AISD: Social Studies - High School

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INSTRUCTIONAL RESOURCES

Have you visited:
This site is the talk of the US History circles currently. SHEG provides an amazing collection of lessons, resources, and thought-provoking strategies for the classroom.

The Reading Like a Historian curriculum engages students in historical inquiry. Each lesson revolves around a central historical question and features sets of primary documents modified for groups of students with diverse reading skills and abilities. .

Their “Beyond the Bubble” portion of the site provides teachers with short “History Assessments of Thinking” (HATS) using documents from the Library of Congress’s vast digital collection. Steering a middle course between discrete multiple choice items and hour-long “Document-Based” essays, HATs allow teachers to make frequent checks of student understanding and to adjust their instruction accordingly. Don't miss the HATS video!

View 5 minute video on SHEG program's success in San Francisco school district.

GILDER LEHRMAN INSTITUTE for American History

The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is a nonprofit organization supporting the study and love of American history through a wide range of programs and resources for students, teachers, and history enthusiasts throughout the nation.

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The Gilder Lehrman Institute's quarterly online journal for history teachers and students - History Now?

Examine previous issues of History Now

The Bill of Rights Institute

The Bill of Rights Institute is a not for profit charity focused on providing educational resources on America's Founding documents and principles for teachers and students of American History and Civics.

Some of the features our U.S. History teachers love, include:

American Founders Online - The America's Founders gallery features compilations of educational information for 24 of America's Founders.
Founding Documents - From the Constitution to the Brutus Essays, Letters between Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists to Paine's Common Sense...they're all here as are even more of the primary sources relevant in preparing students for Grade 8 standards AUDIO / VIDEO
RESOURCES:

The Library of Congress presents the National Jukebox, which makes historical sound recordings available to the public free of charge.

EASE History is a rich online environment that supports the learning and teaching of US History. Hundreds of historical videos and photographs are currently available in EASE History.

The History Channel Classroom is an hour long, commercial-free, copyright cleared programming block that airs Monday through Friday from 5-6 am CT. Set those DVRs!

The Texas Archive of the Moving Image continues to grow as more and more Texans participate in this state-wide project aimed at the digitization of private and public collections of moving images. See,
TAMI's Educator Resources

The American Museum of the Moving Image is a great site but, U.S. History and Government teachers will find many uses for their site - The Living Room Candidate which provides examples of television commercials from presidential elections.
addressed on the Grade 11 TAKS as well as when addressing standards associated with Constitution Day.
Free Lesson Plans - the free Constitution Courier newsletter helps teachers connect America's Founding principles to students' lives each week. Delivered directly to your inbox, each Courier includes historical content, connections to real life, classroom activities, downloadable PDFs, answer keys, discussion questions, and/or suggestions for further reading. Our 4 newsletter themes each come out once a month and cover a variety of topic areas to engage today's students.

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NARA The National Archives Digital Classroom includes information for educators related to teaching with primary sources, lesson plans, information for students, and information on teacher workshops at the National Archives and Records Administration.

Be certain to investigate ARC to learn more about using the National Archives' historical documents to enrich a classroom activity, a homework assignment, or a research project.

NARA's Digital Classroom for Educators
DocsTeach - Find and create interactive learning activities with primary source documents promoting historical thinking skills.

Single hub accessing all 12 Presidential Libraries?
Brilliant!

The Presidential Timeline was designed and developed by the Learning Technology Center in The University of Texas at Austin College of Education, in conjunction with the nation's 12 Presidential Libraries.

Educational activities for the Presidential Timeline focus on using original documents, photographs, audio and video to provide students with an in depth understanding of historical events related to the presidents.

Historical Thinking Matters is a great website focusing on key topics in U.S. history, that is designed to teach students how to critically read primary sources and how to critique and construct historical narratives. Resources for educators offer classroom materials and strategies, examples of student and teacher work, and supplementary sources. A project of the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, and School of Education, Stanford University.

Smithsonian’s History Explorer was developed by the National Museum of American History in partnership with the Verizon Foundation to offer hundreds of free, innovative online resources for teaching and learning American history.

The Center for History and New Media has just publicly launched a massive, multi-year project and website:the National History Education Clearinghouse.

With major funding from the U.S. Department of Education, the Clearinghouse is designed to help K-12 history teachers access resources and materials to improve U.S. history education in the classroom. The project builds on and disseminates the valuable lessons learned by more than 800 Teaching American History projects, which the Dept. of Ed’s Office of Innovation and Improvement underwrote to raise student achievement by improving teachers’ knowledge and understanding of traditional U.S. history.

The Yellow Pages: We DO American Studies - This directory highlights the most outstanding educational websites for use by teachers and students of AmericanStudies. The sites assembled represent a vast array of educational materials and make superior use of web technology.
They are grouped into the five categories:

Comprehensive Sites

Topic-Specific Sites

Course-Specific Sites

Online Atlases

Museum Sites

"To help us think, talk and teach about the rights and responsibilities of citizens in our democracy, OurDocuments.gov invites you to explore 100 milestone documents of American history. These documents reflect our diversity and our unity, our past and our future, and mostly our commitment as a nation to continue to strive to 'form a more perfect union.'"

Download "Our Documents" Teacher Sourcebook

History Matters now provides a catalog of successful Web-based assignments - some they have developed themselves, othersdeveloped by the Library of Congress and the National Archives - as practical models for integrating new media into the classroom.

Browse through the full list below or go to the full search feature that allows you to quickly locate assignments by topic, time period, or keyword.

The American Historical Association awarded History Matters the James Harvey Robinson Prize for the site's "outstanding contribution to the teaching and learning of history."

A collection of primary documents
grouped by topic and by time period.

ASSESSMENT RESOURCES

NOTE: The spring 2013 TAKS social studies test for grade 11 / Exit level will assess eligible content from the 2010 revised social studies TEKS. This eligible content is contained in both the previous and the revised versions of the TEKS. TAKS test items addressing skills or concepts from the 1997 social studies TEKS that are not included in the 2010 revised social studies TEKS have been deleted from the TAKS social studies item banks. No new social studies content will be added to the TEKS that are eligible for assessment for the remaining administrations of TAKS grade 10 and exit level. There will be no change in the TAKS blueprints or passing standards.

ASSESSMENT CALENDARS

-State Assessments

-AISD AssessmentsLinks to resources commonly used by teachers and administrators are listed below. If you cannot find the information you need, try the Student Assessment A-Z Directory or contact the Student Assessment Division at (512) 463-9536.

The Texas Education Agency provides the following TAKS study preparation resources:

TAKS Review Activities

On-line Learning Module

2008 TAKS Release Items (Exit Level)

TAKS Released Tests (Exit-Level)

T.E.A.'s Assessment Resources for Teachers and Administrators

In cooperation with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and with funding support from Houston Endowment and the Meadows Foundation, the UT System developed a free online diagnostic and assistance program for the exit-level TAKS test.

The program - called TRACK (TAKS Readiness and Core Knowledge) - is hosted by the UT System TeleCampus.Pearson's TAKS Online Interactive