The Philadelphia school district will partner with Temple University, the Atwater Kent Museum and International Historical Park to conduct a professional development project for teachers in 8th, 11th, and 12th grades. One goal of the project is to increase the content knowledge of the U.S. history field among the teachers. Another goal is to increase the capacity to present this content knowledge in the classroom to better engage the students' interest in the subject. The relationship between local and national history will be a major focus. Among the facets of this program are: symposia series, summer institutes, classroom visitations, and teacher networking.

This grant will serve 8th and 11th grade teachers. These teachers will gain: knowledge of the importance and analysis of primary resource documents; the uses of technology in document analysis; strategies to use these documents in the classroom; the generating of high-quality lesson plans; and methods to carry out exemplary research projects. Spring and summer seminars will reach these objectives. The partners in this grant are Carnegie-Mellon University, Chatham College, and the Pittsburgh Teachers Institute.

This northwestern Pennsylvania school district will partner with the Pennsylvania Historical Association, the Pennsylvania History and Museum Committee, and the WTIF Public Television Network. They will provide professional development to two cohorts of 15 teachers each who will in turn provide in-service courses to 400 teachers. The professional development will consist of both history content and strategies for teaching history.

The Capital Area Intermediate Unit in south central Pennsylvania is part of a consortium of 24 local school districts. The partners include Shippensburg State University, Cumberland County Historical Society, the National Civil War Museum, and the PBS Workshops in American History. More than 150 secondary school teachers will be trained. There will be intensive professional workshop development seminars and Exploratory, Guided Teacher Adventures. As part of these sessions, teachers will be guided to begin a concentrated teaching improvement module that involves field-testing the new content and presentation methods in high school classes.

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