This pilot study examined middle school and high school student performance on an online historical thinking assessment task. After their teachers received training in the use of digital historical archives, students from all groups engaged in historical thinking behaviors (e.g., observation, sourcing, inferencing, evidence, question-posing, and…

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…

Today, urban high schools are faced with a variety of pressures that are competing for attention within the classroom. These pressures come from a variety of sources and for a variety of reasons. The situation may involve students who arrive in the classroom unable to read or write at grade level and who display a wide variety of educational…

History departments are not generally known as hotbeds of assessment activity. Doctoral programs in history rarely touch the issue of how to assess student learning, while program review as an idea appears to many historians as an invasion of their turf by outsiders. At Eastern Michigan University, members of the faculty in the Department of…

During the last twenty years, history educators have noted a sea change in the concern expressed by scholars, policymakers, and the general public about the teaching and learning of history in schools. The 1983 report, "A Nation at Risk", was a catalyst for this movement with its focused attention and support for a core curriculum based…

This study reports the impact of consistently using a Socratic Seminar to interpret historical documents written by women on 9th grade students' historical empathy. Over the course of one semester in a year-long world history course, the class examined three documents written by women living in the complex time period being studied and discussed…

This article examines the use of testimony in the making of a new history in South Africa, situating this phenomenon in the context of public construction of memory and identifying history teachers as critical to the process. Through an ethnographic study of 16 schools that illuminates the use of teacher testimony in Cape Town history classrooms,…

A report from Thomas B. Fordham Foundation reveals the complaints of some social studies educators regarding the teaching of American history in US classrooms. Students, they say, should study an American history that emphasizes "true heroes of the American story." Further, these educators believe that students should be freed from the alleged…

This article explores how the nature of history as a subject has shaped the subcultural identities of the eight teachers in the History Department of an Irish post-primary school. Using a biographical, cultural and micropolitical framework popular within symbolic interactionism, this case study is based on data gathered over three years from…

The transforming effects of the tremendous advances in technology that have reshaped the economy and many other elements of American society have had an equally profound impact on historical agencies. The personal computer, the Internet, and associated electronic communications developments have already transformed the museum and historical agency…

For several years the author has sought ways by which he can employ film in a creative and academically sound manner as a teaching device. In this article, the author describes the History and Film course he developed for his students. The author began by compiling lists of films that he felt supplemented the subject matter covered in his survey…

In this article, the author shares his own reflections on his forty-odd years of teaching history at the college level. He shares one of the most important things he learned during his career as a history teacher: Instructors should make clear to their students at the beginning of any survey course what it is that they expect their students to…

The Teaching American History (TAH) program began in 2001 as a bold new idea: that history content could be delivered directly to United States history teachers through ongoing partnerships with providers of history expertise. The program awards three-year federal education grants for up to $1 million to develop and carry out these professional…

Case studies have long been used in marketing programs as a way to provide real-world context to business issues and to structure analysis and decision making. In a similar fashion, advocates of the teaching of business/marketing history believe that it provides a contextual background for the marketing student. This article first demonstrates…

Proven to be powerful learning tools, literature and song can spark students' interests and are resources with great potential for fostering learning. The use of literature and song in history classes can be a stand-alone instructional strategy or a supplement to more traditional means of teaching. Once students' interest and imagination have been…