While looking to revamp his department's Year 7 enquiry on the Tudors, Jack Mills turned to historiographical debates regarding the 'mid-Tudor crisis' to inform his curricular decision making. In doing so, Mills noted that the debate hinged on interpretations of substantive concepts such as 'crisis'. He therefore also drew on previous…

Teaching about the comfort women of World War II offers a compelling case study for the social studies classroom and human rights education. The topic will educate students to become knowledgeable about the larger world and its dark histories that have been omitted or scarcely mentioned in U.S. history textbooks. This article provides high school…

The "IDRA Newsletter" serves as a vehicle for communication with educators, school board members, decision-makers, parents, and the general public concerning the educational needs of all children across the United States. The focus of this issue is "Student Voice." Contents include: (1) How Can We Address a Problem that We…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), first administered in 1969, is the largest nationally representative and continuing assessment of what the nation's students know and can do in various subjects such as civics, geography, mathematics, reading, science, U.S. history, and writing. The results of NAEP are released as The…

School segregation and inequity are deep-rooted realities in U.S. society. Despite historical efforts at integration, too many schools are de facto segregated, and those serving mostly students of color are routinely under-resourced when compared to those servicing mostly white students. Teachers and students can struggle to talk about this…

In this article, the authors examine two ways that they use music (i.e., popular song lyrics) as an active learning technique in an undergraduate history of economic thought course. First, they use music to help students grasp the ideas of the great thinkers in economics and see their relevance today. Second, because they require students to read…

Lee Donaghy was concerned that his GCSE students' weak contextual knowledge was letting them down. Inspired by a mixture of cognitive science and the arguments of other teachers expressed in various blogs, he decided to tackle the problem by teaching and testing knowledge more intensively. The result was a rapid improvement in secure factual…

Jane Card has long been fascinated by the power of visual sources to stimulate pupil thought and discussion. In previous articles she has shared insights from her own expert practice, fusing deep subject knowledge with careful planning to generate highly skilful questioning. Here she presents another rich example of classroom practice, carefully…

Integrating digital video into history lessons can generate enthusiasm and excitement among students about learning history. While some students perceive history to be dull or boring due to lack of personal relevance or applicability, the authors found that creating digital video biographies during a unit of study on the American Revolution…

Drawing on data from 1740 pupil questionnaires and 160 pupils in focus-group interviews, the study aimed to gain insight into British pupils' ideas about why they study history at school. The paper considers the implications of these ideas for history teachers and teacher educators. The data suggest that many pupils have very vague ideas about the…

How can teachers effectively use documentary film to teach history, and toward what goals? This article addresses these important questions by: (1) exploring what we know about secondary teachers' practices with documentary film and secondary students' beliefs about documentary film as a source of knowledge about the past, (2) proposing a…

Social studies teachers assess their students in a number of ways. Among these are formative assessments, authentic assessments, and summative low-level multiple-choice tests. Working with two classrooms of low-achieving U.S. history students, the authors compared student experiences in traditional units to those in units that integrated an…

This article focuses on the use of digital primary sources to teach historical perspective to preservice teachers. Discussed here are the experiences of 90 elementary education majors during their inquiry-based elementary social studies methods course. A variety of digital primary sources were used to teach historical perspective and to model…

The purpose of this study was to examine students' attitudes and perceptions toward the use of technology-based instruction (i.e., Inspiration 6.0 software) and a guided notes format as an instructional strategy in inclusive world history classrooms. Students' completed a six item 3 choice student satisfaction survey (agree, undecided, disagree)…

This book is an invaluable resource to educators seeking to bring history alive for students at all levels. The anthology opens with chapters on the fundamentals of oral history and its place in the classroom, but its heart lies in nearly two dozen insightful personal essays by educators who have successfully incorporated oral history into their…