The National History Center will convene a day-long conference on reforms in history education policy on June 12th at the National Archives – the first, in what we hope will be a regular series of discussions on this important subject for our discipline.

The conference, entitled "Reforming History Education: New Research on Teaching and Learning", brings historians together with policy makers and educators to discuss history education. They will address the current state of history education policy and future reforms in light of recent advances in student learning, teacher preparation, assessment, and curricular innovations in the discipline of history.

The panelists include Robert Bain (University of Michigan), Robert Harris (Cornell University), Robert Orrill (National Education for the Disciplines), Diane Ravitch (New York University), Peter Stearns (George Mason University), Maris Vinovskis (University of Michigan), and Suzanne Wilson (Michigan State University). The conference is co-sponsored by the American Historical Association, the National Council for the Social Studies, the Newberry Library, and the Organization of American Historians.

This follows-up on an earlier conference held at the Newberry Library in October 2005 that focused in on questions about how students learn history, how teachers teach history, and how policymakers interpret and address these issues. A small working group was formed at that meeting to develop papers on questions of accreditation, assessment, teacher certification and preparation, and curriculum development in relation to new discoveries on how students learn history.  Some of these papers will be presented at the June 12th conference, in preparation for an edited volume to be issued early next year.

For further information, visit the Center’s web page on conferences.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.