Typical online educational tools are prescriptive, the National Archives says: They provide a specified set of activities on a single subject. Any interactivity is usually separated from the lesson plan, which takes the form of an article or essay. DocsTeach is revolutionary, the federal agency says, because the interactive is the lesson; teachers can create lessons from scratch, adapt lessons from others, or even let their students create the lessons; and a single suite of tools can be applied to a broad range of subjects and skill levels.
“Enabling students to immerse themselves in [primary-source] documents like these is a valuable experience,” said Michael Roessler, a professor of education at Albion College. “Teachers [are] able to custom-design [history] activities that will dovetail with the skills and content that they are emphasizing in their course.” He added that National Archives scholars and educators “have put a great deal of thought and creativity into the creation of this web site.”
The National Archives developed DocsTeach with support from Texas Instruments.
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