Beyond Just Techniques: Toward Deliberation Facilitation That Minimizes Harm. A Response to “Deliberative Facilitation in the Classroom: The Interplay of Facilitative Technique and Design to Make Space for Democracy”

In Deliberative Facilitation in the Classroom: The Interplay of Facilitative Techniques and Design to Make Space for Democracy, the authors offered several useful techniques for the facilitation of standard classroom deliberations. However, not all open controversial issues are created equal, and many have the potential to implicate student identities. In those cases, it is imperative that facilitators move beyond basic techniques and think about how to conduct deliberations that protect marginalized students and do not validate systemic injustices. In this response to Deliberative Facilitation in the Classroom, I extend upon the authors\u27 argument and offer suggestions for how to effectively engage students in deliberations of sensitive issues

Students blogging about politics: A study of students’ political engagement and a teacher’s pedagogy during a semester-long political blog assignment

Many scholars have written about the Internet’s potential for engaging youth in public issues, but there has been little empirical research on the political engagement outcomes from students’ classroom-based use of web 2.0 tools, such as blogs, or the pedagogies involved in designing such experiences. This paper begins to address this gap by analyzing the development of political engagement among several dozen high school students who were required to complete political blogs for their required U.S. government course and by exploring their teacher’s pedagogical strategies and challenges. We analyzed data from 22 classroom observations, 15 student interviews, three teacher interviews, and surveys from over 300 students (including a large comparison group) given at the beginning and end of the fall 2012-13 semester. Quantitative and qualitative analyses indicate that students in the blog-focused classes developed greater political interest, internal political efficacy, and self-efficacy for political writing than other students. We also found that the teacher did not actively encourage interactive posting in order to avoid heated exchanges – but that many students expressed an interest in seeing more responses to their online writing. We discuss implications for practice and research

Maximizing the Potential of Computer-Based Technology in Secondary Social Studies Education

This paper looks critically at the way technology is currently used in social studies education and makes the argument that technology can better serve teachers and students as a tool of engagement and inquiry rather than as a supplement to existing practices. In this paper, social studies education is characterized as a quest for reflective inquiry, as a social science, and as a medium for citizenship transmission. Technology can assist in the teaching of all three elements from a constructivist, or inquiry-oriented, perspective. Relevant examples are provided whenever possible and deemed necessary. The paper concludes with a proposal for widespread change in the way social studies teachers utilize technology by focusing on teacher education programs. Teacher educators must contradict students’ perceptions of traditional social studies instruction with habits of increased technology usage in order to equip future teachers with the skills required to implement pedagogical change in their classrooms

When using technology isn’t enough: A comparison of high school civics teachers’ TPCK in one-to-one laptop environments

In this multiple case study, the authors compare the instruction of two high school civics teachers during the 2012 Presidential Election. Both were highly-qualified practitioners who worked in schools with one-to-one laptop initiatives, creating an environment in which access to digital technology ceased to be an issue. Although both teachers regularly used technology in their classrooms, the authors describe stark differences in the complexity and authenticity of their instruction, which the authors attribute to the teachers? technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK). The authors conclude by discussing implications for better understanding TPCK within civics instruction, specifically in classrooms with one-to-one laptop access

Learning from each other: What social studies can learn from the controversy surrounding the teaching of evolution in science

This article addresses the need for researchers to move beyond discipline-specific approaches to research and practice and offers an example of how interdisciplinary understandings can increase knowledge in respective disciplines. The specific focus of the article is the shared challenges of broaching controversy in science and social studies classrooms. Although there is much that social studies teachers can learn about the teaching of controversial public issues from the challenges science educators face in teaching evolutionary theory, and vice versa, the two literature bases have little overlap. Through this example of broaching curricular controversy in the classroom, the author argues that content instruction can be improved by increasing awareness of research and practice in other discipline

Review of the book Teaching American history in a global context by C. Guarneri & J. Davis (Eds.)

Education is deeply rooted in tradition, particularly within disciplines that help shape the cultural and political identity of nations. As a result, survey courses in American history, regardless of academic level or location within the United States, utilize a familiar Eurocentric perspective and are often taught in isolation from other social science courses. In their edited volume, Guameri and Davis encourage educators to break from this traditional pedagogy and approach teaching American history from a global context that highlights the historical relationship between the United States and the rest of the world. They argue that the resulting curriculum will produce a richer understanding for students, one that conceptualizes American history through cultural diversity and global interdependence, two particularly relevant goals for a post-September 11th world

Joining the Conversation: Twitter as a Tool for Student Political Engagement

This article describes possibilities afforded by using social media, specifically Twitter, as a way to encourage students to join political conversations across the United States and around the world. In this study, we describe a project in which students used Twitter to share commentary about the state of the 2012 presidential election. The experiences of these students illustrate both the potential strengths and limitations of using social media as a tool for political engagement

Dewey and Standardization: A Philosophical Look at the Implications for Social Studies

The work of John Dewey and his beliefs regarding student-centered learning are discussed in an effort to analyze the standardization of public education with a focus on social studies instruction. Using the Virginia Standards of Learning as a model, state standards are critiqued using Dewey’s views on habits and choice regarding teaching and learning. These discussions fit within Dewey’s broader view that historically situates schools as an integral part of perpetuating a democratic society by providing the necessary skills that citizenship requires. As a discipline aimed at shaping future citizens by relying on critical thinking and public deliberation of issues, social studies provides an ideal medium to compare the practices of standardization to that of student-centered instruction

Review of the book This happened in America: Harold Rugg and the censure of social studies by R. W. Evans

The primary emotion that I felt after reading Ronald Evans' biography of progressive era luminary Harold Rugg was that of pleasant surprise, I was familiar with Evans' work, and I knew that This Happened in America won the 2008 Exemplary Research Award from the National Council for the Social Studies, so I expected the book to be thoroughly researched and well written, which it certainly was. However, I began the book somewhat skeptical about how relevant the story of a rather obscure educator, at least outside of the social studies, would be for a contemporary social studies audience. Yet the way in which Evans tells the story, particularly regarding the ideological attacks Rugg faced during the 1940s, provides a poignant commentary on both the importance of social studies education and the public contention against progressive social studies curricula that questions the status quo