TAHPDX: Program Overview
US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TEACHING AMERICAN HISTORY PROGRAM
Overview
The Teaching American History grant program is administered by the United States Department of Education, funded under Title II-C, Subpart 4 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The program was initiated in 2001 out of an impetus to "support programs that raise student achievement by improving teachers' knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of American History."
The stated goal of this federal program is "to demonstrate how school districts and institutions with expertise in American history can collaborate over a three-year period to ensure that teachers develop the knowledge and skills necessary to teach traditional American history in an exciting and challenging way."
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TAHPDX: GREAT DECISIONS IN U.S. HISTORY
A Teaching American History Project partnering Portland State University and the Beaverton, Hillsboro and Forest Grove School Districts
This Teaching American History project represents a partnership between a consortium of school districts in Washington County, Oregon, including the Beaverton, Hillsboro and Forest Grove districts, and Portland State University. This project directly addresses challenges in the teaching and learning of U.S. history in a state in which history falls under the umbrella of social studies by focusing intensely on the core values of historical scholarship and the tools of historical inquiry.
Project Goals:
The goal of the project is to provide rigorous history content training and historical inquiry tools to up to 75 history teachers over three years thereby increasing participants’ knowledge, understanding and appreciation of traditional American history. Components of the project include (1) in-depth historical content training; (2) pedagogy grounded in historical thinking; (3) analysis of primary source documents; (4) incorporation of interactive historical inquiry tools including drama and geography; and (5) development of mentoring and leadership-building within and between districts. The project format involves Winter and Spring graduate-level history courses delivered through PSU’s History Department and a summer institute.
Project Objectives:
Teacher participants, working directly with a team of historians, a dramaturge, geographers, and a curriculum specialist create innovative curricular materials that cover 12 national historical topics.
In teams, teachers create practical classroom instruments that provide background material, activities, and resources for a specific subject area. The materials highlight historical inquiry tools and are designed to assist teachers in integrating the "historical imagination" into their lessons. Examples of materials include (1) background narratives that provide foundational information and highlight a historical perspective; (2) key documents (primary and secondary), maps, graphs/charts, and other historical artifacts; (3) classroom activities including historical dramatic scripts, DBQ exercises, and historical geography exercises; and (4) annotated bibliographies.
The use of innovative historical inquiry tools and pertinent primary source material - including maps, data, documents, images, and other artifacts - are designed to bring American history to life for students and to generate critical thinking and enhance students’ knowledge, understanding and interpretation of major themes in U.S. history
2002-2008 TEACHING AMERICAN HISTORY PROJECT
This award builds on previous Teaching American History grant projects received in 2002 and 2005 that partnered the Portland Public School District with Portland State University. From the Portland, Beaverton and Tigard-Tualatin School Districts, 152 history and social studies teachers participated over the project's six years. Individually and in teams, they created innovative American history curricula bringing to bear new research and pedagogical approaches incorporating primary source material, historical geography and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools, and dramatic historical scripts .
Curriculum units developed in 2002-08 can be downloaded from the <Curricula> page on the top menu bar.
Resources and data gathered for the topics covered during these two grant periods can be accessed through the <History Topic> pages on the side menu bar.
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