Teachers’ Curriculum Institute (TCI), headquartered in Palo Alto, California, publishes innovative materials for the K–12 social studies curriculum. TCI empowers educators across the nation to teach social studies with a passion and to bring learning alive to all learners. Committed to setting a new standard for excellence in social studies teaching, TCI has based their innovative social studies and training programs on the powerful TCI Approach – a set of proven teaching strategies and practices that bring history to life and achieves consistent, positive classroom results while still being mindful of educational standards.

From Pioneering to Innovators
The company was founded in 1989 by a small group of social studies teachers who were deeply committed to revitalizing the teaching of history. Spending much of the 1980s trying out new ideas in their own classrooms, this small group of teachers found ways to excite and engage the interest of every kind of learner from diverse academic backgrounds.

TCI’s first program, produced in 1991, consisted of a thin white binder packed with photocopied lesson plans, a set of slides, audiotapes, and placards. Although modest in appearance, this program touched off a revolution in teaching. The TCI programs have progressed throughout the years, from supplemental to core programs for K–8, but their heart and soul remain the same: teacher-developed lessons with activities that get students passionate about history - in short, lessons that bring learning alive for all learners. TCI’s core products consist of innovative components customized to complete each core program, including lesson guides, student edition, interactive student notebook, overhead transparencies, placards, Sounds of History audio CD, and digital teacher resources CD-ROM—all skillfully crafted together to fully support the implementation of the TCI Approach.

Today, more than 16 years after its founding, TCI is committed to delivering curriculum, trainings and technologies that will enable all students to love history. TCI develops materials that reflect the rigorous content standards adopted by states across the nation, and we work with a wide variety of scholars and content experts to provide students with a fair and balanced view of history and cultures. TCI strives to provide students with an understanding of the people and events of history to promote greater knowledge of the world and to develop responsible citizens.

From the beginning, TCI’s mission has remained the same: to create, disseminate, and put into practice instructional strategies and accompanying social studies curricular materials so that educators can engage all students in the diverse classroom.

TCI has published core and supplemental social studies materials for every level, from kindergarten through high school. All are based on the premises of the TCI Approach and are aligned with state and national academic content standards. In addition, programs at every level offer support for reading comprehension and content literacy.

Critical to the effective implementation of the TCI Approach are TCI’s high-quality training programs and workshops. These on-site programs, ranging from one day to one week, can be tailored to an individual school district’s objectives. TCI trainings engage participants from start to finish as they take part in hands-on activities and are then debriefed, teacher-to-teacher, by a TCI trainer.