Teaching American History: A Report From Lake County, IllinoisMichael H. Ebner, Rachel G. Ragland, and Dawn Abt-Perkins |
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Opportunities for college and university faculty to collaborate with public school teachers of Ameri can history were revolutionized in 2001 when the United States Department of Education launched its $49.6 million Teaching American History (TAH) initiative. Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), who prides himself as a student of history, is the inspiration and political influence that culminated in the enactment of this landmark legislation. The following is a brief report--prepared in December 2002 when our project was in the fifteenth month of its thirty-six month life span--which provides a vivid glimpse through the eyes of one team of recipients in the first round of grants which were announced in September 2001. A second round of awards in 2002 totaled $100 million. The recipient of the award, totaling almost $922,000, was the public school district of Waukegan, Illinois and its principal partner, Lake Forest College. (The U.S. Department of Education specified that TAH grants must be awarded to what the bureaucracy labels as an "LEA"--a local educational agency.) A third partner in this collaborative arrangement is the Chicago Historical Society.
The grant proposal's formal title, "A Model Collaboration: Rethinking American History," is commonly referred to by the acronym McRAH (pronounced Mack-RAH). Faculty from the departments of education and history at Lake Forest College, Loyola University Chicago, and Northwestern University staff the project in conjunction with the department of history programs at the Chicago Historical Society. Lake Forest College is the principal site for grant-related sessions. Multiple factors proved essential to launching McRAH. First and foremost, the administration at Lake Forest College encouraged the writing of our grant proposal by supporting its preparation with tangible resources in the office of the dean of the faculty. Secondly, Lake Forest College and the Waukegan public schools have been partners for many years (e.g., a curricular project in biology funded by the National Science Foundation and as the site for field work, internships, as well as student teaching assignments by teacher education candidates.) Waukegan--the sixth largest city in Illinois in 2000--comprises Lake County's long-established gateway for African Americans and immigrants. The county's persistent social and economic disparities are characteristic of the dual metropolis. Public education, understandably, reflects these circumstances. In 2000, Waukegan High School's per-pupil instructional expenditure was $3,888; this was 9.4 percent below the state average and 29 percent less than nearby Libertyville High School. Given these circumstances, the need for faculty involvement in professional development in U.S. history was great. Funding and opportunities for such activities within the Waukegan district were virtually nonexistent. One of the main goals of the grant became to contribute to the equalization of resources among Lake County history teachers. Our design began by providing new opportunities for Waukegan teachers, and then reaching out to the rest of Lake County. We believe that professional networks need to be developed for changes in practice to be sustained, and this network will include all of Lake County. McRAH was designed to achieve two fundamental goals: (1) raise student achievement and engagement by improving teachers' knowledge, understanding, teaching strategies and appreciation of American history and (2) develop, evaluate, and disseminate a high quality, cohesive model of in-service professional development for grade 7-12 teachers of American history, including collaboration with scholarly institutions. To attain these goals, the teachers participating in McRAH are expected to:
The design for McRAH is tailored to the needs of the teachers in the participating school districts and pioneered at Lake Forest College by Waukegan teachers. McRAH is evaluated and regularly re-evaluated on all of its design features, both internally by evaluators from Lake Forest College's department of education and externally by evaluators from Oberlin College. In addition, the philosophy behind the structure of the grant is evident in the design described below. We believe in the efficacy of long-term mentorship and classroom follow-up as The implementation of the three-year project began with extensive planning and the recruitment of twenty-two teachers from Waukegan in fall 2001. Spring 2002 saw the administration of a three-part needs assessment of the cohort involving a written survey, follow-up interviews with artifact and data collection, and in-class observations of all teachers by the McRAH staff. The information collected formed the basis for design of the future activities including a college and university faculty-training day in March 2002, a one-day introductory symposium for teachers in April 2002, and a three-week summer institute in June 2002. The summer institute was hosted by Lake Forest College and also included two days at the Chicago Historical Society. It featured sessions on historical content knowledge, historical thinking skills, pedagogical innovations, mentoring sessions with professors, and the completion of individual history project proposals by all teachers. Clearly one of the most attractive pieces of the McRAH design is the collaboration and mentorship with history faculty from prestigious institutions, namely Lake Forest College, Northwestern University, and Loyola University Chicago. Having history faculty work closely with the instructional experts in both the planning and implementation--even coteaching some sessions--was key to making connections between the in-depth study of history and the development of effective classroom instructional strategies. At the end of the summer twelve teachers completed a comprehensive portfolio and other requirements to continue in the p At this stage in the project, our report from the field reveals changes in practice that are already being observed in fellows' classrooms. The profile of teachers' practices and student achievement and engagement in history classes based on the needs assessment in spring 2002, before the McRAH institute, was not a positive picture. The preliminary needs assessment revealed a low level of preparation in the content of U.S. history for most teachers. The methods teachers used were not research-supported practices for increasing student engagement or achievement in history. Interviews revealed the teachers' strong desire to have meaningful, higher-order discussions with their students. The interviews also revealed a sense of defeatism that this could happen with Waukegan students as their reading levels and motivation levels were seen as too low for this type of instructional interaction to take place in their classrooms. Each teacher expressed a desire to change and improve their practices to better engage students while continuing to express the defeatism mentioned earlier. Observation data from June 2002 (before McRAH) compared to October 2002 show an increase in student activity versus teacher-directed instruction. Teachers have commented on an increase in student engagement measured by time-on-task and decreased number of referrals for disciplinary problems. The increase in engagement has also been evident in evaluations done through frequent observations of teachers' classrooms. McRAH has realized successes as seen in the changes in instructional practices, as well as in the increased pride and sense of professionalism among the teachers. There is also an increase in the desire of teachers to share their work with others through participation in professional conferences, willingness to share instructional "stories" and products during follow-up sessions with colleagues, and through successful individual applications for teaching grants to community organizations and at the January 2003 meeting of the American Historical Association in Chicago. The most progress can be seen in a renewed emphasis upon formulating lesson plans emphasizing the process of historical analysis through the use of multiple primary resources, skill in primary document interpretation, and analysis of statistical data and tables. There has also been substantial measurable progress in teachers using far more online resources in their lectures and discussion as references and in activity planning and research project design. Teachers needed to take responsibility for planning for instructional change. Therefore, there were no prescriptions or "methods" that exclusively defined "McRAH." Hence, teachers have been and will be involved in intense reflection and resourcefulness to bring about changes in their teaching. This ownership of the process and sense of professionalism and responsibility will lead to an ongoing increase in teaching history thoughtfully. Teachers have also established a set of personal goals for instructional change. These goal statements are being used by teachers for self-assessment and by project faculty to guide and support teacher progress. Evidence from the first two months of the teaching year reveals that teachers are comfortable with project staff in their classrooms. Project consultants and faculty have been visiting classrooms on a weekly basis to provide feedback, support, and evaluation. Teachers have been communicating their needs with staff through online communication as well. Our field representative, working on a weekly basis with the teachers in their schools, has exercised an instrumental role in making McRAH a presence in the fellows' work. Unanticipated benefits of the project have been seen in the increased pride and sense of professionalism in the fellows about their role as teachers. There has been an increase in the amount of time and energy devoted to instructional planning. Teachers report an additional one to two hours per day of time spent planning lessons. Observation frameworks incorporating teaching strategies that promote historical thinking have been used to assess teachers' progress toward project goals. These are being used by teachers for self-assessment, by project faculty for project assessment, and by faculty mentors to guide teachers' progress. Surveys have also been developed and administered to assess level of concern and developmental needs of teachers using the new strategies. It is still too early to render a sound assessment of increases in attendance and passing rates. End of the quarter grades will be assessed and then compared with end of the semester grades for an analysis of trends. Spring 2003 will see the launch of a McRAH web site (<http://www.lfc.edu/mcrah/>) to include sharing of history projects and the development of a collaborative on-line community. A new cohort of teachers from districts throughout Lake County, Illinois, will join the program in spring 2003, by participating in a needs assessment, a one-day symposium designed to begin the integration of the two cohorts in April 2003, and a comprehensive two-week institute in July 2003. Collaboration will be highlighted between the two cohorts and program faculty. The final year of the grant will see ongoing collaboration, classroom visits, and support from faculty, as well as participants disseminating their work at professional conferences. The program will culminate in a one-day symposium in summer 2004 where participants will share the products of this professional development experience, and plan for future collaboration. While rigorous, McRAH also promises to be inspirational as the teachers embrace the intellectual challenge. All involved have expressed a desire to change and improve their instructional practices to better meet the diverse needs of their students. McRAH will certainly help to achieve these goals. q Michael H. Ebner (ebner@lfc. edu), academic director of McRAH, is the A.B. Dick Professor of History and department chair at Lake Forest College. Rachel G. Ragland (ragland@lfc.edu), assistant academic director of McRAH, is assistant professor of education at Lake Forest College. Dawn Abt-Perkins (abtperkins@ lfc.edu), internal evaluator for McRAH, is associate professor of education at Lake Forest College and chair of the department of education. |
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Third, the departments of education and history at Lake Forest College also have a well-developed and long-standing relationship. Finally, because of the combination of colleges, universities, museums, libraries, and foundations in metropolitan Chicago which themselves have fostered successful extramural collaborations, assembling a staff for McRAH was realized quickly.
part of the professional development efforts. We believe that content knowledge (historical knowledge) needs to be coupled with pedagogical content knowledge (how to teach history) in order to be meaningful. Hence, we chose history professors for their award-winning teaching and education professors who were also content knowledgeable in history.
rogram as McRAH fellows. During the fall 2002 semester the fellows implemented their history projects in their classrooms, attended monthly Saturday workshops, welcomed staff observers into their classrooms often, and worked with their individual history professor mentors.