High school history plays a pivotal role in shaping the intellectual and civic lives of students. Each state encounters its own challenges in history education. This panel provides an open discussion on the common challenges and successes we see in teacher preparation programs across a variety of contexts in the U.S.

This lightning round session brings together faculty and practitioners from diverse regions to discuss the current state of high school history teacher preparation programs. Panelists highlight program innovations, focusing on underlying issues such as regional differences, evolving and changing expectations of history instruction and preparation, the role of the state, and the ways teachers meet the needs of their diverse student populations.

Panelists will briefly discuss work in their respective states, noting distinctive regional approaches to history teacher preparation. Faculty from Texas will discuss the state’s emphasis on content mastery within changing and politicized state guidelines. From New Jersey, faculty will highlight how we prepare pre-service teachers to demonstrate their mastery of the content in preparation for the required Praxis II exam. Faculty from Illinois will shed light on the role of the many new recent mandates to teach the histories of diverse groups and identities.

The session also features a high school history teacher from Texas who will share firsthand experiences and challenges faced by educators in history and social studies. She will provide a critical perspective on what future history educators need from us to equip them for success in the classroom.

Additionally, the panel will emphasize innovative solutions that have yielded positive results. For example, faculty from Illinois will discuss programs at their institution, offering both undergraduate and graduate Teaching of History degree paths designed to prepare future educators with the tools they need to teach students to “think like a historian.” From Texas, faculty will discuss the development and success of an undergraduate program in history with a social studies concentration. That program began as conversations between state leaders and academic administrators, both searching for solutions to raise passing rates on certification exams. History faculty at Kean University developed our current course in response to falling passage rates and the recognition that students lack fundamental strategies for attacking multiple choice exams in an era when pedagogy has evolved to better ways of teaching history. Working closely with partners in respective Colleges of Education contributes to a team effort that enhances our educational programs, despite frequent differences in disciplinary commitments and ideas. By discussing underlying structural frameworks to support teacher preparation programs, we hope to initiate larger conversations that address the needs of teachers and the success of students. Join us as we collaborate as a community to discuss how we work with colleges and departments nationwide to create programs preparing teachers for K-12 class