Responding largely to the impact of industrialization and urbanization on American society, educators across the country embraced the "school gardening" and "nature study" movements advocated by Dewey. Promoted in varying degrees as ways to enhance learning, yield food for their schools, build character, and improve…

This article examines a hybrid graduate history course called "Teaching Hidden History." Team-taught in Summer 2015 across two universities, the course fundamentally tasked graduate students in history and history education with creating online learning modules based on the idea that hidden within any artifact is a larger historical…

The world history survey course has experienced stunning success within American higher education. In the space of three decades, it has grown from an embattled alternative to the Western civilization sequence to a cornerstone of university history programs. The survey has become standard not only as an introduction for the history major, but also…

Developing disciplinary literacy in history requires that classrooms become an environment where students can engage in discursive practices typical of the profession. Disciplinary literacy refers to the specialized ways of reading and writing used in history to construct historical arguments and ways of reasoning. Learning history includes using…

This study emphasizes an often overlooked avenue of inquiry in the increasingly escalating textbook debate: What is the relationship between the instructor, the students, and the assigned text? And correspondingly, how does one go about analyzing this crucial relationship? Over the past two years, Ryan Swanson gathered data from 549 students in…

Effective history teaching includes ample opportunities for students to develop historical thinking skills and habits of mind which encourage them to learn content beyond simple acquisition of facts. Covering the profound topic of segregation by employing multiple perspectives and encouraging investigation beyond the traditional narrative provides…

Methods courses provide a rich opportunity to unpack what it means to "learn history by doing history." To help explain what "doing history" means, the author has created history labs to walk teacher candidates through the historical process. Each lab poses a historical problem, requires analysis of primary and secondary…

Through an innovative course design for the capstone senior seminar, history majors at Virginia Tech have become published authors in recent years. Small classes of undergraduates have collaborated to create edited volumes of original historical essays that, at the end of the semester, are copied, bound, and distributed to class members. More…

This document is a study guide for Stephen B. Oates biography of Nat Turner, "The Fires of Jubilee." The book is a practical reading vehicle for introducing Nat Turner to secondary students in grades 11 and 12. Oates divides his work into four parts, which could provide the basis for four reading assignments, although the sections are…

Describes how a teacher may use the "Virginia Gazette" in a history course, discusses ways of overcoming the problems of cost and equipment, and offers teaching suggestions. (CK)

Describes relations between the early colonists in Virginia and the Powhatan Indians. Argues that, in any exploration of intercultural relationships, one must recognize the impact and importance of native initiative. Suggests that the ethnohistorical perspective requires sensitivity to the cultural integrity of natives' decisions and the effects…

Addresses the "Virginia History and Social Science Standards of Learning," focusing on its strengths and weaknesses. Discusses the application of the state standards in Fairfax County (Virginia) and the work of the four task force groups. Contends that historians should be involved in educational reform. (CMK)

President George W. Bush's approach to education policy has earned him cautious plaudits from otherwise hostile critics, who see much to admire in the implementation of standards for education. However useful such standards for testing students' technical skills like arithmetic and reading, they create problems for less-standardized processes like…

Public history encompasses many fields of study--historic preservation, archival management, museum work, editing, archaeology, genealogy, public administration of historic resources--and is one of the fastest growing areas of departmental curriculum development on college and university campuses. Programs in public history are designed to produce…