Osceola County School District receives large grant to enhance teaching of American history

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Osceola County School District receives large grant to enhance teaching of American history

Around Osceola

Wednesday, 08 September 2010 00:00

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently announced the award of $115.3 million to 124 school districts through the Teaching American History Grant Program.
Grantee locations span 40 states, the District of Columbia and American Samoa, with the Osceola County School District being one of seven in Florida awarded a three-year grant totaling nearly $1 million.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History discretionary grant aims to raise student achievement in history, one of the core academic subjects under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Grant awards assist school districts to devise, document, evaluate and disseminate innovative and cohesive models of professional development that will improve teachers' knowledge of, understanding of and appreciation for traditional U.S. history.
Projects are required to partner with organizations that have broad knowledge of and content expertise in American history, such as libraries, museums, nonprofit historical or humanities organizations and higher education institutions.
Osceola County School District’s project entitled “Bringing History Alive” will improve the teaching and learning of American History through professional development that interweaves content, pedagogy and technology.
Objectives are to: in-crease teachers’ content knowledge and understanding of American history; provide teachers with innovative teaching techniques and resources to create, practice and disseminate historically rich and engaging lessons and improve student achievement in, interest in and understanding of American history. The three-year grant, which totals $999,364, will support project implementation from September through August 2013.
Activities will build the content knowledge of 30 American history teachers in the fifth, eighth and 11th grades. Project participants will form a Professional Learning Community to acquire greater content knowledge and improve skills through colloquia, seminars, webinars and immersive field studies. Teachers will interact with historians, master teachers and curriculum specialists to examine, analyze and synthesize historical knowledge by reviewing primary and secondary sources. Esteemed partner organizations include the National Council for History Education, National Humanities Center, Florida Humanities Council, University of Central Florida and Colonial Williamsburg. All activities will integrate educational technology and emphasize the use of a variety of resources to help history teachers improve their classroom practice. Teachers will create and field-test curricula, develop learning materials and model history lessons.
The project website will make these resources accessible to provide sustained professional development. An independent external evaluation firm with experience assessing Teaching American History projects will conduct a formal evaluation to measure the program’s success in meeting its objectives and enabling teachers to bring history alive for their
students.