The research is clear!National History Education Clearinghouse
Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, this site “is designed to help K-12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom.” Sections including History Content, Best Practices, Teaching American History (TAH) Grants, Teaching Materials, Issues & Research, and Professional Development.
Digital History Reader
The Digital History Reader features two main content areas, United States History and European History, each broken out into modules. Appropriate for use with advanced history students at the secondary level, each module includes an introduction with objectives and historical questions to consider, historical context, an archive of documents with guiding questions, an assessment, a conclusion, and a list of related resources.
Historical Scene Investigation
“The Historical Scene Investigation Project (HSI) was designed for social studies teachers who need a strong pedagogical mechanism for bringing primary sources into their classroom.” Created by Kathleen Owings Swan, Assistant Professor of Social Studies Education at the University of Kentucky and Mark Hofer, Assistant Professor of Educational Technology at the College of William & Mary, the site features fourteen Historical Scene Investigation “cases” designed to build students’ skills in historical thinking.
Historical Thinking Matters
Historical Thinking Matters is “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.” The site’s resources are divided into three areas: student investigations, why historical thinking matters, and teacher materials and strategies.
Picturing Modern America 1880-1920
This site contains a number of interactive exercises that will help deepen students’ understanding of common topics in the study of modern America from 1880 to 1920 and build their skills in analyzing primary sources. Designed for use by students under the guidance of a teacher, these historical thinking exercises are organized into three categories: Image Detective, Investigations, and Exhibit Builder.
Reading Like a Historian Curriculum
The Stanford History Education Group’s Reading Like a Historian curriculum provides 75 lessons that engage students in historical inquiry. “Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features sets of primary documents modified for groups of students with diverse reading skills and abilities.”
Teaching History with Technology
Find resources for history and social studies lesson plans, activities, projects, games, and quizzes that use technology. Explore inquiry-based lessons, activities, and projects. Learn about Web technologies such as blogs, podcasts, wikis, social networks, Google Docs, ebooks, online maps, virtual, screencasts, online posters, and more and explore innnovative ways of integrating them into the curriculum. Watch instructional video tutorials and learn out how others are using technology in the classroom.
Center for History and New Media
George Mason University has used digital media and computer technology to democratize history—to incorporate multiple voices, reach diverse audiences, and encourage popular participation in presenting and preserving the past. CHNM uses digital media and technology to preserve and present history online, transform scholarship across the humanities, and advance historical education and understanding.
Gilder Lehrman Institute
Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is a nonprofit organization supporting the study and love of American history through a wide range of programs and resources for students, teachers, scholars, and history enthusiasts throughout the nation.
Reading Strategies for the Social Studies Classroom
Use these practice activities to help struggling readers with comprehension. The activities were developed by Dr. Judith Irvin, one of the nation’s leading experts on teaching reading to secondary students. For each strategy, you will find one activity targeted at U.S. history and another targeted at world studies.
Reading, Writing, and Researching for History: A Guide for College Students
For all who have taken history courses in college, the experience of writing a research paper is etched indelibly in memory: late nights before the paper is due, sitting in pale light in front of a computer monitor or typewriter, a huge stack of books (most of them all-too-recently acquired) propped next to the desk, drinking endless cups of coffee or bottles of Jolt cola. Most of all, we remember the endless, panicked wondering: how on earth was something coherent going to wind up on the page – let alone fill eight, or ten, or twelve of them?
ThinkFinity
Verizon Thinkfinity offers comprehensive teaching and learning resources created by our content partners – the most respected organizations in each academic subject and literacy. The easy-to-navigate K-12 resources are grade-specific and are aligned with state standards.
America’s History in the Making
This series of interactive activities introduces and models the Historical Thinking Skills defined by the National Center for History in the Schools. The interactives each model a specific skill or set of skills, such as analyzing historical artifacts or using primary sources to develop a thesis.
Smithsonian Education
Resources, lesson plans, exhibits and more.
Kansas Memory
ansas Memory has been created by the Kansas State Historical Society to share its historical collections via the Internet. It supports the mission of the Society–to identify, collect, preserve, interpret, and disseminate materials and information pertaining to Kansas history. The value of the site is in its rich content – letters, diaries, photographs, government records from the State Archives, maps, museum artifacts, and historic structures in Kansas.
ReadingQuest
ReadingQuest: Making Sense in Social Studiesis a website designed for social studies teachers who wish to more effectively engage their students with the content in their classes.
Historical Thinking Resources
Links to documents and webpages geared specifically towards “Thinking Like a Historian.” The Vital Themes and Habits of the Mind will help with approaching the “big ideas” and skills one needs to understand historical materials, while the Analysis Guides will help with interpreting and analyzing primary and secondary sources.
