Library: &nbsp;History Guide: Future Teacher Resources & Online Lesson Plans

Lesson Plans and Teacher Resources

General

WebQuest.org
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web.
EDSITEment
EDSITEment is a partnership among the National Endowment for the Humanities, Verizon Foundation, and the National Trust for the Humanities. EDSITEment offers a treasure trove for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality material on the Internet in the subject areas of literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and history and social studies.
Advanced Learning Technologies Project (ALTEC)
The Advanced Learning Technologies project at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning utilizes the most advanced and innovative technologies available to improve teaching and learning. ALTEC is committed to the development of new technologies to empower learners of all types and ages, and will continue to redefine the learning experience through innovative resources.
Learning for Justice
A place for educators to find thought-provoking news, conversation and support for those who care about diversity, equal opportunity and respect for differences in schools.

Teaching with Primary Documents

Library of Congress
The Library of Congress offers classroom materials and professional development to help teachers effectively use primary sources from the Library's vast digital collections in their teaching. Find Library of Congress lesson plans and more that meet Common Core standards, state content standards, and the standards of national organizations.
Congress.gov
Congress.gov is the official website for U.S. federal legislative information. Track current legislation and research current members of Congress.
American Memory
American Memory provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. These materials, from the collections of the Library of Congress and other institutions, chronicle events, people, places, and ideas in American history.
National Archives
Easily locate teachable primary sources and teach with documents using the National Archives DocsTeach tool that allows you to find new lesson plans and create your own interactive activities for your students.
Smithsonian Learning Lab
The Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access created the Smithsonian Learning Lab to inspire the discovery and creative use of its rich digital materials—more than a million images, recordings, and texts. Search results display pictures rather than lists. It's easy to personalize by creating your own lesson plans and collections -- Add your own notes and tags, incorporate discussion questions, and save and share.

History

History for Music Lovers
A YouTube channel that hosts music videos created by history teachers to make teaching history more fun.
The History Teacher
Full-text digital archives of the periodical The History Teacher offered online courtesy of The Society for History Education, Inc.
TeachingHistory.org
Teachinghistory.org is designed to help K–12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom. With funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) has created Teachinghistory.org with the goal of making history content, teaching strategies, resources, and research accessible.
National Council for the Social Studies
Includes resources for social studies teachers of all grade levels, opportunities for professional development, conference information, and more.
History Matters
Designed for high school and college teachers and students, History Matters serves as a gateway to web resources and offers other useful materials for teaching U.S. history.
World History Matters
World History Matters is a portal to world history websites developed by the Center for History and New Media.
World History Connected
World History Connected presents innovative classroom-ready scholarship, keeps readers up to date on the latest research and debates, presents the best in learning and teaching methods and practices, offers readers rich teaching resources, and reports on exemplary teaching.
The Living Room Candidate
The Museum of the Moving Image presents "The Living Room Candidate," a collection of presidential campaign commercials from 1952-2012.
National Center for History in the Schools
The National Center for History in the Schools (NCHS) has a threefold mission: to develop and provide teachers with curricular materials that will engage students in exciting explorations of U.S. and World History; professional development for K-12 history teachers; and to collaborate with schools in building their history curricula.
CIA--The World Factbook
The World Factbook provides information on the history, people, government, economy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities.

Anthropology and Sociology

Teaching Anthropology
Teaching Anthropology is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to the teaching of anthropology.The journal promotes dialogue and reflection about anthropological pedagogy in schools, colleges and universities.
American Anthropological Association
Web resources for teaching anthropology at the secondary, undergraduate, and graduate levels provided by the American Anthropological Association. See the link for Anthropology Explored: The Best of Smithsonian AnthroNotes for a free, web accessible instructor's guide.
AnthroNotes Digital Repository
The entire collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s Department of Anthropology publication AnthroNotes (1979-2012) and 263 individual AnthroNotes articles can be downloaded in three formats (PDF, mobi, ePub) from the Smithsonian Libraries digital database. The database is searchable by author, title, year and subject. Searches may be conducted in over 40 topics, including geographic regions, contemporary issues, and education. AnthroNotes includes research-based articles by leading scholars in the field as well as classroom-tested activities.
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association provides educators with links to resources for teaching sociology at the high school level, teaching with data, and incorporating lessons on ethics into the curriculum.
The Sociological Cinema
The Sociological Cinema was created by three public sociologists to facilitate using popular culture and video to teach and learn about sociology. The website includes tagged video clips by sociological themes so instructors can easily search and find clips appropriate for various topics.

Economics

Council for Economic Education
The Council for Economic Education (CEE) is the leading organization in the United States that focuses on the economic and financial education of students from kindergarten through high school.
EconEdLink
EconEdLink provides a premier source of classroom-tested, Internet-based economic and personal finance lesson materials for K-12 teachers and their students. With over 787 lessons to choose from, teachers can use as many of the lessons as they would like and as often as they would like.
Foundation for Teaching Economics
The Foundation for Teaching Economics makes available to teachers: content outlines, classroom activities, and teacher materials (demonstration videos and lecture presentations) for various economic curriculum topics.

Psychology

American Psychological Association
Resources for teaching psychology at the high school level provided by the American Psychological Association.
Association for Psychological Science
Teaching resources grouped by type of psychology: general, behavioral, cognitive, forensic, social and more. Also includes information about research methods and statistics.

Civics/Government

C-SPAN
C-SPAN Classroom
Free primary source materials for social studies teachers.

Geography

National Geographic Education
Since its founding in 1888 "for the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge," the National Geographic Society has worked to educate audiences about our planet. National Geographic Education is responsible for creating educational programs and resources for schools, out-of-school settings, and the home.
National Council for Geographic Education
The National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE) is a non-profit organization, chartered in 1915 to enhance the status and quality of geography teaching and learning. NCGE supports geography teaching at all levels—from kindergarten through university.

Technology in the Classroom

Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything!
Kathy Schrock, an educational technologist, maintains an extensive list of resources to help teachers use technology both in and out of the classroom to enhance learning.
Discovery Education
Discovery Education offers a broad range of free classroom resources. Foster deeper engagement and opportunities for students to take charge of their own learning with Discovery's programs and contests, interactive games, puzzles, lesson plans, videos and more.
PBS LearningMedia
PBS LearningMedia provides you with instant access to tens of thousands of classroom-ready, digital resources including videos, games, audio clips, photos, and lesson plans. You can search, save, and share with ease.

Standards

Standards Aligned System (PA State Standards)
The Standards Aligned System (SAS), developed by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, is a comprehensive, researched-based resource to improve student achievement. SAS identifies six elements that impact student achievement: Standards, Assessments, Curriculum Framework, Instruction, Materials & Resources, and Safe and Supportive Schools. Schools and educators across Pennsylvania are supported in their efforts to implement SAS by the development of a state-of-the-art portal.
Education World
Find national standards, state standards, and subject area standards provided by Education World.

Filtering Software

Public schools are required by law to have a filtering program in place. This software blocks students from looking up certain words. They often restrict students from searching certain sites (like Facebook) or from using email. Luhrs Elementary, on campus, is required to use filtering software. See Wikipedia's article on content-control software for a general overview of this topic.

Evaluating Websites

UC Berkeley - Evaluating Web Pages
A tutorial designed by UC Berkeley library to help students learn how to critically evaluate websites.
November Learning
November Learning provides a list of clever websites teachers can use to test their students' ability to evaluate web resources.

Search Engines

Google
Google Earth
Take a virtual journey to any location in the world. Explore 3D buildings, imagery, and terrain. Find cities, places and local businesses.
Videos
Use Google to find video clips and more.
USA.gov
USA.gov is the U.S. government's official web portal.
National Archives Online Catalog
Search the online catalog and other National Archives resources at once for information about the nation's public records.
InfoPlease
A compilation of reference sources including almanacs, atlases, and statistics.

Sample Google Search--Civil War Lesson Plans

For lessson plans on specific topics, simply try Googling lesson plans and the topic. Below is a list of lesson plans I found when I Googled: Civil War lessons plans.

Library of Congress--Civil War lesson plans
Lesson plans appropriate for grades 3-12. Includes a lesson to view the Civil War from a child's perspective, a lesson about the different roles women played in the Civil War, several lessons where students analyze Civil War photographs, and more.
National Archives--Teaching with Documents
The lesson "Teaching with Documents: The Civil War as Photographed by Matthew Brady" includes background information, digitized documents, a document analysis worksheet, and teaching activities.
PBS--Civil War Lesson Plans
The Civil War lesson plans designed by PBS use digitized Civil War era letters and photographs to teach students what historians can learn from analyzing records created by ordinary citizens.
American Battlefield Trust
Lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school aged students use literature, photography, and newspapers to engage students with historical sources. A field trip planner helps teachers select and plan field trips to Civil War sites.

History Guide