 | |
| Founded | 2008 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Center for History and New Media |
| Type | Educational |
| Focus | Best practices, K-12 education, History of the United States |
| Location | |
| Website | www |
Teachinghistory.org, also known as the National History Education Clearinghouse (NHEC), is a website that provides educational resources for the study of U.S. history.
In the past decade and a half, three major developments have reshaped the landscape for K-12 history education and have created the conditions for significant advances in history teaching and learning. First, the emergence of the Internet and the World Wide Web has brought unprecedented resources and possibilities to the computers of the nation's history teachers. Second, a body of serious scholarly research in history education – and the learning sciences more generally – has begun to illuminate how students actually learn history. Finally, the Department of Education's Teaching American History (TAH) program has invested more than $900 million in history education – the largest federal infusion of resources ever devoted to improving the teaching and learning of history. It was the favorite proposal of U.S. Senator Robert Byrd, and its grants are called "Byrd grants." [1]
Due to these advancements, the United States Department of Education announced a call for proposals in 2007 to address the building, populating, and maintaining of a central website for K-12 American history educators, funded under the Teaching American History Grant program (TAH). George Mason University's Center for History and New Media was awarded the grant for the website creation the same year. [2] [3] The TAH program is funded under Title II-C, Subpart 4 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. According to the TAH program website, the goal of the program is to "raise student achievement by improving teachers’ knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of American history." [4]
One goal is to bring together K-12 American history resources to help educators find and use them. Another goal is to create materials that detail strategies for teaching and learning history to help educators improve classroom teaching. A third goal is to disseminate lessons learned by more than 900 Teaching American History (TAH) grants designed to raise student achievement by improving teachers' knowledge and understanding of traditional U.S. history.
Teachinghistory.org is updated regularly and is organized around six sections: History Content, Best Practices, Teaching Materials, Issues and Research, Teaching American History (TAH) Projects, and Digital Classroom. In addition, the website offers a weekly history quiz, a blog, and features that allow users to submit history content, history teaching, and digital history questions to experts in the field.
With funding from the U.S. Department of Education under the Office of Innovation and Improvement, Teachinghistory.org, also known as the National History Education Clearinghouse, was developed through a collaboration between the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University and the Stanford History Education Group at Stanford University.
CHNM and the Stanford History Education Group have worked on other projects together, including Historical Thinking Matters, a website focused on key topics in U.S. history that is designed to teach students how to critically read primary sources and how to critique and construct historical narratives. [5]
Founded by Roy Rosenzweig, CHNM is an internationally recognized digital humanities center located in Fairfax, Virginia. [6] Created by Sam Wineburg, the Stanford History Education Group in Stanford, California, engages in projects at the forefront of how students learn history, from elementary school to college.
Additional Teachinghistory.org partners include the American Historical Association, a professional organization for historians founded in 1884, and the National History Center, which promotes research, teaching, and learning in all fields of history.
Teachinghistory.org provides a clearinghouse for resources, as well as approaches informed by research on the teaching and learning of history. Special attention is devoted to strategies for incorporating historical thinking skills into classroom teaching. [8] Historical thinking skills are a set of reasoning skills, including close reading, corroboration, and contextualization, that help students think critically about the past. [9] These skills require a style of teaching that goes beyond lectures and rote memorization. [10] Teachinghistory.org is based on and adds to new research in history education.
Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via mail. Distance education is a technology-mediated modality and has evolved with the evolution of technologies such as video conferencing, TV, and the Internet. Today, it usually involves online education and the learning is usually mediated by some form of technology. A distance learning program can either be completely a remote learning, or a combination of both online learning and traditional offline classroom instruction. Other modalities include distance learning with complementary virtual environment or teaching in virtual environment (e-learning).
Media literacy is an expanded conceptualization of literacy that includes the ability to access and analyze media messages as well as create, reflect and take action, using the power of information and communication to make a difference in the world. Media literacy is not restricted to one medium and is understood as a set of competencies that are essential for work, life, and citizenship. Media literacy education is the process used to advance media literacy competencies, and it is intended to promote awareness of media influence and create an active stance towards both consuming and creating media. Media literacy education is part of the curriculum in the United States and some European Union countries, and an interdisciplinary global community of media scholars and educators engages in knowledge and scholarly and professional journals and national membership associations.
Blended learning or hybrid learning, also known as technology-mediated instruction, web-enhanced instruction, or mixed-mode instruction, is an approach to education that combines online educational materials and opportunities for interaction online with physical place-based classroom methods.
Historical thinking is a set of critical literacy skills for evaluating and analyzing primary source documents to construct a meaningful account of the past. A large-scale experiment in San Francisco high schools compared traditional textbook-driven instruction to instruction focusing on the analysis of primary source documents. After six months, students in experimental classrooms improved in historical thinking as well as reading comprehension compared to students in regular classrooms.
M-learning, or mobile learning, is a form of distance education where learners use portable devices such as mobile phones to learn anywhere and anytime. The portability that mobile devices provide allows for learning anywhere, hence the term "mobile" in "mobile learning." M-learning devices include computers, MP3 players, mobile phones, and tablets. M-learning can be an important part of informal learning.
A teacher-librarian or school librarian or school library media specialist (SLMS) is a certified librarian who also has training in teaching.
Educational technology is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, "EdTech," it often refers to the industry of companies that create educational technology. In EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age, Tanner Mirrlees and Shahid Alvi (2019) argue "EdTech is no exception to industry ownership and market rules" and "define the EdTech industries as all the privately owned companies currently involved in the financing, production and distribution of commercial hardware, software, cultural goods, services and platforms for the educational market with the goal of turning a profit. Many of these companies are US-based and rapidly expanding into educational markets across North America, and increasingly growing all over the world."
Editing technology is the use of technology tools in general content areas in education in order to allow students to apply computer and technology skills to learning and problem-solving. Generally speaking, the curriculum drives the use of technology and not vice versa. Technology integration is defined as the use of technology to enhance and support the educational environment. Technology integration in the classroom can also support classroom instruction by creating opportunities for students to complete assignments on the computer rather than with normal pencil and paper. In a larger sense, technology integration can also refer to the use of an integration platform and application programming interface (API) in the management of a school, to integrate disparate SaaS applications, databases, and programs used by an educational institution so that their data can be shared in real-time across all systems on campus, thus supporting students' education by improving data quality and access for faculty and staff.
"Curriculum integration with the use of technology involves the infusion of technology as a tool to enhance the learning in a content area or multidisciplinary setting... Effective technology integration is achieved when students can select technology tools to help them obtain information on time, analyze and synthesize it, and present it professionally to an authentic audience. Technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions—as accessible as all other classroom tools. The focus in each lesson or unit is the curriculum outcome, not the technology."
Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media (RRCHNM), formerly the Center for History and New Media (CHNM), is a research center specializing in digital history and information technology at George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax County, Virginia. It was one of the first digital history centers in the world, established by Roy Rosenzweig in 1994 to use digital media and information technology to democratize history: to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences, and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past. Its current director is T. Mills Kelly.
A school library is a library within a school where students, staff, and often, parents of a public or private school have access to a variety of resources. The goal of the school library media center is to ensure that all members of the school community have equitable access "to books and reading, to information, and to information technology." A school library media center "uses all types of media... is automated, and utilizes the Internet [as well as books] for information gathering." School libraries are distinct from public libraries because they serve as "learner-oriented laboratories which support, extend, and individualize the school's curriculum... A school library serves as the center and coordinating agency for all material used in the school."
Connected Mathematics is a comprehensive mathematics program intended for U.S. students in grades 6–8. The curriculum design, text materials for students, and supporting resources for teachers were created and have been progressively refined by the Connected Mathematics Project (CMP) at Michigan State University with advice and contributions from many mathematics teachers, curriculum developers, mathematicians, and mathematics education researchers.
George Hillocks Jr. was an emeritus professor in the Department of Education, with a joint appointment in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago. He received in 2011 the James R. Squire Award of the National Council of Teachers of English for having "a transforming influence and [making] a lasting intellectual contribution to the profession." He also received many other major awards. His teaching career included the preparation of English teachers in the Master of Arts in Teaching program, and the mentoring of Ph.D. students in the doctoral program, at the University of Chicago. After retiring from the University he continued to present seminars and workshops for writing teachers across the US. His primary research interests centered on the teaching of writing, literature, and language in middle and high school English classes, and on large-scale writing assessment. When not teaching and writing, he was an accomplished bagpipe player, performing frequently for Chicago audiences and in international competitions.
Inquiry-based learning is a form of active learning that starts by posing questions, problems or scenarios. It contrasts with traditional education, which generally relies on the teacher presenting facts and their knowledge about the subject. Inquiry-based learning is often assisted by a facilitator rather than a lecturer. Inquirers will identify and research issues and questions to develop knowledge or solutions. Inquiry-based learning includes problem-based learning, and is generally used in small-scale investigations and projects, as well as research. The inquiry-based instruction is principally very closely related to the development and practice of thinking and problem-solving skills.
The CK-12 Foundation is a California-based non-profit organization which aims to increase access to low-cost K-12 education in the United States and abroad. CK-12 provides free and customizable K-12 open educational resources aligned to state curriculum standards. As of 2022, the foundation's tools were used by over 200,000,000 students worldwide.
Imagine Learning, formerly Twig Education, is a digital media company that offers educational content to schools via subscription websites.
MediaSmarts is a Canadian non-profit organization and registered charity based in Ottawa, Ontario, that focuses on digital and media literacy programs and resources. In particular, the organization promotes critical thinking via educational resources and analyzes the content of various types of mass media.
PhET Interactive Simulations, a project at the University of Colorado Boulder, is a non-profit open educational resource project that creates and hosts explorable explanations. It was founded in 2002 by Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman. PhET began with Wieman's vision to improve the way science is taught and learned. Their stated mission is "To advance science and math literacy and education worldwide through free interactive simulations."
The Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) is an American independent, nonprofit organization. It works with libraries, cultural institutions, and higher learning communities on developing strategies to improve research, teaching, and learning environments. It is based in Alexandria, VA, United States. CLIR is supported primarily by annual dues from its over 180 sponsoring institutions and 190 DLF members, and by foundation grants and individual donations.
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Alan Henry Schoenfeld is an American mathematics education researcher and designer. He is the Elizabeth and Edward Conner Professor of Education and Affiliated Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley.