Teaching Guides: Course Guides & Instructional Strategies
Choosing OER Project
Trying to decide which OER Project course is the best fit for you? Find all the details you need to make the choice with confidence. Explore teaching guides, standards alignment documents, FAQs, and course-specific resources including teacher-created course plans—or meet with our team if you want a human to help you think it through.
OER Project Standards Alignment
Find standards alignment documents for representative states.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common questions about our courses.
World History Video Info Session
Walk through the how and why of teaching OER Project: World History.
Choosing OER Project: World History
From course objectives, structure, assessments, and teacher-generated course plans, get to know OER Project: World History.
World History AP Info Session
Find out how OER Project: World History AP aligns with the CED.
Choosing OER Project: World History AP
Grab our College Board-approved syllabus and see a teacher’s course plan.
Big History Video Info Session
A quick introduction to OER Project: Big History, including why it’s a great fit for middle school.
Choosing OER Project: Big History
Look beneath the hood to see how this science-meets-history course works for middle- and high-school social studies.
Climate Video Info Session
Meet OER Project: Climate, a flexible course that meets science, social studies, and civics standards.
Choosing OER Project: Climate
Whether you need an activity, a lesson, or a semester-long elective, Climate has a place in your classroom. Find a pathway that fits.
Meet with Our Team
Want to phone a friend? Our educators and historians are standing by to help.
Getting Started with OER Project
You chose a course—now make it yours. Map the year with course overviews, pacing guidance, and embedded skills. Understand the OER Project approach to assessment, find primary sources and maps, plan writing practice, and choose the pathway that works best for your students.
World History Origins Course Overview and Pacing
Dig into the periodization, driving questions, and big ideas of OER Project: World History Origins.
OER Project Assessment Approach
Assessment is baked in: low-stakes checkpoints, skills-building routines, and feedback forms.
World History 1200 Course Overview and Pacing
Get the lay of the land with OER Project: World History 1200 with periodization, driving questions, and big ideas.
Primary Source Collection Placement
Find the exact primary source collection you need for tomorrow’s DBQ—or explore them all.
World History 1750 Course Overview and Pacing
Navigate OER Project: World History 1750 with the course periodization, driving questions, and big ideas.
Writing Activities Placement
Quickly locate every writing task across OER Project: World History courses.
World History AP Course Overview and Pacing
See how OER Project: World History AP lessons are a one-to-one match with the AP® World History: Modern CED.
World History Maps Index
It’s like a map to our maps, so you can find the political, thematic, or regional map you need.
Big History Course Overview and Pacing
Open your roadmap to teaching the history of the Universe: objectives, structure, and skills inside.
Middle School Writing Placement
Easily locate activities to grow middle-school writers—from claims, to paragraphs, to DBQs.
Climate Overview
Check out guidance to take students from “what is climate change?” to “what can I do about it?”
Climate Course Pathways
Explore pathways to bring climate learning to your class, whether you’ve got a week or a semester.
Teaching Tips
Power your planning with practical teaching tips you can use right away. These guides and quick tips offer skills-building strategies, literacy support, ready-to-try classroom moves, and differentiation ideas that help you meet students where they are—and keep them moving forward.
Differentiation
Explore a wide variety of strategies that help you meet students’ reading, writing, and activities needs.
Reading
Check out OER Project’s variety of texts, three-step reading routine, and built-in supports.
Writing
Get to know OER Project’s writing opportunities: informal routines, rubric-based activities, and DBQs.
Informal Writing Routines
Build student confidence with writing by weaving it into your daily routines.
Graphic Biographies
Meet OER Project graphic biographies, and learn how to help students read these unique history comics.
Graphic Biographies Placement
A quick look at all the graphic biographies in OER Project: World History and Big History.
Vocabulary
Find strategies to strengthen students’ vocabulary skills while learning content.
Data Literacy
Data in social studies? Grow student confidence to find the narrative in the numbers.
Discussion
Set the stage for lively discussions with engaging questions, clear norms, and shared goals.
Teaching Sensitive Topics
Strategies to approach complexity in today’s classrooms: plan ahead, model, and reflect.
Using AI Tools with OER Project Resources
Tips to guide your students’ use of AI—and ideas for your own planning with OER Project.
Video
Check out teaching tips to get students actively viewing and making meaning of videos.
AI in the Writing Process
Fire up student cognition with AI as a sparring partner, or design assessments that require deeper thinking.
Classroom Tools
Give students the scaffolds they need to think like historians, and find focused feedback tools that will guide their progress. These classroom-ready graphic organizers, skills feedback forms, and three-step reading worksheets are ready to print, share, or embed in your LMS.
Causation Tool
Scaffold student thinking about long-, intermediate-, and short-term causes and effects.
Causation Feedback Form
Focus your feedback on causation and its historical significance.
Comparison Tool
A graphic organizer to describe similarities, differences, and their significance.
Comparison Feedback Form
Make your feedback count with comparison criteria and quick notes for students.
CCOT Tool
Graph continuity and change over time, plot the positive and negative effects, and then form a thesis.
CCOT Feedback Form
Show students what they did well and where they can improve in their CCOT analysis.
Contextualization Tool
A tactile tool to place events in the broad or narrow context of an event.
Contextualization Feedback Form
Give students clear feedback on their contextualization of an event.
Sourcing Tool
An acronym they won’t forget (HAPPY) scaffolds students’ source analysis.
Sourcing Feedback Form
Break down all of the elements of sourcing to focus your feedback for students.
Claim-Testing Posters
Download these anchor charts to cue students to check authority, evidence, logic, and intuition.
Claim Testing Feedback Form
Check the credibility of students’ claims, counter-claims, and their historical accuracy.
Three-Step Reading for Data
Guide students to read the data, read between the data, and read beyond the data in social studies.
Three-Step Reading for Graphic Biographies
Comics deserve three-step reading too. Help students observe, understand, and connect to the text.
Shepard Fairey x OER Project Posters
Download the History Frames posters from artist Shepard Fairey. Your walls (and maybe even students) will thank you.