Secondary Education Teaching Resources

National Standards

Logo of the National Council for the Social Studies

One of the ten themes of the National Curriculum Standards for Social Studies includes an emphasis on GLOBAL CONNECTIONS:

"The realities of global interdependence require an understanding of the increasingly important and diverse global connections among world societies. This theme prepares students to study issues arising from globalization. It typically appears in units or courses dealing with geography, culture, economics, history, political science, government, and technology."


Recommended Websites and Resources

The following websites provide excellent resources on new pedagogies for teaching history, as well as providing extensive collections of primary sources on the history of American Foreign Relations.

 Historical Thinking Matters logo

Historical Thinking Matters

HTM has an excellent short video on what historical thinking is and why it is important. It is a handy reference for teachers and can be shown to students as well. The site also has lesson plans and teaching materials designed to foster students’ historical thinking skills.

Stanford History Education Group logo

Stanford History Education Group

Some of the best new work on effective and innovative ways to teach history is coming out of the Stanford History Education Group. Their goal is to provide teachers with “high-quality resources to enrich students’ intellectual experience in the history classroom.”

 Beyond the Bubble logo

Beyond the Bubble

Stanford History Education Group’s thought-provoking site on history assessments. The site has a series of “History Assessments of Thinking” that “gauge historical thinking in easy-to-use, classroom-friendly ways.” It is an excellent site.

 Teachinghistory.org logo

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.”

 

Teaching History with Technology

"A resource created to help K-12 history and social studies teachers incorporate technology effectively into their courses."

Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media logo

Center for History and New Media

Teacher.org logo

Teacher.org Social Studies Lesson Plans

 

Document Collections

UW–Madison’s institutional logo

Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)

The Foreign Relations of the United States series is the official documentary historical record of major U.S. foreign policy decisions that have been declassified and edited for publication. This digital version is a project of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries.

SHAFR logo

SHAFR Classroom Document Collection

Digital Public Library of America logo

Digital Public Library of America

 

Extensive Collection from Mt. Holyoke

The American Presidency Project logo

Presidential Papers

 Teaching American History logo

Teaching American History

Library of Congress logo

Library of Congress

 Library of Congress logo

Historical Newspapers

 Picturing United States History logo

 Images