Using the Web to Improve Teaching American History Projects

Several years ago, one of our professors came to class shaking his head. His grade-school daughter was interviewed for a news story on Columbus ’ Day and, much to her father’s horror, she knew almost nothing about the explorer. Having a good reason to want to improve the quality of American history instruction in K-12 classrooms, the professor’s name now appears on a list of participants in the Teaching American History (TAH) program. Other historians have followed the same path and since 2001 over 400 grants have been awarded to school districts in the United States . Historians from Arizona State University have partnered in three of the five TAH annual cycles for grants awarded since the program’s inception. During that time, we have learned some lessons about working with local schools, and about how historians might develop long term relationships with teachers and students. As a result, we developed a distinctive, web-based method, which we believe can help improve history instruction.

What do Historians do in TAH projects? The Need for Change

Judging from the Department of Education webpage for TAH, the projects highlighted at annual meetings, and conversations with program staff, it might be concluded that the history profession is vitally involved in this well-funded outreach program. This is not the case, however, and drawing on data gathered from a survey of history departments, we discovered that participation is at a moderate level, driven predominately by school districts rather than history departments, and characterized by “workshops” and “summer institutes” that fit traditional professorial styles.

We drew these conclusions using a scientific random sample of projects through the 2004 cycle. From the 410 projects, we took a 1 in 7 systematic sample, yielding 59 cases. A simple questionnaire asked whether “university or college” historians participated, what kind of work they did, and whether directors thought their work useful. We emailed directors, phoned if we got no reply, and then phoned again. We failed to make contact with 17 programs; non-response rates were roughly equal for the 4 years.

The survey revealed that about a third of the projects had very modest participation by professional historians, limited to perhaps a workshop or two, with no other tasks. About half displayed greater activity, usually longer workshops and summer seminars, and collaborative work on other activities. Only about a fifth demonstrated vigorous participation by historians in shaping and managing project activities. Among these, almost none mentioned graduate student involvement and few indicated much use of internet resources or distance learning technology. With important exceptions, historians’ roles were passive, and largely oriented toward giving traditional lectures; or as one director noted, we “stand and deliver.” Evaluations confirm this judgment. Directors were generally satisfied with the role of historians, but there were repeated complaints that professors were not able to adapt content to grade level, integrate state standards, or contemplate teachers’ classroom needs. As one director put it, “They do not know about teaching kids.”

A Web-based Solution

We began with the idea that seminars and workshops were inefficient and expensive ways to deliver information, and that there was a need to improve upon project web sites that served largely as repositories for teaching materials created solely by the teachers. Instead, we developed an internet-based course that has been fine-tuned over each TAH project to deliver historical expertise, give teachers relevant resources, and create lasting working relationships. Professors provided the substantive core and for cost-effectiveness, we employed graduate students who actively worked with professors in ensuring that the material was useful to teachers and that it worked in the classroom.

We aimed first to give teachers state-of-the-art training in American history content. Our project team chose core topics based on the district’s needs and state standards. Our participating professors then prepared visually rich “lectures,” which were done in streaming video. We also made sure that the lectures attended to state standards. The result was a set of stimulating, directly applicable presentations by historians such as Brooks Simpson, Paul Hirt, and Catherine Kaplan. We also offered teachers a wealth of topical resources&emdash;primary documents, video, audio, images, lesson plans, and links to good historical webpages&emdash;via the internet and used the expertise of professors and graduate assistants in finding the best materials. PowerPoint presentations based on the lectures could also be downloaded, modified, and revised for classroom use. Finally, we provided guidelines for evaluating web materials.

The web site also featured an online discussion board that was directed toward effective use of the lecture and other materials in the classroom. Through this dynamic medium, professors and teachers were able to share ideas and discuss content. In our projects, as in all others, active participation by the school teachers is the essential issue. When that is achieved, we believe the web-based approach provides great advantages.

Conclusion

The online model allowed professors and teachers to interact in useful ways during the TAH process while, at the same time, offering a far more cost-effective program than in most other popular TAH projects. Perhaps most important, it created a relationship that did not disappear when the workshop ended. Through the web site, there was a long-term repository for content, ongoing discussions through the online forums, and continuing interactive relationships between experts in the field and teachers in the schools. In the future, if there is active and energetic participation by historians in such a format, ample benefits are available for both universities and K-12 institutions.