American Historical Association

Resources for Teachers at All Levels

The AHA and Teaching

The Association has a long tradition of involvement in K-12 teaching through the Committee of Ten (1893), the Committee of Seven (1889), the Committee of the Social Studies (1916), the AHA Commission (1929-34), and the establishment in 1969 of AHA's History Education Project, funded by the U.S. Office of Education and directed by Eugene Asher. The revision of AHA's constitution in 1974 included the establishment of the Teaching Division, the only elected body in the profession specifically charged with developing teaching programs. Contact the vice president of the Teaching Division.

The American Historical Association has a long-standing commitment to teaching and history education at all levels (see the box to the right), and supports in a wide variety of ways. At the annual meeting, the AHA and its affiliates sponsor many sessions on teaching. The AHA also offers a number of prizes and awards, and supports the good work of National History Day. This page gathers together links to a wide range of publications on the AHA web site, and links to other organizations working in the same area.

• Teaching American History Grant Program
• Publications on Teaching
• Prizes and Awards
• The AHA and K-16 Teaching
• Training Teachers to Teach
• Teaching History to Undergraduates
• Preparing Future Historians
• Additional Resources for Teachers at all Levels

 

Teaching American History Grant Program

The AHA provides resources for those interested in applying for a TAH grant.

 

Publications on Teaching

The AHA publishes regularly on issues of history teaching, both in its newsletter, Perspectives on History, and in several pamphlet series. The Association makes a number of these publication available online for general use.

 

Prizes and Awards

Check out numerous teaching awards.

 

The AHA and K-16 Teaching

Current efforts under the direction of the Teaching Division include:

• A special joint membership package with the Organization of History Teachers and the Society for History Education

• The Beveridge Family Teaching Prize (K-12)

• Affiliation with the National Council for the Social Studies, http://www.ncss.org. This link highlights the common interests of the AHA and NCSS. We are developing new initiatives, so check back often.

• Sessions on teaching and a luncheon for advanced placement history teachers at our annual meeting and a special invitation and registration category for K-12 teachers

• Cosponsorship of regional teaching conferences

• Teaching columns in Perspectives on History

• An Option Worth Pursuing: Teaching Opportunities for History Graduate Students in the Secondary Schools, By Ron Briley

• Are You Thinking of a Career in Secondary Schools? A Supervisor's Perspective on Which Candidate to Hire By John Pyne

• Participation in the development of the framework for the 1994 National Assessment of Educational Progress and of national history standards

• Guidelines for the preparation, evaluation, and selection of history textbooks

• Criteria for standards in history/social studies/social sciences
  
  
• Bridging World History
  
  
• Diversity Pamphlet Series: People of Color
  
  
• Why Study History?, by Peter N. Stearns (24k)
  
  
• Why Become a Historian, A series of essays by Rodolfo Acuna, David Brody, Gordon Chang, Spencer Crew, Natalie Davis, Robert Guiterrez, Nadine Hata, Thomas Holt, Patricia Reid, James Riding In, and Isabel Tirado
  
  
• Benchmarks for Professional Development in Teaching of History as a Discipline —This document sets out benchmarks for guiding and shaping collaborative programs aimed at professional development of teachers of history. It was produced by a small group (of K–12 teachers, faculty from history departments and schools of education, and public historians), which had been constituted by the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and the National Council for the Social Studies.
  
  
• AHA Advice for Faculty Undergoing National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) evaluation
  
  
• Building Successful Collaborations to Enhance History Teaching in Secondary Schools, By Kathleen Anderson Steeves


• Teaching the Introductory Survey: Insights from the College Board's AP® Survey By Robert B. Townsend

 

Training Teachers to Teach

• The Next Generation of History Teachers by Edward L. Ayers
  
  
• Methods Courses
  
  
• In June 2007, the AHA Council approved the Teacher Qualifications Position Statement of the National Council for History

 

Teaching History to Undergraduates

• Internationalizing Student Learning Outcomes in History: A Report to the American Council on Education

• Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age: Reconceptualizing the Introductory Survey Course—This web project offers historians models for how to use digitized primary sources in survey courses in World History and the History of the Americas. This project was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

• Liberal Learning and the History Major, A Report of the AHA Task Force on the Undergraduate History Major (55k)

• Teaching Portfolios for Faculty by William W. Cutler and T. Mills Kelly

• Portfolio Assessment for History Majors: One Department’s Journey, by Susan Leighow Meo

• Power Tools for Teaching and Learning at an Urban Access University, by José Cuello (154k)

• Connecting Past and Present: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in History

• "Using Primary Sources on the Web": http://www.lib.washington.edu/subject/History/RUSA/
  The page was written by the Instruction & Research Services Committee of the Reference and User Service Association, History Section, in the American Library Association

• The Historian's Toolbox for Research http://guides.library.fullerton.edu/historians_toolbox/index.html

• For examples of undergraduate history standards and student outcomes see: Quality in Undergraduate Education (QUE) website under Disciplinary Standards.

• AHA Statement on Excellent Classroom Teaching of History by David Trask
  
  

• Digital History Reader

 

Preparing Future Historians

• The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) have received a private gift to support a new program titled Shaping the Preparation of Future Social Science and Humanities Faculty

• Becoming a Historian: A Survival Manual - 2003 Edition , by Melanie S. Gustafson

• "We Shall Gladly Teach": Preparing History Graduate Students for the Classroom, by Terry Seip

• Building Your Own Program: A Planning Guide for Graduate Schools, Council of Graduate Schools Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. December 4-7, 2002

• History Doctoral Programs in the United States and Canada

 

Additional Resources for Teachers at all Levels

The AHA has compiled links to additional resources for teacher of all levels.

 

This site reflects the thinking of current members of the Teaching Division regarding the division's peer review of web links. We offer a limited number of links from the AHA TD web to sites our assistant director and the current TD VP believe address issues of broad importance in history education, based upon guidelines in development by the TD. In addition, we encourage members to consult sites on Teaching and Learning in their history subfields of interest.

Last Updated: August 25, 2009 3:11 PM