Learning Trajectories in Digital History Education with the Library of Congress

The digitization of library and archive collections over the last two decades has enabled efforts to reform history education through the integration of primary sources. Currently the Library of Congress provides one of the largest digital collections of its kind. The authors' project, with support from the Library, provides social studies teachers with explicit guidance for teaching historical thinking. The authors, a group of university-based researchers and experienced social studies classroom teachers, conducted an iterative, action research study to identify learning trajectories in history education. In this article, the authors describe their process, introduce the learning trajectories matrix, and provide suggestions for integrating it into the classroom.