Beyond the Bubble provides easy-to-use options for assessing students’ historical thinking skills. Launched in 2012 with support from the Library of Congress’s Teaching with Primary Sources program, Beyond the Bubble offers over 150 targeted assessments—called History Assessments of Thinking (HATs)—that can quickly capture students’ thinking about historical evidence.
There are 15 “types” of HATs, and we offer multiple versions of each. Items of the same type follow the same format but feature different historical documents. For each type, there is a “flagship” assessment (marked with a ribbon). Flagships offer added support features, including annotated sample student responses and Going Deeper videos that provide insights into the assessments and ideas for how to use them. (See The First Thanksgiving for an example of a flagship.) The rest of the assessments are “alternative versions” (e.g., Napoleon’s Retreat), which feature different documents but take the same form as its flagship. Even if you don't use the flagship assessment, the student responses and videos can be useful for understanding the alternative versions.
Click here for a complete list of HATs.
