Course Overview

Teaching American History is an online course for high school teachers that explores 10 topical units spanning 600 years of history. It is not meant to provide a comprehensive survey of American history. Rather, it is an opportunity for teachers to look deeply into 10 topics common to most American history classes and examine them with the eye of a historian. The topics are explored using a variety of media, including feature films and interactive activities. Two questions that guide teachers as they work through the topics are:

• How do we know what we know?
• What does it mean to be a historian?

This course also introduces effective strategies for teaching these and other American history topics. The strategies are designed to increase student interest and, as a result, help increase their content understanding. Teachers will have the opportunity to experience the strategies themselves, and then reflect on ways to incorporate the strategies into their own classrooms.

The course is based on a successful two-year live workshop that was offered to high school history teachers at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. History content in this workshop was aligned to the Alabama History Standards, which are closely linked to national U.S. History Standards for Grades 5-12.

Participants in the workshop helped shape the online course in two ways: (1) Teachers shared their experiences using the teaching strategies; many of their responses are included in the Evaluate the Strategy section of each session. (2) Historians gave lectures during the workshop; excerpted quotations from these lectures can be found in most sessions.

The course is designed for teacher professional development and can be used in a variety of ways. Groups of teachers can be led by a facilitator, either online, face-to-face, or a combination of the two; groups of teachers can work together in a less formal manner; or individual teachers can work through the material as a self-paced experience. Each session should take approximately 3-6 hours to complete, plus time for readings and/or screening the films.

At the end of the course, you'll leave with a better understanding of United States history, and useful teaching strategies and resources that you can take back to your classroom. More important, we hope that you'll experience a renewed interest in history and a new excitement about what it means to be a historian, and that you can convey this excitement to your students and inspire them to engage with history.