Citrus Ridge: A New PUBLIC SCHOOL Civics Academy in Florida

Posted on July 6, 2016 by stevemasy

Over the past few months, the Florida Joint Center for Citizenship has worked with teachers, administrators, and district leaders in Polk County to help with the creation of a brand new public school, one dedicated to K-8 civic education: Citrus Ridge.

Breaking Ground

Citrus Ridge, created with the support of local Congressman Dennis Ross, is a K-8 institution that will embed civic learning and civic life throughout school governance, relationships, and curriculum.

civics ridge

Citrus Ridge’s very mission statement is centered around civics and the importance of civic life:

Community
Inclusion
Variety
Innovation
Collaboration
Success

Discussing CIVICS

Our own Valerie McVey and Peggy Renihan, as well as our Teacher Practioners in Residence, have been heavily involved in the planning and work with Citrus Ridge. Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the first leadership team meeting for the school, and it was a great joy to see these teachers and administrators hard at work in learning about and understanding how the emphasis on civic life makes Citrus Ridge a unique public school.

First Steps

A heavy emphasis was placed on ensuring that school culture reflects that civic engagement and civic learning.

school culture

T.U.D.E aligns well with both the C3 Framework and with the Six Proven Practices of Civic Education, both of which will play a role in the curriculum and instruction of the school.

So what exactly is T.U.D.E? These principles draw on a number of sources for inspiration: the state of Florida’s civics benchmarks, the C3 Framework, the Six Proven Practices, and others. Take a look at them below. How do you see them reflecting the importance of civic knowledge, civic skills, and civic dispositions?

TUDE

Most excitingly, we are in the process of finding ways to integrate the concept of action civics into the school and curriculum. It will involve students in addressing problems within their school and community, developing the skills of citizenship such as collaboration, critical thinking, deliberation, and discussion, and encourage students to ‘live’ their citizenship. Some examples are: providing towels for an animal shelter, discussing more recess time versus special area versus free choice, deliberating the school dress code, and thinking critically about the causes and effects of current event that effects our community, state, or nation. Indeed, our new action civics coordinator (reviewing applications now!) will spend a great deal of time at Citrus Ridge as we start to launch this school into the civic stratosphere.

There is so much more to say and do concerning Citrus Ridge: A Civics Academy. We will keep you updated as we get closer to the start of the year and into the new school year. FJCC is excited and grateful for the opportunity to work with some excellent people on this, and let me just thank all of the team that has worked so hard to get this off of the ground. It is a great step forward for civic education in Florida and, we hope, it will be a model for this state and the nation!

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!

A Quick Look at Three Ways to Approach Picture Analysis

Posted on February 17, 2016 by stevemasy

As educators, we are always looking for new ways to approach our content and engage our students. A few weeks ago, the FJCC had the pleasure of providing professional development to teachers in Highlands County, a small rural county here in Florida very similar to where your humble blog host spent much of his early career. While there, I had the chance to speak with Holly Ard. Holly basically functions as the social studies specialist in the district while still teaching her own classes, and does excellent work.

One of the most difficult tasks for students to do, particularly at the lower grades, is to interpret primary sources, especially visual sources. While we stress the importance of primary sources, we often fail to actually provide teachers or students with the tools necessary to use them! This, in a time when disciplinary literacy has re-emerged as an important element of social studies teacher education thanks in part to the C3 Framework. Holly has attempted to address this issue by integrating a Picture Analysis Strategy. The strategy she uses is aimed at students of differing ability levels, and in talking with her, it seems to work well in engaging students with somewhat difficult content!

Working with partners, students individually break down the image, using the guide below. Note that the four ‘boxes’ represent the four quadrants of the image, a popular approach for image analysis. Having students create a title for the image does a nice job getting to the Common Core/Florida Standards expectation that students should be able to summarize text of all kinds. What else is a good a title than a really short and really strong summary of text?

Another way to approach image analysis is seen below. This version of the analysis template can be done with a partner or individually. I appreciate how it seeks to have students connect it directly to what they are learning. Relations between content and context is important.

I especially love this version of the picture analysis activity, which may be most useful for paintings or photographs of a perhaps persuasive bent.

Thanks, Holly, for sharing these approaches. We look forward to more goodness from you!

By the way, if you are looking for resources in Civics or History that can help kids with primary sources, I encourage you to check out the Stanford History Education Group!

What do we want in a social studies teacher?

Posted on January 7, 2016 by stevemasy

Recently, the National Council for the Social Studies released its National Standards for the Preparation of Social Studies Teachers guidance document for public review. If you are a parent, pre-service social studies teacher or teacher educator, current or former teacher, or, honestly, simply an engaged citizen with a concern for the future, I encourage you to check it out and provide them with feedback. The document, which runs about 23 pages, provides an overview of five core competencies that are important in social studies teacher education.

Each section of the report dives deeper into each of the core competencies. No doubt, there will be some comments raised about the inclusion of ‘social justice’, knowing that that particular term was once removed from standards of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (now the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation), for good or ill. I do appreciate the emphasis on inquiry, skills, and knowledge as having an equal role in teacher preparation, though the references to C3 could be an issue in states where that program is (unfortunately) not adopted.

As a civic educator, I cannot help but notice that there is a HUGE amount of attention paid to varying elements of civic education and competency. Obviously, if we consider that social studies is at the heart of instruction in good citizenship, this is important, but it’s ultimately necessary that these standards make clear that civics must necessarily connect to other content areas in our field, and I think they do that adequately.

You can review the standards here, and I encourage you to do so and reflect on them before you complete the survey here.

NCSS 2016 Conference!

Posted on January 6, 2016 by stevemasy

The National Council for the Social Studies 2016 Conference is in Washington, DC this year. And this being an election season, with the Conference just after the election, you KNOW it will be FUN! Last year’s conference in New Orleans was fantastic, and I have no doubt there will be a plethora of great sessions again this year. I admit, however, that I am really hoping for more elementary-oriented civics education session. So if you have some good ideas, submit a proposal! Conference information and proposal submission guidelines are below. Note: there continues to be an emphasis on the C3 Framework, so a proposal that integrates elements of the 4 Dimensions of the C3 would probably get more attention! Information below is provided by NCSS. You can submit your proposal here.

Theme: Civic Learning and Cultural Inquiry in a Changing World

Presentation Types

You may propose a presentation in any of the following formats:

Pre-Conference Clinic (3 or 6 hours)
Ticketed half-day or full-day explorations of specific topics. All clinics will be held on Thursday, December 1, prior to the main conference program.
Session (1 hour)
Informal presentations that include opportunities for audience participation. All sessions will be presented on Friday and Saturday
Poster presentation (1 hour)
An opportunity for presenters to illustrate an innovative lesson, teaching strategy, or research result. All poster presentations will be offered on Friday and Saturday.
Power session (30 minutes) New for 2016!
Short, focused, specific presentations that need little introduction. Power sessions will be presented on Friday and Saturday.
Workshop (2 hours)
A more intensive format with time for hands-on experiences. All workshops will be presented on Sunday morning, December 4.

Sub-Themes

As you draft your proposal for the 2016 NCSS conference, consider how your presentation might address one or more of the conference sub-themes.

Inquiry in civic learning and historical and current issues

Does your proposal examine ways civic learning can be woven into the study of both historical and current issues facing our students today?

Inquiry in current pedagogy of the social studies

Does your proposal examine new ways to teach all disciplines of the social studies from a lens of inquiry-based learning?

Inquiry in global learning in today’s classroom

Does your proposal examine ways to help students in social studies classrooms develop an understanding of the world and complex global issues?

Inquiry in social justice and cultural diversity

Does your proposal examine cultural diversity in our country and globally as well as issues of social justice that arise in pluralistic societies?

Inquiry in the future of social studies

Does your proposal examine the threatened value of social studies across the country and what educators can do to promote a quality social studies education for all students?

Before You Click Submit

Please review our tips on Writing a Winning Proposal

You can also watch this short demonstration on how to craft a conference proposal.

Historically, the acceptance rate for sessions has been approximately 50 percent. For workshops, the acceptance rate has been lower, and for poster presentations higher.

Presentation slots are limited. For this reason, presenters may not appear on the program in more than two presentations.

All proposals will be reviewed blind (with no names attached) and scored by multiple reviewers. The Program Planning Committee will make its selection from the top ranked proposals. We encourage you to volunteer to be a proposal reviewer. There is no better way to hone one’s submission skills. Remember, reviewers get a discount on conference registration!

Click Here to Volunteer to be a Reviewer

Presenter Registration

All presenters are required to register for the conference by the advanced registration deadline. Online registration opens in June 2016. NCSS does not reimburse conference presenters for travel or hotel expenses.

Presentation Materials and Audio-Visual Equipment

Presenters are responsible for providing any materials they plan to use or distribute in their presentation. They are also responsible for the costs of any A-V equipment needed. You will find those costs listed on the proposal form. If your proposal is accepted, NCSS will confirm your audiovisual needs and you will be billed for the options you choose.

Commercial Solicitation

Commercial solicitation is prohibited at all presentations. If you are representing a commercial interest, your presentation must be educational in nature. If the essential purpose of a proposal is to promote books, materials, or services for sale, it will not be accepted.

Notification

Acceptance/rejection notification will be sent via email to the primary presenters by the end of May. It is their responsibility to relay that information to all co-presenters. Scheduling information will be sent to all participants during the summer.

Submission Deadline

The submission deadline is February 16, 2016. No proposals will be accepted after this date.

Submit your proposal here.

SOURCES Annual Conference

Posted on November 24, 2015 by stevemasy

Good morning, civics friends. This post is just a reminder that the SOURCES Annual Conference, put on by Dr. Scott Waring here at UCF, is coming soon, and it is worth your time and energy to attend. I went last year, and it was simply fantastic. If you are looking for excellent professional development on using primary sources in the classroom, this is what you are looking for. Information on the conference is below, and you can register here! The main conference page is here. Take a look at the overview below, and we hope to see you there!

SOURCES Annual Conference

University of Central Florida

Orlando, Florida

January 16, 2016

The Teaching with Primary Sources Program at the University of Central Florida (TPS-UCF) will be hosting the second annual SOURCES Annual Conference at the University of Central Florida on January 16, 2016. The SOURCES Annual Conference is a free opportunity available to any educators interested in the utilization and integration of primary sources into K-12 teaching. Presenters will focus on providing strategies for using primary sources to help K-12 students engage in learning, develop critical thinking skills, and build content knowledge, specifically in one or more of the following ways:

Justifying conclusions about whether a source is primary or secondary depending upon the time or topic under study;
Describing examples of the benefits of teaching with primary sources;
Analyzing a primary source using Library of Congress tools;
Accssing teaching tools and primary sources from www.loc.gov/teachers;
Identifying key considerations for selecting primary sources for instructional use (for example, student needs and interests, teaching goals, etc.);
Accessing primary sources and teaching resources from www.loc.gov for instructional use;
Analyzing primary sources in different formats;
Analyzing a set of related primary sources in order to identify multiple perspectives;
Demonstrating how primary sources can support at least one teaching strategy (for example, literacy, inquiry-based learning, historical thinking, etc.); and
Presenting a primary source-based activity that helps students engage in learning, develop critical thinking skills and construct knowledge.

Dr. Joel Breakstone, of Stanford University, will provide the Keynote Presentation, Beyond the Bubble: A New Generation of History Assessments. In this session, he will discuss about and present ways in which educators can use assessments designed by the Stanford History Education Group to incorporate Library of Congress documents. Participants will examine assessments and sample student responses. Additional session titles include the following:

Designating for Assignment: Using Baseball to Tell the Story of Race in America Socratic Circles and Primary Sources: Students Generate Essential Questions
Galaxy of Wonder
Education Resources from the Library of Congress focused on the Social Sciences & Literacy
How do I know If It’s Primary? Research Questions and Primary Sources
ESRI Story Maps and Integrating LOC Resources
Mapping the American Revolution
Primary Sources: Find Them, Choose Them, and Use Them Well
Sites of African-American Memory
Who Is Bias: the Media or Us?
A Professional Development and Curriculum Model for the Use of Historical Literacy
Magnifying How We See, Think, and Wonder: Fostering Critical Literacy Among Young Learners Using Library of Congress Primary Sources
Sourcing in a Flash!
Primary Sources: A Lens to View History
Bringing Fiction to Life Using Primary Sources
Playing with Primary Sources: Game-Based Learning with Resources from The Library of Congress
Engage English Learners and Other Diverse Learners with Primary Sources
Creating a Sound Argument Using Primary Sources
Teaching with Primary Sources: African American Sacred Music
Veterans History Project: Learning About US Conflicts Through the Eyes of a Veteran
Is North Up? : Exploring the Nature of Maps
Differentiation Using Primary Sources from the Library
Using Primary Sources for Digital DBQs and other Assessments to meet Literacy Standards.
Vetting or Developing Text Sets to Teach Rich Content

Registration is free and is now open for the SOURCES Annual Conference. Please visit the conference web site to register: http://www.sourcesconference.com/registration.html

Advocacy in Action Student Video Contest!

Posted on October 28, 2015 by stevemasy

Our colleague in Escambia, Cherie Arnette, sent this my way, and it fits so perfectly with the civic mission of schools and the work we do as a community in helping students grow into an engaged citizenship. The Center for Effective Government is sponsoring an ‘Advocacy in Action’ video contest for high school students.

From the CEG website:

The Advocacy in Action video contest and lesson plan help students make real-world Social Studies connections. Students will:

Use our interactive map to locate their school and identify nearby facilities that may be putting them at risk

Learn how our government regulates these facilities and how they can be made safer

Explore essential communications strategies

Become active, engaged citizens

Together, we can advocate for companies to use safer chemicals, and make our communities healthier. Our student video contest is one way to do this. And you could win $1,000!

Here’s how it works: Create a short video that explores the safety of your community from harmful chemicals. Your video could raise awareness on this issue, pressure facilities to do better, and encourage the government to require the use of safer chemicals.

You can choose to submit your video in one of two categories: a 60 second “Public Service Announcement” video category or a 5-7 minute mini-documentary category that explores the risks your community or state faces from chemical facilities.

The contest is open to high school students in the United States. Videos, along with all required forms, must be completed by 11:59pm on March 18, 2016. We will announce winners in May. Please carefully read our guidelines and contest rules before submitting a video.

I encourage you to consider engaging your students in this project! What is also exciting, to me at least, as that we can connect this to dimensions of the C3 framework. It lends itself well to developing key questions, using a particular disciplinary lens, researching a problem and solution, and communicating findings and taking action! We would LOVE to share it if anyone take a C3 approach to this advocacy contest!

You can find all information about the contest here, including the guidelines, rubric, and FAQ. Good luck!

Advocacy in Action Student Video Contest!

Posted on October 28, 2015 by stevemasy

From the CEG website:

The Advocacy in Action video contest and lesson plan help students make real-world Social Studies connections. Students will:

Use our interactive map to locate their school and identify nearby facilities that may be putting them at risk

Learn how our government regulates these facilities and how they can be made safer

Explore essential communications strategies

Become active, engaged citizens

Together, we can advocate for companies to use safer chemicals, and make our communities healthier. Our student video contest is one way to do this. And you could win $1,000!

Here’s how it works: Create a short video that explores the safety of your community from harmful chemicals. Your video could raise awareness on this issue, pressure facilities to do better, and encourage the government to require the use of safer chemicals.

You can choose to submit your video in one of two categories: a 60 second “Public Service Announcement” video category or a 5-7 minute mini-documentary category that explores the risks your community or state faces from chemical facilities.

The contest is open to high school students in the United States. Videos, along with all required forms, must be completed by 11:59pm on March 18, 2016. We will announce winners in May. Please carefully read our guidelines and contest rules before submitting a video.

You can find all information about the contest here, including the guidelines, rubric, and FAQ. Good luck!

Teaching Primary Sources Coaches Academy PD Opportunity!

Posted on May 22, 2015 by stevemasy

Friends, despite the unfortunate nature of the previous post, we do have some EXCELLENT news and a great opportunity for professional development for you to consider. This comes to us from Dr. Scott Waring, a Fellow here at the FJCC and one of the leading social studies teacher educators in the state. I would love to take part in this myself!!!! At the very least, please check out the link below to the Teaching With Primary Sources program. This past SOURCES conference, which I had the pleasure of attending, was also very well done and worth your time. Kudos to Dr. Waring for the leading role he has taken in helping teachers use primary sources, and I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity! The course will be meeting at UCF on Tuesday nights from either 5:00 or 6:00 until 7:30 or 8:30. The semester begins on August 24th, and the course will last for just the first eight weeks, instead of the typical sixteen weeks.

TPS-UCF-Coaches_Academy_15_Application

“Funded through a grant from the Library of Congress, the Teaching with Primary Sources Program at the University of Central Florida (TPS-UCF) delivers professional development to help K-12 educators, across the state, provide high-quality classroom instruction using the millions of digitized primary sources available from the Library of Congress. Through ongoing, year-round professional development events, the TPS program at the University of Central Florida helps educators unleash the power of primary sources in the classroom.

Currently, there is space available in the TPS-UCF Coaches Academy training this fall. This training will be in the form of a graduate course (Teaching with Primary Sources in the History Classroom) at the University of Central Florida. All participants will have tuition covered, and successful completers will receive three graduate credits of Social Science Education (SSE) coursework.

Would you (or one of your colleagues) like to be trained as one of the TPS-UCF Coaches in this Academy? Among other things, the TPS Coach will provide support to fellow teachers in enabling them to search for primary sources through the Library of Congress’ web site and empowering them to create engaging lessons that are focused around the use of primary sources.

I invite you to nominate yourself or a colleague. It is important that you confirm that your school or district is open to explore the value of having a TPS coach and will be supportive the candidate, if chosen. Thus, administrator support is required. There will be a great investment in time and money to train you as a new TPS Coach, and I ask that you consider carefully how your school will make use of the expanded knowledge about using primary sources. Please return the application to Dr. Scott Waring (swaring@ucf.edu), as soon as possible.”

The application is below and at the top of this post, but if you are unable to print it out or the link does not work for you, please shoot me an email at stephen.masyada@ucf.edu and I will send you a copy, or just contact Dr. Waring at the email address he has provided.

TPS-UCF-Coaches_Academy_15_Application

Civic Studies

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Category Archives: C3

Citrus Ridge: A New PUBLIC SCHOOL Civics Academy in Florida

Advocacy in Action Student Video Contest!

Advocacy in Action Student Video Contest!

Teaching Primary Sources Coaches Academy PD Opportunity!