National Council for the Social Studies has been awarded $205,000 as part of a robust, multi-network effort to support teachers as they implement the Common Core State Standards in their classrooms. With this grant, NCSS will create and operationalize collaborative professional learning opportunities based on the core principles of the NCSS College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies Standards to provide social studies teachers with the necessary supports to engage in instructional shifts that, beyond achieving student content mastery, will also achieve the goals of the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Teachers participating in this grant will be a part a collaborative professional learning network that will be developed in partnership with the National Center for Literacy Education. This grant is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of its efforts to help teachers across the country better connect about instructional practice.

"Social studies teachers engage students in reading, writing, speaking and listening activities as part of their instructional program, however their primary focus for engaging in literacy strategies is to help students' access, understand, analyze, and communicate the complex and important concepts of their discipline," said Michelle Herczog, NCSS President. "We need to help them refocus their instructional efforts to be more deliberate in meeting the goals of the Common Core State Standards."

We are excited to be chosen as a Teacher Practice Network and look forward to using the grant to provide social studies teachers with a collaborative learning experience that will involve working with colleagues both face-to-face or virtually across schools, districts and states to engage in a continuous cycle of inquiry about meeting the history/social studies and literacy needs of all students. As stated in the April 2013 NCLE report, Remodeling Literacy Learning, educators that engage in professional learning that is ongoing, job-embedded, and collaborative, are better able to engage and advance literacy learning across grades and subjects.

This grant, the second round of Teacher Practice Network grants, will support 14 organizations working with over 110,000 teachers. The first round of grants, in 2013, funded 21 organizations for projects supporting 350,000 teachers across the U.S.

Other organizations that are part of Teacher Practice Networks include the following:

• The Achievement Network
• Association for Career Technical Education
• ASCD
• Center for Teaching Quality
• Constitutional Rights Foundation
• Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education
• International Society for Technology in Education
• KnowledgeWorks Foundation
• National Center for Family Literacy
• National council of Teachers of English
• National Math and Science Initiative
• National Writing Project
• New Visions for Public Schools; and others

For more information, please visit Teacher Practice Network Grants.