The FJCC Is Looking for an Action Civics Coordinator!!

Posted on May 23, 2016 by stevemasy

Action Civics, which integrates elements of service learning, inquiry, and informed action, among other elements, is an important direction in civic education. This is a direction that the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship is looking to move. And we want you to help us move that way.

The Lou Frey Institute at the University of Central Florida is recruiting a fulltime instructional specialist in civics education. The individual in this position will be based in the institute’s Orlando office and will coordinate and support action civics programs for the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship (FJCC) – a
Lou Frey Institute/Bob Graham Center partnership. The action civics
coordinator will be responsible for working with K-12 districts, schools and teachers throughout Florida to implement service learning and other active civic learning initiatives. This position will also manage the institute’s partnership with Kids Voting and will support statewide mock elections. The individual in this position will work as part of a team to design and deliver professional development that supports classroom implementation of a wide range of active civic learning strategies. Long-term outreach and support for
individual schools – including low performing schools – may be required.
This position provides full benefits. Salary is commensurate with
qualifications and experience.

Minimum requirements include a bachelor’s degree from an accredited
institution in social studies education, political science, curriculum and
instruction or other relevant disciplines, with a strong background in civics
and some teaching experience in K-12.
Applicants must have experience in service learning and be familiar with the
literature relating to active learning in civic education, including the C3
Framework.
Strong communication skills and working knowledge of common office PC
software are essential.

An advanced degree in social studies education, political science, curriculum and instruction or other relevant disciplines from an accredited institution is strongly preferred.
Experience in designing and delivering teacher professional development workshops, experience managing projects, and experience with instructional technology are all highly desirable.
An understanding of Florida’s instructional standards and benchmarks in K-12 civics is also desirable.
Because this is part of a statewide initiative, significant travel is anticipated.

Applications must be submitted at www.jobswithucf.com. In addition to the online application, candidates must include a cover letter, resume or CV, and contact information for three professional references. Applications must be
received by June 16, 2016. DO NOT FORGET to upload the cover letter, resume or CV, AND contact info for references to the UCF site!!!
For questions related to this position, please contact Dr. Steve Masyada at Stephen.Masyada@ucf.edu.
Note: Please have all documents ready when applying so they can be
attached at that time. Once the online submission process is finalized, the system does not allow applicants to submit additional documents at a later date.
UCF is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, including minorities, women, veterans and individuals with disabilities. As a Florida public university, UCF makes all application materials and selection procedures available to the public uponrequest.

Looking at Social Studies in the 21st Century

Posted on May 6, 2016 by stevemasy

Well, if you will indulge me for a moment, I want to share with you a new book that you might find useful in thinking about the direction of social studies education today. It is titled Reassessing the Social Studies Curriculum: Promoting Critical Civic Engagement in a Politically Polarized, Post-9/11 World. Edited by Dr. Wayne Journell, who I had the pleasure of talking with when I was in North Carolina, it features chapters from excellent researchers, thinkers, and practitioners in the social studies. Most excitingly, it includes work from folks associated with us here at the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship. Our senior fellow, Dr. Michael Berson, coauthored the preface with his wife Ilene. Dr. Jane Lo, who is working with our Partnership for Civic Learning in re-envisioning high school government courses, authored “Role-Playing and Role-Dropping: Political Simulations as Portals to Pluralism in a Contentious Era” with the excellent Dr. Walter Parker. And of course it includes a chapter on civic education and the C3 Framework by yours truly, “Civil Liberties, Media Literacy, and Civic Education in the Post-9/11 Era: Helping Students Think Conceptually in Order to Act Civically”, co-authored with FJCC senior fellow Dr. Elizabeth Yeager Washington. Other luminaries of social studies education have contributed as well, and an overview of the text and the table of contents is below.

“The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 dramatically changed many aspects of American society, and the ramifications of that horrific event are still impacting the domestic and foreign policies of the United States. Yet, fifteen years after 9/11—an event that was predicted to change the scope of public education in the United States—we find that the social studies curriculum remains virtually the same as before the attacks. For a discipline charged with developing informed citizens prepared to enter a global economy, such curricular stagnation makes little sense. This book, which contains chapters from many leading scholars within the field of social studies education, both assesses the ways in which the social studies curriculum has failed to live up to the promises of progressive citizenship education made in the wake of the attacks and offers practical advice for teachers who wish to encourage a critical understanding of the post-9/11 global society in which their students live.”

Table of Contents

Foreword—Margaret Smith Crocco

Preface—Michael J. Berson & Ilene R. Berson

Introduction: September 11, 2001: The Day that Changed the World . . . But Not the Curriculum—Wayne Journell

Chapter One: International Conflict and National Destiny: World War I and History Teaching—Keith C. Barton

Chapter Two: 9/11 and the War on Terror in American Secondary Curriculum Fifteen Years Later—Jeremy Stoddard & Diana Hess

Chapter Three: Including 9/11 in the Elementary Grades: State Standards, Digital Resources, and Children’s Books—Elizabeth Bellows

Chapter Four: How Patriotism Matters in U.S. Social Studies Classrooms Fifteen Years After 9/11—Mark T. Kissling

Chapter Five: National Identity and Citizenship in a Pluralistic Society: Educators’ Messages Following 9/11 and Charlie Hebdo—Lisa Gilbert

Chapter Six: The Courage of Hopelessness: Creative Disruption of Everyday Life in the Classroom—E. Wayne Ross

Chapter Seven: Civil Liberties, Media Literacy, and Civic Education in the Post-9/11 Era: Helping Students Think Conceptually in Order to Act Civically—Stephen S. Masyada & Elizabeth Yeager Washington

Chapter Eight: Role-Playing and Role-Dropping: Political Simulations as Portals to Pluralism in a Contentious Era—Jane C. Lo & Walter C. Parker

Chapter Nine: The Psychology of Controversial Issues Discussions: Challenges and Opportunities in a Polarized, Post-9/11 Society—Christopher H. Clark & Patricia G. Avery

Afterword—Ron Evans

If you are interested, you can purchase the paperback version of the book from Amazon. Dr. Washington and I will also be part of a panel at NCSS in December discussing the book. Hope to see you there!

Teaching US Foreign and Domestic Policy

Posted on May 3, 2016 by stevemasy

Here in Florida, one of the harder benchmarks to teach in Civics is SS.7.C.4.1: Differentiate concepts related to United States domestic and foreign policy. This particular benchmark has five clarifications, any one of which could be what the EOCA focuses on at the end of the year:

Students will recognize the difference between domestic and foreign
policy.
Students will identify issues that relate to U.S. domestic and foreign
policy.
Students will analyze the domestic implications of U.S. domestic and
foreign policy.
Students will identify the goals and objectives of U.S. domestic and
foreign policy.
Students will recognize the role of the U.S. State Department in
foreign affairs

Thanks to the work of our own Peggy Renihan and our friend Alana Simmons in Bay, we have review, remediation, and instructional support materials that you might find useful as you approach this benchmark (or if you are outside of Florida and teaching similar concepts.

Powerpoint

4.1 PPT capture

The Powerpoint provides an overview of the benchmark and its clarifications and engages students in reading strategies to explore the concepts and ideas while reinforcing content.

Click on C.4.1 to download the Powerpoint!

Warm-up, Reading, and Review Activities

One thing to remember about the Civics EOCA here in Florida is that much of the test requires students to read and interpret primary sources, and the requirements placed on item writers limits how much they can adapt the sources (in short, they pretty much cannot). So you want to make sure that you are providing your students with a number of opportunities to read and use complex texts. This is especially true for this difficult benchmark. Here are a number of texts that can be used in conjunction with the Powerpoint (or without it, if you are so inclined. The resources use a text coding approach to help students breakdown the readings.

Warm up and Carousel Reading

Newsela AA

You can access the Newsela version of the article for this activity here.

Benchmark Clarification One Reading Task (Recognize the difference between foreign and domestic policy)–adapted from iCivics materials integrated into FJCC lessons

Click on 4.1 BC1 SFR and Task to download this resource.

Benchmark Clarification Two Reading Task (Identify issues related to foreign and domestic policy)

Reading tools

Click on 4.1 BC2 SFR and Task to download this resource.

Benchmark Clarification Three Cartoon Task (Analyze the domestic implications of US foreign policy)

Cartoon Axctivity

Click on SS7C41 Analysis Activity Political Cartoon to download this resource.

I hope you find these useful. If you have any additional resources to share, please leave them in comments or shoot me an email!

New Resource for History and Government!

Posted on April 27, 2016 by stevemasy

Students Investigating Primary Sources, or SIPS, is a brand new free resource from the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship. This new resource is a K-12 collection of brief introductory mini-lessons centered on particular topics and primary sources. These materials were created in collaboration with the National Archives, Pinellas County Public Schools, and Brevard Public Schools. We will be adding additional grade level materials as they are developed. Please note that the page has issues loading on Internet Explorer!

We are very excited to share this with folks, and we hope that you find this useful. Currently, we have resources for high school US History and US Government, but as stated above, we will be adding additional K-12 resources as they are developed, and you are welcome to adapt these current mini-lessons for use in your state. Most excitingly, as the logos show, these are created in direct collaboration with the National Archives, drawing on their resources in conjunction with some of their excellent personnel. As always, however, we wanted to make sure that teachers have a voice, so we brought teachers and district leaders in from Brevard and Pinellas Counties. The resources are available as a PDF and in Word; simply click on ‘Download Original’ to access the Word version if you wish to modify it!

I hope that you find these useful. Please keep an eye out for additional resources as we move forward. We are grateful for our friends at the National Archives and our county partners for their work with the FJCC team! Oh, and our own Val McVey will be presenting on SIPS at NCSS in December! You can access the free SIPS resources on our website.