The program was developed in 1989 by the Teachers' Curriculum Institute. The History Alive approach is based on six strategies developed by teachers who combined educational research and theory with the realities of classroom teaching. The strategies are designed to actively engage students, from various cultural backgrounds and possessing diverse learning styles, in the study of history. Students view, touch, interpret, and act out historic images projected as slides. Teachers recreate moments in history, such as the horrors of fighting trench warfare or the monotony of life on the assembly line, so students can more meaningfully understand significance of past events.
Students then defend their analysis to the rest of the class.
This strategy challenges students to write forcefully and for a purpose, such as writing poetry about the experience of Chinese immigrants on Angel Island or reporting on an interview with a Vietnam veteran. TCI has also developed a set of techniques and tools to help teachers implement History Alive. TCI has developed a ten-step approach that shows teachers how to create a classroom in which students learn to share ideas, work together cooperatively, tolerate differences, disagree agreeably, and take risks. TCI also shows teachers how to use Interactive Student Notebooks that allow students to use various writing and graphic techniques to organize and process information. Through History Alive training teachers learn new methods of assessment that emphasize multiple-ability assessment.