Since the increased emphasis on high-stakes testing in the United States, school administrators have prioritized professional development to enhance content knowledge and teaching methods in the classroom. Traditionally, professional development has focused on subject areas considered vital to national interests. Subjects such as mathematics, science, and language arts receive the majority of professional development workshops throughout the academic year. With limited attention given to history education, we aimed to investigate professional development from the perspective of history teachers to assess its usefulness, primarily by examining: (1) how history teachers perceive professional development, (2) the effectiveness of professional development in relation to content and teaching strategies, and (3) the effectiveness of professional development concerning student achievement.

Teacher education is particularly important but has often been overlooked, as schools tend to focus on mathematics and literacy to align with federal educational guidelines. Schools typically emphasize subjects that affect their performance, accountability, and funding, often at the expense of social studies and history education. As a result, history and its educators frequently lack recognition and respect. The outcomes often reveal a deficiency in pedagogical and content resources, as well as ineffective professional development.

A crucial point made in this article is that quality professional development specifically designed for history teachers holds significance in the classroom. When applied in the right context and settings, professional development tailored to history education equips teachers with valuable content and decision-making resources, along with differentiated teaching strategies to engage a broader range of students.

Burden or benefit: the use of professional development in the middle grades history classroom by Jeffrey M Byford (University of Memphis, USA), Presley Shilling (Eastern New Mexico University, USA) and Alisha Milam (Mississippi State University, USA) is published in History Education Research Journal, volume 22.

Jeffrey Byford is a professor of social studies education at the University of Memphis. His research focuses on social studies pedagogy, the Cold War, and socialist education.

Presley Shilling is an assistant professor of education at Eastern New Mexico University. Her research interests include social studies education, professional development, inquiry-based pedagogy, and middle grades education.

Alisha Milam is an assistant clinical professor of secondary education at Mississippi State University, Meridian. Her research interests include the science and art of teaching, cognitive construction of knowledge, and social studies education.

teacher improvement pedagogy history education professional development