Grant Recipients Hope to Improve History
Image
American history may soon have a more interesting look to the
typical Texas teenager, thanks to a cooperative grant the U.
S. Department of Education has awarded Sam Houston State University
in Huntsville and Region 5 Education Service Center in Beaumont.
The $800,000 grant will be used over a three-year period to provide middle and
high school American history teachers drawn from 80 school districts in Texas
with professional development opportunities to stimulate interest in the subject.
"History teachers, of course, know that history is not boring, static, passive
or valueless," said Terry Bilhartz, professor of history at Sam Houston State,
and coordinator of the program.
"On the contrary, they insist that the discipline is interesting, sometimes even
entertaining, dynamic, and often controversial," he explained. "With this
grant, we plan to explore how to convey this enthusiasm for history to teenagers
who lack this love for understanding the American past."
"Training is the most important component that our history teachers need," said
D'Lana Barbay, social studies education specialist at Region 5 Service Center,
and principal investigator on the grant project.
"Social studies in Texas has almost become a forgotten subject because it was
not part of the accountability rating system and was not tested on the exit level
test required for graduation," she said. But now that the state is assessing
the social studies skills of students in addition to the traditional areas which
have been tested, the awarding of the grant is more timely than ever, Barbay explained.
For the past 10 years, student achievement in Texas public schools has been measured
by the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills test, which has focused largely on
basic verbal and quantitative skills. The state is replacing the test with
the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test, which measures student knowledge
and understanding of content in subject courses, and history will be one of the
areas assessed.
Beginning this summer, and continuing for the following two years, 30 American
history teachers will be selected to participate in a three-week workshop which
will be held each year in July on the Sam Houston State campus. The opening phase
of the program is designed to sharpen teaching skills and improve content knowledge
of major historical events. Teachers will also be introduced to strategies
to improve student historical understanding and retention and will explore ways
of implementing and assessing the benefits of the strategies.
Distinguished Professor James Olson and Associate Professor Caroline Castillo-Crimm,
both from the university's Department of History, will join Bilhartz in conducting
the workshop sessions. All are published scholars and recipients of numerous
professional awards.
The history teachers will return to the university for two follow-up sessions
that will be held on Saturdays in October and March. Following the completion
of the sessions, the teachers will be able to participate in two online resources
that will be moderated by the alumni of the program.
The first class of participants will be comprised of teachers from the Region
5 area. However, participation in the second and third years will be open
to American history teachers from any of the 80 independent school districts located
within the 20 regional service areas in Texas that participate in Region 5's Curriculum
Leadership Cooperative.
Also during the second and third years, the Sam Houston State faculty will make
five visits per year to school districts involved in the program to present the
results of student tests and to offer in-service training for history teachers
who did not attend the summer workshop.
"The partnership between Region 5 and the history faculty at Sam Houston State
University is a perfect match," said Bilhartz. "For more than a decade,
Region 5 has taken the lead in promoting the development of leadership curriculum
in school districts across Texas. Similarly, for 125 years Sam Houston State
University has been a leader in teacher education, producing more school teachers
for the state of Texas than any other institution of higher education.
"This collaborative partnership will benefit both Sam Houston State University
and the state's American history teachers, but most importantly, it will benefit
a future generation of citizens who, as a result of this investment, will come
to understand more fully the story of the American past," said Bilhartz.
For more information about participating in the program, contact the Region 5
Education Service Center in Beaumont at 409.838.5555.
- END -
SHSU Media Contact: Julia May
Jan. 15, 2003
Please send comments, corrections, news tips to Today@Sam.edu
|
