The purpose of the Teaching American History project is to enhance effective teaching in the classroom in a helpful environment by providing:

• Content knowledge in a supportive learning community of fellow teachers, mentor teachers, and speakers from all educational levels.
  
• Dialogue dealing with content and teaching strategies.

2005 - 2006 Program

May

In May teacher-participants will receive a packet of books containing primary and secondary documents as well as history standards. Teacher participants should become familiar with the material.

July

Each July the Teaching American History Project will hold a Summer Seminar.

• The dates for the Summer Seminar for 2005 are Monday July 11th to Friday July 15th in the Old Chapel on the Castleton State College Campus. Daily Schedule

The theme for the Summer Seminar 2005 is Immigration and Industrialization.

• More information Document Based Questions

• If the teacher-participants are not sure of a project, they can discuss it with fellow teacher-participants and other participants during the week.

Each afternoon of the Summer Seminar teacher-participants will be working on the project of their choice that will be most useful to them in the classroom with guidance from fellow-teachers and speakers for the particular day.

Two weeks after the summer seminar, the teacher participants should submit to the Evaluation Team a written proposal of their intended project.

At the end of the Summer Seminar, and upon completion of their proposal to the Support Team, the teacher-participants will receive ($750), half of their financial grant for participation, attendance, and beginning of their project.

Academic School Year

During the academic year, they will implement their lesson plans with their classes and share the results with their fellow-teacher participants during the fall and spring semesters. All teacher-participants can learn from lesson plans that work and those that do not work.

Three meetings will be held during the spring and fall semesters.

Fall Semester

• The first meeting covers the content from the Summer Seminar and additional content acquired.
• The second meeting is an observation of a Mentor Teacher at an appropriate grade level by the teacher-participant.
• The third meeting deals with teaching strategies based upon the observation and the lesson plans.

Spring Semester

 In the spring semester, teacher-participants:

• Discuss the Gillespie's Perspectives on Teaching Innovations: Teaching to Think Historically
  
• At second meeting teachers discuss the observation of their mentor teacher ( the mentor teacher is one that is not at the same grade level as the teacher-participant)
  
• Present and submit a final project in May
  
• Present a reflection paper on their project to their fellow teacher-participants in the first of the three meetings in the spring semester along with supporting materials
  
• Prepare a document for the Castleton TAH web page so that others may also benefit from the final project. (If the teacher-participants are not familiar with doing a web page, the project director will set up the material in the appropriate form).

Grading Policy

• The final grade is determined by the Support Team which is comprised of internal and external evaluators: Jonathan Spiro (Castleton State College History Department), Mike Austin (Project Director, Teaching American History Project, Castleton State College History Department), Lincoln Fenn, and Mary Fregosi (former teachers in the Rutland Public Schools) and Alis Headlam (supervisor of student teachers at Castleton). 
  
• More about the evaluation team
  

All participants must meet all of the requirements listed above.  At the end of the spring semester, when the teacher-participants have completed their requirements listed above:

• Teacher-participants will receive the second and final installment of their financial grant award
  
• Their letter grade, if they were taking it for credit or a certificate indicating attendance