UA Partners with Tuscaloosa City Schools on $1 Million History Grant

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – For the second time in three years, The University of Alabama College of Education and department of history, will partner with the Tuscaloosa City School system and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, on a grant totaling $999,210 from the U.S. Department of Education’s Teaching American History Program.

TAHP is a grant-supported research program which is investigating ways to improve teachers’ and students’ knowledge about American history.

“This grant is another example of how partnerships between the University and a school system can be beneficial to both institutions. I am especially pleased that this also benefits the students in both institutions,” said Dr. Jim McLean, dean of the UA College of Education.

“The first grant in 2003, which focused on Southern History, created a dynamic partnership between the UA and the Tuscaloosa City and County Schools, and significantly increased the content knowledge of teachers and the variety of effective teaching strategies they used,” said ZuZu Freyer, coordinator of UA’s TAHP project.

According to Freyer, in the new grant, “Making a Nation: Laying Claim to Democracy,” participants will focus on significant individuals in American history who developed and expanded the ideals of liberty and democracy, examining how they did so, and how previously excluded groups claimed the privileges of these concepts for themselves.

“Local teachers of American history in grades 4 – 12 will attend a two-week, graduate level summer institute at UA taught by UA faculty, or a one-week teacher institute in Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, or a 5-day program at the Henry Ford in Michigan,” said Freyer.

“UA graduate students in history and education, known as Historian-in-Residence and Teacher-in-Residence, will act as a bridge between the University and the classroom, helping TAHP teachers locate primary sources, resources, and lesson plans and observing classroom use of primary sources and effective teaching strategies,” Freyer added.

Also, the UA Teacher In-Service Center will train teachers in the team study/peer coaching method to make sure the summer experiences transfer to the classroom in the academic year.

The interdisciplinary approach in this project allows for UA’s history faculty and education faculty to work simultaneously to improve both the content of American history classes and the teaching of the subject matter.

“The previous grant was very successful at bringing new ideas about teaching history into the classroom. We are confident that the new grant will not only continue the process of improving education, but will also continue the relationships between university faculty and public school teachers that allows us to work together to educate our community’s children,” said Dr. Lisa Lindquist Dorr, assistant professor of history at UA.

An additional project partner is the Westervelt Warner Museum of American Art in Tuscaloosa.