“I Never Thought About History This Way”: The Development of Elementary Teachers’ Beliefs About History and How a Professional Learning Community Can Influence These

In this chapter, Potjer et al. describe how elementary teachers participating in a professional development program “Historical reasoning in inquiry-based history lessons” develop more nuanced beliefs about the nature of history. Participants’ beliefs about teaching historical inquiry in grades 3-6 develop accordingly. The teachers identify inquiry activities they worked on during the meetings, group discussions, modeling by the facilitator, searching for historical sources, and designing and teaching inquiry-based lessons as important sources of their professional growth. Besides implications for research and future PD programs, the authors describe ramifications for elementary teacher education.