This article reports on a study that repositioned elementary students in new roles as active, critical participants in historical inquiry--roles that required a more mature epistemic stance. It reports 5th-grade students' responses to instructional methods intended to help them understand the nature of historical knowledge, appreciate the work of…

Using a multiple case study design, I examine how public high school students (n = 17) make sense of narratives about defining events with which they have specific heritage connections. Focusing on 3 groups of students (Hmong, Chinese, and Jewish) studying 3 heritage events (respectively, the Vietnam War, Modern China, and the Holocaust), this…

This study examines Malaysian learners' reflections on the discourses of the Asia-Pacific War in Malaysia and Japan after engaging in "Memories of War" project. The project, which was implemented in an advanced Japanese-as-a-Foreign-Language (JFL) class at a Malaysian university, aimed to improve learners' ability to grasp power…

The objective of this study is to better understand the process by which K-12 school districts select curricula materials in four critical subject areas: Mathematics, English Language Arts, Science, and History and Social Studies. This research has two primary goals: (1) to understand the process by which K-12 school districts select and adopt…

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…

This mixed-methods study explored the use of an augmented reality, location-based, iPad game to enhance the learning experience of young elementary history students. Utilizing the ARIS platform and a design-based research approach, researchers and teachers built a customized game experience that was inserted into a school's traditional second…

This new report from the Center for Educational Equity offers insights into the resources and practices necessary to prepare students for civic participation in accordance with students' constitutional rights. The pilot study on which the report is based documented major disparities in learning opportunities among the study schools, including in…

The authors of this article are two teacher educators who worked collaboratively to co-teach an interdisciplinary English and US history class to eleventh-grade students in an urban high school. They wanted to ensure the methods they were teaching preservice teachers were current and effective. The article discusses the foundational beliefs that…

The ability to make connections is an important aspect of teaching history and a vital skill in our increasingly globalized world. This study examines how preservice and practicing teachers organize and connect world historical events and concepts for themselves and for instructional purposes. Findings are based on interviews with 2 card-sorting…

This pilot study investigates the role of anxiety for early childhood pre-service social studies teachers as they learn methods to teach curriculum on slavery and associated issues such as racism or White privilege. The findings indicate that a variety of aspects cause pre-service teachers to experience anxiety around the thought of having to…

Biography is a popular approach to history education in the younger grades, especially when teaching units of study during Women's History Month, which is March. A biography-centered approach, however, can be problematic when such lessons are not tied to any context, promoting the misconception that individuals create social change in isolation.…

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…

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…

The Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) was created to support teachers in implementing college and career readiness standards in order to teach literacy skills throughout the content areas. Teachers work collaboratively with coaches to further develop their expertise and design standards-driven, literacy-rich writing assignments within their…

To prepare students for participation in a pluralistic, democratic society, history curriculum should help them develop mature ideas about why multiple accounts of the same events exist. But how can we know if we are successful? In this article, we describe work on the design, validation, and piloting of a paper-and-pencil instrument called the…