We offer a wide variety of teaching resources including lesson plans, podcasts, videos, and more. Teacher Development Workshops are also held to facilitate the development of lesson plans and other teaching content.
Online Teaching Training
Developed by Sam White, Professor of History at Ohio State University, this online program is designed to get you successfully teaching fully online courses in the humanities. It will guide you through the major elements of online course creation and instruction, using evidence-based practical advice. Designed to be completed in a day, the program also includes detailed step-by-step guides and references you can continue to use as you build and revise your courses.
Request access to the training course.
Hybrid Teaching Training
Learn how to teach a class in a hybrid format in this course developed by Ying Zhang, Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University. This online program is designed to guide you through the major techniques of course creation and instruction. It also includes suggestions of innovative assignments.
Request access to the training course.
Lesson Plans:
Origins Lesson Plans - Based on current events, these lesson plans utilize content from the Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective website to teach about a variety of topics in today's news.
History Teaching Institute Lesson Plans:
- American History - These lesson plans focus on American history and integrate a variety of primary sources.
- Back to History: American History Lesson Plans created by educators
- Back to History: American History Primary Source Activities created by educators
- Central Asia in World History: These are lesson plans in World History, World History AP, Geography, Family and Consumer Science, English, Journalism, Media Studies, and Global Studies for teaching Central Asia in World History.
- Cold Cases Lesson Plans - These standards-based, teacher-created, primary source lessons feature primary source materials from the Byrd Polar Research Center archives at Ohio State—all organized around the theme of polar exploration.
- European History, 1450 - Present: These lesson plans include several primary-source based lessons.
- French Revolution - This lesson plan focuses on the French Revolution and how it challenged political, social and cultural norms in European society.
- Industrial Revolution - This lesson plan addresses the effect the Industrial Revolution had on people and industry.
- Inventors and Innovators Lesson Plans were created by educators at a summer institute (Ohio Chautauqua).
- Opper Lesson Plans - Using Editorial Cartoons in the Classroom: These standards-based, teacher-created, primary source lessons are based on editorial cartoons covering more than a century of American history.
- Teaching History with Historic Clothing Artifacts Lesson Plans - The History Teaching Institute in conjunction with The Ohio State University Historic Costume & Textiles Collection provides lesson plans to teach history using historical clothing artifacts.
- The Great War in Global Context includes teacher created lesson plans, bibliography, and links to online resources that address the military, diplomatic, political, and cultural aspects of World War I.
- The Holocaust - The purpose of this lesson plan is to place a human face on the Holocaust, by focusing on survivor's testimony, letters and journals from survivors and those who were killed, and poetry.
- The Scientific Revolution: These lesson plans examine science, society, and culture from the 16th to the 18th centuries.
- United States History Lesson Plans: Here you will find a variety of lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school grades. Most of these use primary sources, and all were prepared by teachers.
- World War II Lesson Plans were created by participants at a summer institute for educators (Ohio Chautauqua).
Podcasts:
Prologued - A serial podcast that analyzes the historical roots of modern issues.
History Notes - Short audio discussions of the historical context of some of today's most important issues.
History Talk - Smart conversations about today’s most interesting topics - a history podcast for everyone.
Videos:
Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspecive Videos - A series of short videos on a variety of topics related to current events.
Center for Historical Research Videos - Videos consisting of talks by historians on various historical topics.
American History Videos - Created by students in the History 4015 course at Ohio State University, these short videos cover a variety of topics including civil rights, the Ku Klux Klan, Women in WWII, the Chicago Race Riot and more.
Black Death Videos - Through a series of short videos created by students in History 3236 at Ohio State University, the Black Death is explored.
D-Day Videos - Veterans of WWII tell their stories of the war and their experiences. Videos by military history faculty at Ohio State University are also included in this playlist.
Migration and Immigration Videos - Created by students in the History 3252 course at Ohio State University, these videos explore the treatment of refugees and the refugee crisis.
Biomimicry: History and Future - Created by Ohio State alum Wyatt Schreiner (Class of 2018), this video is a discussion with Prof. David Staley about biomimicry, the imitation of natural biological designs or processes in engineering or invention. The discussion revolves around the present day influence of biomimicry on invention, as well as its early application by Leonardo da Vinci.
Miscellaneous:
eHistory website - A collection of primary sources, documentary material, online books and reviews which offers a window into the past for students and scholars of history.
A Well-Informed People website - Explore this site and learn more about the history, mechanics, and vitality of democracy.
Origins Articles - Written by experts who analyze pressing issues—whether political, cultural, or social—in a broader, deeper context. Origins’ main articles focus on the long-term trends and patterns, search for the foundations of today’s events, and explore the often complicated nature of a particular current event.
Picturing Black History website - A partnership between Getty Images and Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, Picturing Black History is a collaborative effort to contribute to an ongoing public dialogue on the significance of Black history and Black life in the United States and throughout the globe.
Teacher Development Workshops - These workshops for teachers offer exposure to new techniques of teaching as well as provide hands-on experience in lesson plan creation.
Other Ohio State University Resources:
The Global Mobility Project podcast - The project integrated the expertise of five Ohio State University faculty members - Vera Brunner-Sung, Jeffrey Cohen, Theodora Dragostinova, Yana Hashamova, and Robin Judd who worked on global mobility from the perspectives of anthropology, history, literature, film/media studies, and filmmaking. It focused on two main research questions, 'what does it mean to leave home' and 'how do communities accept newcomers.'
Lectures on Ottoman and Turkish History - The Ohio State University Dept. of History's Lecture Series on Ottoman and Turkish History.
Michael V. Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning - The overall purpose of the institute is to integrate and enhance teaching and learning efforts at Ohio State, and to elevate such work to the institutional level. The institute both coordinates and leads current and new activities focused on improving the learning experience for our students and positions the university for national leadership in teaching and learning within a research university setting.
Professional Development for Educators - The College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State University offers workshops, conferences, certificates, and licensure programs for teachers.
Teaching and Learning Resource Center - Helping Ohio State educators enhance their teaching skills and support student success via a series of webinars, live sessions, and "Keep Teaching" website information.
LGBTQ+ Histories and Issues of Eastern Europe and Eurasia Resource Padlet - Created in the CSEEES K-14 Teacher Training Workshop that focused on the history of the LGBTQ+ movement in our regions and the issues that members of the community faces today. In order to help expand their knowledge on the subject, participants received access to a Padlet that provided them with different resources on the subject. The Padlet is available on our website and is free for the public to explore!
Recommended External Resources:
Teaching Hard History podcast - Teaching Hard History begins with the long and brutal legacy of chattel slavery and reaches through the victories of and violent responses to the civil rights movement to the present day. Hosted by Ohio State University Department of History Assoc. Professor Hasan Kwame Jeffries.
Teaching Hard History website - Created by the Southern Poverty Law Center, this website offers information on how to teach about difficult subjects such as slavery.