Teaching introductory world history courses is one of the most challenging enterprises in higher education - while faculty are often teaching outside their areas of expertise, students are often resentful of having assigned to mandatory surveys outside their majors. History for the 21^st Century (H/21) is faculty-led, grassroots, collaborative project that addresses this challenge by supporting student-centered, inquiry-driven, and active learning in introductory world history classrooms. Our goal is to improve the ways college and university faculty introduce 21^st-century students from diverse backgrounds to the study of history, while at the same time supporting faculty to develop and use effective pedagogy and curriculum design strategies. The teaching modules developed and tested collaboratively by faculty in our project aim to help students connect their personal experiences and interests to historical content, in order to support classroom engagement and effective learning in large world history classrooms. As research has shown, students with a genuine sense of ownership of their learning have higher motivations to achieve goals, a stronger belief in their ability to succeed, an increased ability to reflect on the effectiveness of their learning strategies, and a willingness to persist in the face of obstacles. And because learning at its best is also a transformative process, we also encourage students to make meaning of history in their lives in the present. This panel explores the quantitative and qualitative information we’ve gathered to better understand students’ experiences with learning, before they enter our classrooms, while we teach them, and after they move on. What meaning does learning world history have for them? How do lessons relate to their sense of self? What perspectives and tools does history provide them with, that allow them to navigate the 21^st century world? This panel is dedicated to demonstrating what happens to our teaching in these difficult introductory world history courses when we take the answer to these questions seriously.