This paper addresses beginning teachers thinking about the nature and purposes of their subject and the impact of this on their practice. Individual qualitative interviews were undertaken with 11 history teachers at the beginning of their teaching careers. Data was analysed using writing as the method of analysis and revealed that teachers whose…

One joy of studying history is discovering people living meaningful lives and behaving in unusual ways that are startling to the modern reader--young or old. Why did pre-modern people living hundreds or even thousands of years ago do things so differently than we do? Robert Whaples states that Economic historians conclude that the key difference…

Far more than just recreation, baseball offers social, cultural, and political insights into history. For teachers, the goals of this article are threefold. First, this narrative is designed to provide the introductory content knowledge needed to develop a colorful lecture, structure a spirited discussion, or create a student project on the topic.…

The authors of this article examine several controversial U.S. monuments and offer teachers a rationale, resources, and suggested activities for incorporating these historical monuments into classroom instruction. The authors discuss why controversial issues should be discussed in the social studies classroom through the critical examination of…

As a result of the U.S. Department of Education's near one-billion-dollar investment in the "Teaching American History" ("TAH") grant program since 2001, almost 1,200 projects have taken place in school districts around the country with the important aim of improving the teaching of American history in K-12 classrooms. The…

This article discusses two education abroad programs that afford pre-service teachers with purposeful opportunities to enhance their intercultural competence through immersion in teaching internships in British schools. The programs, in London and Nottingham, provide pre-service teachers with direct experiences that engage them with diverse…

As advocates of engaging students in historical inquiry and of the use of primary sources to aid in this inquiry, we support the claims of numerous student benefits, such as learning to detect bias, appreciating the interpretive nature of historical thinking, and the drawing of conclusions based on judgments about evidence (Fehn & Koeppen,…

The present study seeks to develop a pedagogy aimed at fostering a student's ability to reason causally about history. The Model of Domain Learning was used as a framework to align domain-specific content with pedagogical principles. Developing causal historical reasoning was conceptualized as a multidimensional process, in which knowledge of…

Becoming a history teacher requires the integration of pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and content knowledge. Because the integration of knowledge from different disciplines is a complex task, we investigated prompted learning journals as a method to support teacher students' knowledge integration. Fifty-two preservice…

This article explores how short form/comedic improvisational theater impacts the development of writing fluency. Students in all disciplines need to be able to purposefully write, however by the time students reach high school many have already given up trying to express even their own thoughts in free writing. Two quasi-experimental action…

Concept maps have been recognized as an effective tool for students to organize their knowledge; however, in history courses, it is important for students to learn and organize historical events according to the time of their occurrence. Therefore, in this study, a time sequence-oriented concept map approach is proposed for developing a game-based…

This article describes the findings of a study involving a professional development program that prepared middle school teachers to integrate content on the earliest eras of world history and world geography. In particular, this study focused on participants' (n = 37) use of geographic resources to integrate geography and history and to encourage…

College students enrolled in online courses lack many of the supports available to students in traditional face-to-face classes on a campus such as meeting the instructor, having a set class time, discussing topics in-person during class, meeting peers and having the option to speak with them outside of class, being able to visit faculty during…

This qualitative research study examined how two novice secondary teachers drew on preservice preparation to teach language demands of their content area to bilingual learners in urban high schools in a city in the northeastern United States. Data sources included videotaped class observations, lesson plans and teaching materials, and…

This article reports on action research conducted at a primary school in rural New South Wales, Australia. The research responded to an expressed school aspiration to foster greater understanding of local Aboriginal culture, historical perspectives and knowledge systems within the school. An exploratory model was developed using a mixed methods…