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Full-Text Articles in Education

Developing Political Thinking And Discussion Skills In Civics Classrooms. A Book Review Of Teaching Politics In Secondary Education: Engaging With Contentious Issues, Patricia G. Avery Oct 2018

Developing Political Thinking And Discussion Skills In Civics Classrooms. A Book Review Of Teaching Politics In Secondary Education: Engaging With Contentious Issues, Patricia G. Avery

Democracy and Education

In Teaching Politics in Secondary Education: Engaging with Contentious Issues, Wayne Journell displays his passion for politics, teaching, and research. He provides secondary social studies teachers and teacher educators with practical ideas for reorienting civics and government instruction toward the political sphere as it is, not the idealized politics often portrayed in textbooks. Drawing heavily from his research on civics classes during the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, Journell focused on two primary instructional goals: developing students' skills in political (or policy) thinking and discussions of controversial political issues. This accessible, informative, and inspiring book offers teachers a good first …


Reenvisioning Education For Civic Engagement In The Social Media Century, Ryan T. Knowles Oct 2018

Reenvisioning Education For Civic Engagement In The Social Media Century, Ryan T. Knowles

Democracy and Education

The reviewed article, “The Impact of Student Political Identity Over the Course of an Online Controversial Issue Discussion,” represents a timely response to the eye-opening influences of social media in modern political climates. Particularly, the project provides a useful model and relevant findings for future teachers and teacher educators to incorporate online political discussions. The study clearly demonstrates the value of online discussions, especially in mixed partisan groups. Based on the findings, three additional considerations were identified and elaborated on within this response. These include a renewed consideration of quantitative analysis, a focus of identity in civic education, and a …


Political Simulations: An Opportunity For Meaningful Democratic Participation In Schools, Isolde De Groot Oct 2018

Political Simulations: An Opportunity For Meaningful Democratic Participation In Schools, Isolde De Groot

Democracy and Education

Political simulations are considered promising tools to instigate democratic learning in schools. This article reports a qualitative inquiry into student involvement in the organization of the 2012 mock elections—the shadow elections that schools can organize in conjunction with the official elections—in eight high schools in the Netherlands. The objective of this inquiry is twofold: to evaluate student involvement in mock elections in these schools and to lay the theoretical groundwork for further quantitative inquiries into student participation in political events. For the deductive analysis of student roles in organizing the mock election, I adapted Fielding and Moss’s (2012) “patterns of …


Last Year's Choice Is This Year's Voice: Valuing Democratic Practices In The Classroom Through Student-Selected Literature, Michael D. Boatright, Amelia Allman Oct 2018

Last Year's Choice Is This Year's Voice: Valuing Democratic Practices In The Classroom Through Student-Selected Literature, Michael D. Boatright, Amelia Allman

Democracy and Education

The authors of this article explore democratic practices in the classroom by using student-selected literature. After multiple class sets of student-selected young adult novels were purchased using grant money, the authors set out to see what happens in a classroom when student choice is at the forefront of pedagogical decision-making and how students resonated with and voiced their experiences reading about those chosen novels. Because canonical texts are often used to help students understand allusions in contemporary texts, one adolescent novel and one canonical novel became the focal points for this project. With democratic practices undergirding this project, the authors …


The Impact Of Student Political Identity Over The Course Of An Online Controversial Issue Discussion, Christopher H. Clark Oct 2018

The Impact Of Student Political Identity Over The Course Of An Online Controversial Issue Discussion, Christopher H. Clark

Democracy and Education

As civic educators become increasingly concerned about polarized political environments, researchers have begun explore the ramifications of contentious political discourse on young people. Through a quantitative analysis of data gathered from two rural, Midwestern schools, this study provides evidence that the degree to which a student socially identifies with a political party is influential over the course of an online discussion. Strength of identification was associated with students’ relative amount of knowledge for and against their position on a controversial issue and with the types of contributions students made to the online forum.


From Soliciting Answers To Eliciting Reasoning: Questioning Our Questions In Digital Math Tasks, Heather L. Johnson, Gary Olson, Amber Gardner, Amy Smith Aug 2018

From Soliciting Answers To Eliciting Reasoning: Questioning Our Questions In Digital Math Tasks, Heather L. Johnson, Gary Olson, Amber Gardner, Amy Smith

Colorado Mathematics Teacher

How can classroom teachers and task designers pose questions to promote students’ reasoning? The authors share a Toy Car task, developed in Desmos, then provide three design principles guiding task questions.


Deliberating Public Policy Issues With Adolescents: Classroom Dynamics And Sociocultural Considerations, Margaret S. Crocco, Avner Segall, Anne-Lise S. Halvorsen, Rebecca J. Jacobsen Apr 2018

Deliberating Public Policy Issues With Adolescents: Classroom Dynamics And Sociocultural Considerations, Margaret S. Crocco, Avner Segall, Anne-Lise S. Halvorsen, Rebecca J. Jacobsen

Democracy and Education

Classroom discussion and deliberation have been widely touted in the research literature as a centerpiece of high quality civic education. Empirical studies, however, of such processes are relatively few. In a public policy deliberation on immigration conducted in three Midwestern high schools during the academic year 2015–16, the authors found that analysis of a set of deliberations on the subject of immigration policy in the United States reveals the ways in which sociocultural identity aspects of the settings and participants influenced the processes and dynamics of these classroom events. Reflecting upon this analysis suggests a set of factors that reveal …