Partnerships for the Department of Education’s

Teaching American History Grants

Since 2001, The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has successfully partnered with over 115 rural, urban, and suburban school districts participating in the U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History Grant Program. We have provided a six-day immersion experience in early American history for teachers during the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute in Early American History. Many of these teachers return to their districts as the peer/mentor teachers. In addition, we have also provided one- and two-day conferences in school districts in which teachers have the opportunity to meet character interpreters, analyze primary sources including facsimile documents and reproduction objects, and receive a variety of classroom instructional materials ranging from facsimile documents and objects to digital media.

Colonial Williamsburg wants to make the planning and implementation of your programs as easy as possible. For programs in the Williamsburg area, our Teacher Development staff will make arrangements for rooms, meals, local transportation, and educational experiences, tours, and curriculum.

By partnering with Colonial Williamsburg, teachers will

• Acquire accurate and current historical content
• Discover new and innovative instructional strategies to make history engaging and relevant.
• Receive lesson plans and primary sources that are for ready use in the classroom

Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Development has a proven result of helping teachers make history engaging and interesting for students. At the conclusion of a three-year grant with 32 teachers who attended the Teacher Institute and 269 teachers who attended Teaching American History Conferences in the Philadelphia school district and four surrounding counties, a participant survey indicated that:
•     96% of the teachers increased their early American history content knowledge
•     94% of the teachers learned new instructional strategies to teach American history
•     96% of the teachers became more effective in presenting historical knowledge to their students
•     98% of the teachers stated that their use of historical content, teaching strategies, and educational materials has made the study of American history more engaging and interesting for their students
•     95% of the teachers increased the use of primary sources in their classroom
•     95% of the teachers state that their teaching of American history is more interactive

We would like to work with your district and achieve the same results. Please contact us at teacherdevelopment@cwf.org.