Over the past few years, I have written a couple posts about National History Day (NHD) projects, including how my colleagues and I integrate them into our curriculum, and why I am such a strong supporter of using them to apply historical thinking skills. I also have the pleasure of coordinating the NHD China affiliate, which is hosted here in Shanghai.
One of my long-term goals as NHD China Coordinator has been to improve the resources we offer to our affiliate teachers and schools. A few weeks ago, that goal took shape through designing a workshop for teachers that was focused on historical thinking through NHD. I thoroughly enjoyed leading the session, with help from a good friend from SMIC Private School in Shanghai. Professional development centered in historical thinking can be hard to find, and I’m convinced there’s real demand for high-quality programming and collaboration opportunities in this area.
Another part of this goal involves creating and organizing tools for teachers and students that scaffold both historical thinking and the NHD inquiry and research process. I have created a new page on my blog that is dedicated to NHD resources. The link to this page is below. It will feature many of the tools and activities I use in my own classes as well as ideas and structures that I have seen others implement successfully. Some of the tools will carry NHD China branding. Eventually, I hope to develop a comprehensive NHD China resource booklet to share with every teacher.
In the meantime, I hope some of these tools and activities are helpful. I’ll continue updating the page between now and December. If you use any of the resources, I’d love to hear how they worked and welcome any feedback to help refine them.