Reading Like a Historian: Preparing Students to Understand the Past and Present
AIR is conducting a study of the Reading Like a Historian: Preparing Students to Understand the Past and Present curriculum.
Reading Like a Historian (RLH) is an award-winning, research-backed curriculum developed by the Digital Inquiry Group (DIG), formerly the Stanford History Education Group. RLH lessons engage students in historical thinking through historical document analysis and by developing historical arguments supported by evidence.
- RLH is an award-winning curriculum that has logged more than 15 million downloads.
- RLH has demonstrated positive impacts on student outcomes.
With support from a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, DIG has undertaken a project to develop new RLH lessons for high school United States history classrooms. In addition to historical thinking, these new lessons teach students research-backed digital literacy skills to help them evaluate the credibility of the information that floods their digital devices, a necessary skill for democratic participation in the 21st century.
These new lessons also include formative assessments to help teachers track whether students are learning key historical thinking and digital literacy skills.
DIG is providing free professional development to high school U.S. History teachers to help them prepare to teach these new materials and to support teachers in implementing them, including a course on teaching with the RLH curriculum, a course on implementing integrating digital literacy into history classrooms, and online coaching sessions to support teachers as they implement materials.
Participate in AIR's Study of New RLH Materials
AIR is looking for schools and teachers to participate in the study that examines the effectiveness of these new materials.
Teachers who participate will receive:
- Early access to award-winning, research-based curriculum materials at no cost;
- Free access to DIG’s new professional development, which includes 20 hours of professional learning;
- Honoraria for completing the professional development and implementing the curriculum in their classes; and
- Gift certificates for completing data collection.
Schedule a meeting to learn more!
This research is supported by the U.S. Department of Education through an American History and Civics National Activities grant (grant number S422B2300049).
AIR contributors to this project include Megha Joshi, Alex Bishop, Juan Gabriel Sanchez, Jerrold Washington, and Lara Iqbal.
