Given California's role in the Pacific economy, its historic Asian heritage, and the strong and growing presence of Asian communities and businesses in the state, it is imperative that students statewide understand the history of Asia. Unfortunately, the California state curricular framework and standards in history and social science limit the…

The majority of public high school students in California are missing out on history. Many students may not see it that way, but that is because they have little understanding of what it means to appreciate history. The traditional high school history survey courses, US History and world history, provide an overview of "everything that ever…

Today's students grow up in a technological milieu of hand-held computers with high storage capacities, internet access, and the ability to shoot high definition photographs and video. As such, they are empowered to construct representations of the past virtually "on the run." In this article, the authors investigated the historical "and"…

When combining the increasing use of online educational environments, the push to use serious video games and the lack of research on the effectiveness of online learning environments and video games, there is a clear need for further investigation into the use of serious video games in an online format. A mix methods model was used to triangulate…

The authors examined the role of an intervention designed to increase reading comprehension, reading self-efficacy beliefs, and engagement in social studies for middle school students of varying language backgrounds. Thirteen sixth- and seventh-grade teachers implemented the United States History for Engaged Reading (USHER) program with their…

This phenomenological ethnographic multi-case study's purpose was to gain insight into experiences of rural junior high History Fair participants as they searched for and evaluated online primary sources. Drawing on the theories of Dewey and Kuhlthau, the study examined how the participants searched the Internet, what strategies they used to…

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of Walton, Reed, and Macagno's (2008) dialectical framework on middle school students' historical discussions and written arguments. To do this,151 middle school students from six classrooms were randomly assigned to one of two conditions and asked to participate in a three-week…

This article seeks to shed light on the dilemma facing history education in regions beset by a protracted, and as yet unresolved ethno-political conflict. The article will examine this issue by means of a unique test case that observes a dramatic war event in Israeli textbooks. The event in question is the Six-Day War of 1967 and the study of its…

In 2006, the Japanese American National Museum funded a three year curriculum development project entitled "Enduring Communities: Japanese Americans in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Utah." As a member of the team of teachers from New Mexico, I used this experience to study my process of developing meaningful content and…

To cultivate imagination and empathy among school students is a basic challenge for history teachers. This paper examines the relative roles of the teacher and student in nurturing imagination and empathy in the Singapore history classroom, specifically, through source-based studies. Both imagination and empathy are ways for students to think…

Although most teachers believe that "students should write at least one in-depth paper during high school," the independent research paper is disappearing from high school curricula in the face of two competing pressures: the need to prepare for high-stakes tests and student "senioritis." In many high schools, the senior year has become "a…

The author discusses how high school social studies teachers can have their students investigate local history topics and share their findings by producing Web pages, using a cooperative learning structure. The author discusses his firsthand experiences using this approach with high school students at Warrensburg High School. He emphasizes the…

Alison Stephen, who has wrestled for many years with the challenges of teaching emotional and controversial history within a multiethnic school setting, relished the opportunity to link her school's teaching of the Holocaust with a comparative study of other genocides. As she reports, her aim was to not create a hierarchy of suffering or…

In this analysis of promising practice, we demonstrate how social studies methods instructors can incorporate data analysis of the 2010 United States History National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP-USH) to facilitate pedagogical aims, engage teacher candidates in critical discourse, and investigate the contexts of teaching and learning.…

This paper reports on a case study that was undertaken to discover not only the belief and intent behind the everyday opportunities that four exemplary teachers offered their high performing students but what activities they incorporated into their everyday lessons in an attempt to make sense of how aesthetic experiences may enhance learning. The…