Session Abstract

Title: How to Ensure Successful Collaboration Among Historians, Professors, and K-12 Teachers to Improve Student Achievement in History

Many of the TAH programs struggle to work successfully with the partner Historians, Professors, and K-12 Teachers.  Each of the participants have their own ideas of what they wish to gain from the TAH professional development experience.  The High Desert ESD, Lewis and Clark College, and the University of Oregon were able to successfully collaborate and create a professional development program for rural teachers that included a graduate level distance learning course coupled with in-person weekend workshops. During the presentation we will describe the strategies used to ensure successful collaboration among the project partners; show how K12 and college-level professors collaborated on unit plans and curricula using backward design and historiography; share our research findings in these areas, provide attendees with access to our project website that includes unit plans, unit plan scoring guides, and other backward design resources.   After attending the session attendees will be able to a.) specify strategies that enhance collaboration among k12 teachers, historians, and college-level professors b.)  access unit plans and curricula developed by the project that increased student achievement.