Continuity and Change Over Time (CCOT)
What’s changed over time? And what’s stayed the same? Finding out how history changes and evolves over time is at the heart of how historians think. Use these classroom-ready resources to help students compare the past across eras, uncover patterns, and analyze why it matters.
How to Teach CCOT: Tools for Teachers
Teacher Chat: CCOT
PD: Origin of Human Rights
Uncover the origins of human rights and trace the evolution of this powerful idea over time to determine its impact on law, society, and our world today.
Blog: Global Conflict: Deploying CCOT in the Classroom
Global conflict anchors historical thinking: students trace imperial rivalries, world wars, and Ukraine, using evidence to weigh shifts versus continuities.
Assessing CCOT
Educators share assignments and assessments to check students’ understanding of this historical thinking skill.
Connecting CCOT to Students’ Lives
Dive into this engaging teacher conversation about ideas to make CCOT relevant for students.
Teach Tomorrow: Lessons on CCOT
Lesson 4.5.3
Introducing CCOT
Students investigate how schools have changed in the last 100 years by identifying continuity and change over time. They’ll use these new historical skills to then assess the changes and continuities that took place from agrarian societies to empires and belief systems.
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Lesson 5.8.4
Reviewing Industrialization
As students continue developing their CCOT skills, they’ll evaluate the changes and continuities that occurred from the revolutionary era to the industrial age.
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CCOT Activities and Resources
CCOT: Land-Based Empires to Transoceanic Interconnections
Activity
CCOT: Land-Based Empires to Transoceanic Interconnections
What changed and what stayed the same as the world became more interconnected? That’s your task in this activity—evaluating changes and continuities from Unit 3 to Unit 4.
CCOT: Industrial Empires to World War I
Activity
CCOT: Industrial Empires to World War I
Practice your CCOT skills by evaluating whether a historical event like World War I represents a significant change in history or if it was simply the result of a series of continuities.
CCOT: Unit Comparisons
Closer
CCOT: Unit Comparisons
In this activity, you will put your CCOT skills to use by conducting a continuity and change over time analysis across multiple units of the course.
Writing Assessments to Practice CCOT
Pre-Writing: The Columbian Exchange
Assessment
Pre-Writing: The Columbian Exchange
Prepare for this CCOT prompt by crafting a claim and gathering supporting evidence.
DBQ Sources: The Columbian Exchange
Assessment
DBQ Sources: The Columbian Exchange
Analyze these sources and gather evidence to support your argument.
Writing: The Columbian Exchange
Assessment
Writing: The Columbian Exchange
Time to write! Demonstrate your understanding of the changes and continuities that took place after the Columbian Exchange.