Storypath: A Powerful Tool for Engaging Children in Civic Education

This article explains why elementary school children need civic education, identifies common obstacles that frustrate efforts, then describes how the Storypath approach can provide all students with opportunities for powerful civic learning. An actual application in a culturally diverse fourth-grade classroom illustrates how children grappled with Seattle’s affordable housing issue as they created and enacted Storypath’s five components, namely setting, characters, context, critical incidents, and concluding event. It also demonstrates how Storypath effectively integrates social studies content, literacy skills, and social-emotional learning (SEL) through cooperative small-group episodes that produce meaningful and memorable lived experiences for students engaged in civic discourse and democratic decision-making. The article concludes by listing and explaining how Storypath nurtures multiple positive outcomes. These include (a) providing a feasible framework for organizing complex curricula; (b) stimulating imagination, motivation, investment, and commitment to learning; (c) engaging rigorous discussion for cognitive growth; (d) embodying authentic teaching and learning; (e) grounding effective cooperative learning; (f) supporting successful curriculum integration; (g) promoting accomplishment of national and state standards; (h) enabling individual differentiation for success; (i) developing civic capacity; (j) cultivating transfer of learning within and outside of classrooms; and (k) furthering the civic mission of schools

What Is Education For? A Response to What Kind of Citizens Do Educators Hope Their Students Become? A Response to \u27Storypath: A Powerful Tool for Engaging Children in Civic Learning.\u27

Darwich (2020) asked “What Kind of Citizens Do Educators Hope Their Students Become?” in her response to “Storypath: A Powerful Tool for Engaging Children in Civic Education” (McGuire et al., 2019). She argued that civics should be rooted in social justice grounded by critical civic empathy, which requires focusing on power and privilege given persistent disparities in caring for all people within our democracy. We agree and here further emphasize the importance of dismantling systems of oppression that block efforts to advance this goal. We also recognize pragmatic complexities in elementary school classrooms that require teacher professional judgment to create conditions for success. These include attending to diverse developmental needs of learners, classroom time constraints, and instructional standards that do not explicitly focus on social justice. We describe how the teacher in McGuire et al. navigated these challenges and call for systemic change to support teachers in routinely engaging all children in experiential civic learning grounded by critical civic empathy

Programme evaluation training for health professionals in francophone Africa: process, competence acquisition and use

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

The impact of light pollution on the visual ecology of Aquatica ficta (Coleoptera: Lampyridae)

The majority of fireflies in Taiwan communicate with conspecifics via the exchange of bioluminescent signals. The characteristic courtship signals of different species have been well described, yet we know little about the ways in which environmental conditions can affect signaling behavior. The impact of anthropogenic light pollution is of particular interest, as it must contribute some noise to the signal transmission milieu. Herein we explore the ways in which a local species, Aquatica ficta, reacts to environmental light. We expose larval Aq. ficta to low levels of artificial night lighting over two weeks, then analyze their RNA transcriptome expression. We also expose adult Aq. ficta to LED pucks of varying wavelength and intensity, while observing the intensity and frequency of flash signals produced by specimens under these conditions. The transcriptomes of larval specimens exposed to artificial night lighting indicated a significant stress response. Adult Aq. ficta exposed to wavelengths at or below 533nm produced flash signals of greater intensity with diminished frequency; no significant behavioral changes were observed during exposures to wavelengths at or above 597nm. Whether the plasticity of firefly signaling behavior is sufficient to ensure successful transmission of courtship signals remains to be seen. If Aq. ficta are unable to compete with growing levels of anthropogenic light pollution, their reproductive rates will be greatly reduced. Therefore, the action spectra produced by this study should be used to inform decisions about the types of street lamps to be placed near firefly habitats; such consideration will minimize the impact of anthropogenic light pollution on the rich biodiversity and thriving ecological tourism industry of Taiwan

L'apprentissage coopératif : rencontre du coeur et de l'esprit /

Bibliogr.: p. 341-34