Research has demonstrated the benefits of using historical empathy in history classrooms to encourage historical inquiry and understanding. This article chronicles the experiences of one middle school teacher as she integrates an updated theoretical and practical model of historical empathy into an existing instructional unit on Ancient Athens to…

History is often viewed unfavorably by students. In this article the author asserts that students' disfavor of history may originate from the narrow pedagogical flavor of the history class. The purpose of this article is to describe the three traditions of history education, with their accompanying strengths and weaknesses. Three sample…

This article addresses how far educational institutions have come in designing authentic and meaningful curricula for teaching the Holocaust at the secondary level. Examined in this article are the historical development of Holocaust education in the United States, with a focus on the state of Illinois as a case study, what contributes to the…

Many school districts across North America have turned to a framework for curriculum design and instruction called "Understanding by Design." Included in the framework is a call for teachers to create "essential questions" that provocatively ask students to consider and learn the "big ideas and core processes within the…

This article examines the discourses of preservice and practicing elementary school teachers as they participated in focus group discussions about instructional materials and resources for planning and teaching historical content within their social studies curriculum. The study took place in a professional development school setting in which…

Trying out a "Beyond the Bubble" assessment in a social studies methods classroom revealed that the assessment worked much better than any multiple choice item while retaining great ease in marking. However, as discussion of the item showed, the rubrics for the item apply the "sourcing" heuristic so literally that it loses some…

This action research study followed a social studies educator as he developed and implemented screencasts in three ninth-grade world history classes. He focused on ways to increase student-centered learning and meeting the needs of broad ranges of learners. The study revealed an increase in student engagement, instruction in career and college…

The 150th anniversary of the American Civil War has brought renewed interest in the war itself and in how social studies educators teach the Civil War in their U.S. history courses. The authors encourage teachers to use social history as a vehicle to engage their students in a more complete examination of the war and to foster a deeper…

In this article we identify opportunities for students to use timelines and textbooks to meet standards. Through the use of timelines, textbooks, and selected activities, upper elementary and middle school students are able to (1) be engaged in content area reading and writings; (2) understand large themes in social studies including time,…

Latitude and longitude are foundational concepts for geography education, yet they are typically poorly understood by students and receive indifferent attention from instructors and publishers' materials. Social studies teachers can take advantage of increasingly ubiquitous geolocating devices such as Global Positions Systems (GPS) to provide…

To prepare students for participation in a pluralistic, democratic society, history curriculum should help them develop mature ideas about why multiple accounts of the same events exist. But how can we know if we are successful? In this article, we describe work on the design, validation, and piloting of a paper-and-pencil instrument called the…

The emergence of digital technology provides new opportunities for teaching and learning in the history classroom. However, these new opportunities often require new skills to be learned by teachers and students alike. This article focuses on one such digitally oriented strategy, desktop documentary making, which empowers students to easily make…

This article reports on an investigation to explore the possibility that ideology might be expressed in the treatment of corporate influence on federal government by social studies textbooks. Two textbooks were examined in the study--United States history and American government. Corporate influence involves activities that affect election and…

In seeking to prepare students to be "citizens of a culturally diverse, democratic society in an interdependent world," teachers engage students in live, online discussions about what justifies war, while at the same time grappling with the requirements to teach the memorization of people, places and isolated events. Teachers and a…

Students in this post-industrial technological age require opportunities for the acquisition of new skills, especially in the marketplace of innovation. A pedagogical strategy that is becoming more and more popular within social studies classrooms is the use of computer and video games as enhancements to everyday lesson plans. Computer/video games…