Teaching American History Workshops and Summer
Institutes will increase and enhance teachers’ and students’ American
History content knowledge –and teachers’ knowledge of new strategies
to teach this content to their students. The three-year grant from
the U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History program
creates a partnership between the University of Delaware, the Red
Clay and Milford school districts and various mid-Atlantic museums
and historical societies. Each workshop and summer institute is
designed to address topics included in your school curriculum.
Each year the Grant offers three (two the first
year) American History workshops and one two-week long Summer Institute
to improve elementary and middle school teachers’ knowledge of traditional
American history content and teaching strategies, including reading
comprehension. Historians will collaborate with noted children/adolescent
book authors and museum partners to provide content and materials
for teachers. In addition, instructional experts in history and
literacy will assist participating teachers in acquiring teaching
strategies that promote students’ comprehension and appreciation
of American history and historical texts.
The purpose of this grant is to close the gaps
in elementary and middle school teachers’ knowledge of history and
their skill in promoting their students’ learning about American
history. This project aims to provide Delaware teachers (grades
3-8) with (1) a coordinated, organized and ongoing professional
development program in American history; (2) intensive training
to unite American history content with sound teaching strategies;
(3) access to current historiography in American history; (4) access
to primary resource materials in American history that would engage
students; (5) intensive training in how to promote students’ reading
comprehension skills so that they can learn about history from reading
historical texts; (6) guidance in teaching to the state and national
history standards; (7) mentoring and collaboration among veteran
and beginning teachers, American history experts, American history
teaching strategies experts; and (8) strong partnerships with the
University and museums, thereby allowing teachers to utilize museums’
wealth of resources in the teaching of American history.
The project will be based on proven and reliable
methods and theories of instruction in both teaching history and
comprehending historical texts. This includes support for the development
of exemplary teacher-produced lesson plans about significant issues,
episodes, individuals, and turning points in American history, plans
which impact students’ learning in significant ways.
is an Associate Professor of History and Coordinator of the Social Studies Secondary Education program at the University of Delaware. He received his Ph.D. in American History from the University of California, Riverside, in 1995. He is the author of The Shaping of American Ethnography; The Wilkes Exploration Expedition, 1838-1842 (2001). He teaches courses on the American West and Southwest Native American in addition to Social Studies Methods classes. He also leads study programs into the American Southwest for both Delaware students and teachers from Germany. In 2003 the National Council of Social Studies gave the highest possible rating to the university of Delaware's Secondary Education Social Studies program. NCSS considers the program to be a model for Secondary Education programs nationwide.
, received her Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University. In addition to serving as the Director of the Delaware Center for Teacher Education, is the Hammonds Professor in Teacher Education, a Professor in the School of Education, and Co-director of the Delaware Writing Project. Dr. Vukelich teaches courses in the teaching of writing. Preparing teacher education candidates for reflective practice and linking literacy in play are her recent research interests. Her recent publications include a book on early literacy with colleagues James Christie and Billie Enz and a series of articles on the reflective practices of preservice literacy teachers.
is the director of the Delaware Social Studies Education Project (DSSEP) and Curriculum Specialist for the Democracy Project. He received his Master’s of Instruction from UD in 2000. A James Madison Fellow, he was UD’s 1995 History Teacher of the Year and Delaware’s 1997 State Teacher of the Year. He is a specialist in curriculum and professional development and also teaches history methods.
has an M.A. in English and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on literacy education at the University of Delaware. He has been teaching American Literature, drama, and Advanced Placement Literature and Language at Solanco High School in southeast Pennsylvania for the last 18 years, and has taught courses in both content area literacy and early literacy development at the University of Delaware. He is currently pursuing research into argumentation and reader-response theory in order to better understand how to teach students to produce effective written arguments about literature.
is the director of the Education Resource
Center at the University of Delaware. She received her master’s
degree from UD in 1968 and her certification in school library science
in 1970. She taught in classrooms and worked in school libraries
in six Delaware schools for thirty-two years prior to coming the
UD in 1999. During those years she was nominated for Teacher of
the Year four times and received miscellaneous other awards in the
areas of library work, literacy, and intellectual freedom. Her passion
is literature for children and young adults and initiated the Book
Examination Site as an outreach program of the ERC. She also teaches
a course in literature for adolescents.
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