The History in the Heartland II: Explore History project builds on the experience of the partners—Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center (MOESC), The Ohio State University (OSU), and the Ohio Historical Society (OHS)—to present a professional development program in American history for K-12 teachers that will be rigorously evaluated to assess its effectiveness and allow it to serve as a model for professional development in history. Explore History emphasizes the role of local historic sites in the adult learning process; and has five goals:
- increasing the American history content knowledge of K-12 teachers
- improving teachers’ ability to locate, analyze, and use primary sources
- helping teachers incorporate primary source materials and new content knowledge into their curriculum
- disseminating project results to the statewide education community and having a continuing impact on participants
- performing impact evaluation of the professional development program.
The activities of Explore History are designed to serve school districts in a thirteen county area of north-central Ohio served by the OSU regional campuses and containing significant historical site resources. A total of seventy-seven school districts are located in this region, with approximately 58,000 students being taught American history each year in the 4th, 5th, 8th, and 10th grades, and in the 9th grade, whose 20th century world curriculum has a strong American history component.
Each year, approximately 36 teachers (108 over the three years) will participate in five content-intensive monthly seminars linked to the Ohio Academic Content Standards. Four of these seminars will be held at historic sites or museums; one will be held at the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus. In addition, teachers will come together for an intensive, four-day summer institute. Teachers will receive three hours of graduate credit for their participation in the entire course.
This project will have a long-term impact on the teaching and learning of American history throughout the state of Ohio. The website offers access to a broad array of teaching materials, which will allow teachers to benefit from the project even after funding ends. The program will contribute to the professional development of teachers now under intensified federal and state encouragement to gain mastery of their specific teaching field.
This project will have a long-term impact on the teaching and learning of traditional American history throughout the state of Ohio and the nation by achieving the following outcomes:
- Teachers will have greater content knowledge and specific teaching skills to teach American history
- Teachers will use primary sources regularly/ consistently in classroom instruction
- The data collected by the evaluators will be used to improve program activities and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the model
- Schools and teachers outside the project will be able to adopt the model and make use of project-created resources
- The ultimate goal is improved student achievement in traditional American history
Explore History will succeed because it combines an effective project design, based on the profession's benchmarks for professional development, with the rich resources of three fully committed partners. Ohio State University's four regional campuses—at Lima, Mansfield, Marion, and Newark—traditionally emphasize undergraduate education in small-class settings and train many of the school teachers who go on to careers in the relatively rural and small-town school districts of the state that will participate in the program; their history faculty, meanwhile, have the same records of publication and professional stature as the faculty a the main campus. In addition to vast archival holdings, OHS has a staff with extensive experience helping the state's teachers and students interpret primary sources. The grant's lead Local Educational Agency (LEA), the Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center (MOESC), has leadership and administrative experience in place that is eager to seize this opportunity to improve the quality of history instruction in Ohio. These partners share a commitment to improving American history education and are eager to help middle and high school teachers take history into the heartland.
