Accordingly, two classes were assigned to experimental group and other two were assigned to comparison group…

The author wishes to divide this essay into two sections, one indicating things he might have added to a few earlier works, and a second indicating a project or two that he did not complete but would like to have done. First he discusses the incomplete projects. He begins by saying that he has done a lot of work on teacher organizations and has…

In the 1980s, in Quebec history textbooks, authors presented history through linear, monocausal designs and attributed most social, political or economic changes favourable to democracy to unstable external causes or to stable external causes. They seldom attributed the evolution of democracy to "unstable internal causes". These…

James Woodcock continues his theme from "Teaching History 138" about the difference between superficial, thematic cross-curricularity and much more rigorous interdisciplinarity. His concern is to retain rather than compromise the integrity of the subject disciplines. Woodcock argues that interdisciplinary working adds value to learning…

Although history teachers have long been frustrated by the limitations of the National Curriculum Attainment Target and by demands to use it for purposes for which it was never intended, its official abolition has come as quite a shock. As Michael Fordham makes clear, we now have an unparalleled opportunity to rethink the way in which we assess…

This article addresses how we might teach for global citizenship in world history classrooms. Despite the name, secondary world history courses in the United States have not consistently focused on global interconnections, multiple perspectives, and inquiry into global issues. We explore why this might be, as well as suggest specific learning…

What are the challenges of teaching Cold War politics to the twenty-first-century student? How might the millennial generation be educated about the political science theories and concepts associated with this period in history? A college student today, who grew up in the post-Cold War era with the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, smart phones,…