The Changing Scale and Scope of History Education: The C3 Framework and AHA's Tuning Project
Fritz Fischer, University of Northern Colorado
Daniel J. McInerney, Utah State University and advisor, AHA Tuning Project
Sarah Elizabeth Shurts, Bergen Community College
Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
Session Abstract
Since 2012, the C3 Framework (College, Career, and Civic Life Framework for Social Studies State Standards) and the AHA’s Tuning Project have introduced major changes in history education. The Tuning Project’s discipline core and the C3 framework both address common student learning goals including appreciation for change, continuity, and context; causation and argumentation; perspectives of historical observers, actors, and historians; and the development and use of historical evidence. The C3 Framework encourages states to upgrade their K-12 social studies standards by offering robust guidelines to promote inquiry-based learning in History. The AHA Tuning Project works to “articulate the disciplinary core of historical study and to define what a student should understand and be able to do at the completion of a history degree program.” C3 and Tuning seek to accomplish similar goals in history education, just on a sliding scale of expectations for learning that is scaffolded from elementary school through an undergraduate degree. Unfortunately, there has been little opportunity for these two groups to engage in a dialogue about their shared work until now.
In this roundtable, historians who wrote and have interpreted the C3
framework and those active in the Tuning Project will exchange ideas
about:
(1) redefining history education from K-20 in the United States,
(2) bridging between secondary school and post-secondary studies
(3) clarifying advice offered for college preparation, and
(4) alerting higher education instructors to the expectations of their incoming students.