Top 12 High School History Teacher Skills to Put on Your Resume
A standout high school history resume blends deep content knowledge with practical teaching chops. Show that you can craft compelling narratives, steer a busy classroom, and spark curiosity in teens who arrive with wildly different interests and abilities. When your skills read as both human and rigorous, principals take notice—because students do too.
High School History Teacher Skills
- Curriculum Development
- Classroom Management
- Student Engagement
- Differentiated Instruction
- Assessment Design
- Google Classroom
- Zoom Proficiency
- Historical Research
- Critical Thinking
- Microsoft Teams
- Interactive Whiteboards
- LMS Integration (Canvas, Schoology)
1. Curriculum Development
Curriculum development means designing and sequencing history content, skills, and assessments to meet standards while honoring student needs. It’s selecting era-spanning themes, crafting inquiry-driven objectives, curating materials, and planning assessments that actually reveal understanding.
Why It's Important
Strong curricula keep history relevant, accurate, and thought-provoking. Students learn to situate events in context, weigh evidence, and connect past to present—skills that travel well beyond your classroom.
How to Improve Curriculum Development Skills
Refine the plan so learning feels purposeful and alive.
Use diverse sources: primary documents, artifacts, maps, oral histories, and short documentaries to widen perspective.
Blend tech thoughtfully: interactive timelines, quick polls, and multimedia to punctuate big ideas without drowning them.
Lean into projects: investigations that ask students to research, argue, create, and present—messy in the best way.
Interrogate the narrative: push analysis of cause, consequence, and contingency; name bias and gaps.
Bridge past and present: thread historical themes through current issues to make significance unmistakable.
Keep learning: tap professional organizations, journals, and PLCs; iterate after every unit based on student evidence.
Small, steady adjustments compound into a course students remember.
How to Display Curriculum Development Skills on Your Resume
2. Classroom Management
Classroom management is the art and structure that make learning possible—clear norms, smooth routines, and relationships strong enough to carry tough conversations about history.
Why It's Important
Orderly classrooms free up brainspace. You spend time teaching rather than firefighting, students take risks, and discussions go deep without derailing.
How to Improve Classroom Management Skills
Co-create expectations: set norms with students; teach and practice them until they stick.
Design for engagement: debates, role plays, jigsaws, stations—methods that pull everyone in.
Catch them doing it right: specific praise, quick recognition systems, and restorative conversations when things wobble.
Communicate like a coach: concise directions, visible objectives, frequent checks for understanding.
Shape the space: seating that matches the task, materials within reach, sightlines that reduce side chatter.
Grow with peers: observe colleagues, share strategies, and refine routines after each unit.
How to Display Classroom Management Skills on Your Resume
3. Student Engagement
Engagement shows up as curiosity, sustained effort, and students wrestling with ideas rather than skimming for answers.
Why It's Important
Curious students remember more, argue better, and see history as a living conversation. Test scores rise as a byproduct, not the point.
How to Improve Student Engagement Skills
Use tech with intent: virtual field trips, interactive polls, and bite-sized multimedia to punctuate key moments.
Make projects authentic: connect units to local history, current events, or community voices.
Debate and discuss: structure roles and evidence requirements so every voice counts.
Interactive notebooks: combine visuals, reflections, and organizers to make thinking visible.
Bring history to them: guest speakers, primary-source showcases, museum partnerships, or site visits when possible.
How to Display Student Engagement Skills on Your Resume
4. Differentiated Instruction
Differentiation tailors content, process, products, and supports so every student can access the big ideas—without watering them down.
Why It's Important
Classes are wonderfully mixed: strengths, challenges, languages, interests. Differentiation meets learners where they are and nudges them forward.
How to Improve Differentiated Instruction Skills
Start with student data: quick diagnostics, interest surveys, and exit tickets to group purposefully.
Vary resources: leveled texts, audio versions, graphics-heavy explainers, and primary sources with scaffolds.
Flexible grouping: rotate by skill, interest, or role; keep movement predictable and purposeful.
Smart tech: self-paced practice, collaborative boards, and formative checks to personalize support.
Choice boards: multiple paths to demonstrate learning—essays, podcasts, exhibits, op-eds.
Feedback that moves: short, actionable notes; conferences that target one big thing at a time.
How to Display Differentiated Instruction Skills on Your Resume
5. Assessment Design
Assessment design is building tools that measure what you teach—knowledge, reasoning, sourcing, and communication—using a mix of formats that honor different ways of showing learning.
Why It's Important
Good assessments sharpen instruction, make progress visible, and motivate students. They align to objectives and reward thinking, not just recall.
How to Improve Assessment Design Skills
Align to outcomes: write targets that span recall, analysis, and creation; design backwards from them.
Mix the methods: DBQs, oral defenses, timelines, map analyses, quick checks, performance tasks.
Lean on primary sources: prompt sourcing, corroboration, and contextualization.
Formative first: frequent low-stakes checks to steer instruction before the big grade.
Use tech wisely: auto-graded quizzes for retrieval, interactive videos for pause-and-think moments.
Peer and self-assessment: structured protocols that teach students to evaluate with evidence.
Clear rubrics: transparent criteria, student-friendly language, exemplars that calibrate expectations.
How to Display Assessment Design Skills on Your Resume
6. Google Classroom
Google Classroom organizes assignments, streamlines feedback, and centralizes resources using familiar tools like Docs, Slides, and Forms.
Why It's Important
It cuts friction. You spend less time chasing papers and more time guiding inquiry.
How to Improve Google Classroom Skills
Sort by topics: unit-based threads so students quickly find what they need.
Make it interactive: quick Forms for checks, Slides for collaborative note-taking, short video clips embedded in prompts.
Curate sources: post primary documents, maps, and historiography packets directly in Materials.
Feedback loops: private comments, rubrics, and revision cycles that show growth.
Live learning: schedule Meets for guest historians or virtual museum walkthroughs; archive recordings for review.
How to Display Google Classroom Skills on Your Resume
7. Zoom Proficiency
Zoom proficiency is the ability to run smooth, secure, and engaging live sessions—breakouts humming, screenshares crisp, participation up.
Why It's Important
When learning moves online or goes hybrid, instruction shouldn’t sputter. Strong video teaching keeps community and rigor intact.
How to Improve Zoom Proficiency Skills
Master the core: meeting settings, waiting rooms, screen share, breakout rooms, chat, reactions.
Drive engagement: polls for quick takes, protocols for chat discussions, spotlight student work.
Prioritize safety: host controls, mute on entry, lock meetings, clear naming conventions.
Level up: cloud recordings with timestamps, captions, and follow-up exit tickets.
Keep learning: share tips in department meetings; document norms for students and families.
How to Display Zoom Proficiency Skills on Your Resume
8. Historical Research
Historical research sifts through sources—primary and secondary—to build credible claims about what happened, why, and with what consequence.
Why It's Important
Students learn to weigh evidence, detect bias, and understand complexity. That’s history class, and also citizenship.
How to Improve Historical Research Skills
Teach sourcing moves: author, audience, purpose, context—habitual questions, not afterthoughts.
Broaden the archive: diaries, newspapers, oral histories, photos, maps, artifacts, data sets.
Model analysis: think aloud as you annotate a document; show how claims grow from evidence.
Use research tools: library databases, scholarly search engines, and citation managers.
Make it public: exhibits, podcasts, or community presentations raise the stakes and polish the work.
Connect locally: partner with libraries, museums, and historical societies for authentic materials.
Professional growth: attend history education workshops; trade lesson studies with colleagues.
Collaborate: shared boards or class journals where students post sources and critique methods.
How to Display Historical Research Skills on Your Resume
9. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is disciplined analysis—testing claims, spotting assumptions, and building arguments that hold under scrutiny.
Why It's Important
History demands judgment. Students learn to compare interpretations, interrogate sources, and revise their thinking when new evidence arrives.
How to Improve Critical Thinking Skills
Question protocols: teach students to generate and refine their own inquiry questions.
Socratic seminars: slow, text-centered dialogues that privilege evidence over volume.
Primary source labs: structured analyses that surface bias, reliability, and perspective.
Comparative studies: line up events, policies, or leaders; look for patterns and outliers.
Case method: dilemmas and decision points that force tradeoffs and nuanced conclusions.
How to Display Critical Thinking Skills on Your Resume
10. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams anchors communication, assignments, and live meetings in one hub—handy for hybrid schedules and collaborative projects.
Why It's Important
It keeps conversations, resources, and feedback organized, so students don’t drown in tabs.
How to Improve Microsoft Teams Skills
Structure channels: by class, unit, or project to keep threads tidy and purposeful.
Assignments + Grades: use built-in rubrics, scheduled posts, and return cycles for clean feedback trails.
OneNote Class Notebook: distribute templates, collect notes, and conference in private student sections.
Add apps: discussion video tools, quiz games, and whiteboards to energize lessons.
Collaboration norms: shared docs with roles and deadlines; model version history and citation.
Virtual experiences: bring in guest speakers; record sessions with captions for accessibility.
Gather feedback: quick Forms surveys to refine pacing, clarity, and tool use.
How to Display Microsoft Teams Skills on Your Resume
11. Interactive Whiteboards
Interactive whiteboards let you annotate, zoom into maps, layer sources, and bring students up to the board to argue with the evidence.
Why It's Important
Dynamic visuals and hands-on interaction pull students into the story—especially complex geography, timelines, and data.
How to Improve Interactive Whiteboards Skills
Virtual site visits: explore historical locations and overlays that make spatial context pop.
Interactive timelines: students add events, images, and sources; you surface cause and effect live.
Live checks: quick polls and class quizzes to take the room’s temperature in seconds.
Collaborative notes: sync with shared notebooks so student contributions persist beyond the board.
Multimedia moments: short clips, speeches, and maps layered with your annotations.
Accessibility: large fonts, high-contrast palettes, captions, and keyboard-friendly navigation.
Training cycles: short, focused PD and peer sharing on board features you’ll actually use.
How to Display Interactive Whiteboards Skills on Your Resume
12. LMS Integration (Canvas, Schoology)
LMS integration means weaving your learning management system into daily instruction—modules, discussions, quizzes, and analytics working together.
Why It's Important
A well-set LMS clarifies the path: what to do, where to find it, how to show learning. It supports make-up work, accommodations, and parent visibility.
How to Improve LMS Integration Skills
Modular design: consistent unit structures with previews, tasks, checks, and reflections.
Rich pages: embed media, chunk text, and add guiding questions that frame the inquiry.
Discussion routines: criteria for posts and replies; require evidence, not just opinions.
Quizzes with purpose: low-stakes retrieval, timed map practice, and source analysis items.
Analytics: track views, submissions, and item analysis to target support.
Parent/guardian access: clear calendars and weekly summaries that reduce surprise.
Interoperability: integrate cloud drives, video tools, and plagiarism checks for a smoother workflow.
How to Display LMS Integration Skills on Your Resume
