Dive Brief:
- By combining textbooks with a variety of other content, like newspapers, letters and source documents, students are better engaged in learning, which leads to better academic performance.
- Some say memorizing statistics and history standards should be scrapped, since teachers cover material and move onto the next topic without encouraging subject matter mastery or meaningful engagement from students.
- Curricula involving skill-based inquiry are also being tested in some schools, like in Virginia, where the Fairfax County Public Schools district is using technology and games to engage students in topics like modern naming controversies for countries or bodies of water.
Dive Insight:
Schools have much to gain from encouraging their students to think critically about how history is written and why. By considering more diverse perspectives and looking to various sources instead of one single text, young learners will likely be more interested, as well as being more self-directed and engaged in the learning process.
This year's new Advanced Placement U.S. History test also represents a more open-ended approach to encourage high school students to interpret important events in the nation's past on their own. Around 470,000 students will be taking the Advanced Placement test in United States history next month.
A 2014 update to the AP U.S. History lesson plans came under fire from political conservatives, who alleged the course’s focus was "unpatriotic" because it failed to name certain political leaders. In Texas, the Texas Board of Education voted to change how Advanced Placement courses were taught, since some Texan conservatives believe the curriculum had perpetuated "anti-American" themes. In Tennessee, the state board of ed reviewed, but did not change, the curriculum after conservatives called it "radically revisionist."
