The Center for History Education is the product of a partnership between the Department of History at UMBC and the Maryland Council for History Education. It seeks to promote and strengthen the teaching of history in Maryland schools by serving as a bridge between school teachers and academic historians in the state. Public schools in Maryland face increasing opportunities and pressures to enhance the teaching of history. On the one hand, the imminent arrival of the new Social Studies Standards, the existing Core Learning Goals, and the related student assessment exams all strongly emphasize historical content and historical thinking skills. On the other hand, the Internet and other forms of the new electronic media offer a fast-expanding wealth of historical information and resources for students of the past. Indeed, the Internet now offers access to the sort of primary sources and documentary materials that had previously been available only to professional historians working in archives and university libraries. The Web thus opens up exciting new opportunities for the teaching of sophisticated historical research skills at the secondary school-level.
The CHE seeks to help teachers both
to adjust to the new demands and to take advantage of the new opportunities.
From the outset, the CHE has focused on helping teachers improve the quality
and enrich the content of their history lesson plans and curricula. In
cooperation with the teachers on the Council for History Education, the CHE
has developed graduate courses in World and American History for social
studies teachers. These courses are intended to familiarize teachers with
the relevant historical content and scholarly skills, and to help them
develop lesson plans for their own social studies classes.