Project based learning is an essential component of good civics education for a number of reasons.
First, projects are a great way for students to actually practice being good citizens. They can develop policy solutions, research problems, and interview public officials. They can research candidates and make informed decisions. These are opportunities to learn by doing and become prepared to be engaged citizens after graduation.
Second, project based learning helps make learning more authentic. After students learn about the nuts and bolts of politics, these opportunities to put them into practice show them why things matter. Understanding the legislative process is one thing, but watching a resolution wind its way through the city council makes it come to life.
Finally, tackling problems in this way helps build up a student’s political efficacy – their feeling that they can actually have an impact on their community. It doesn’t matter what students learn about the government if they don’t think that their actions or their vote matters, so it’s important to build up that sense of efficacy.
Towards the end of each week, I like to take stock of what’s been going on around the country (and the world) in civics. This weekly recap highlights a few stories of note. This week, the first story is about a new comic book you can use to teach civics. Then, a researcher describes her […]
Every week, I like to take a moment to highlight stories about civics education from around the country (and sometimes the world). So here’s a quick round up from the first week in September. There’s a great article from the National Education Association in their magazine, NEA Today, highlighting the efforts of three civics educators. […]
So you’re thinking of assigning Project Citizen to your students – or maybe your teacher has assigned it to you – but you want some topic ideas to start with? Well here’s a list of five Project Citizen topic ideas to kick off your brainstorming session. Don’t know what Project Citizen is? That’s ok. Check […]
Project Citizen is a textbook and curriculum designed to help you teach civics through project based learning. You can make it the centerpiece of your civics class or incorporate it as an extended project into a history class. If you’re not familiar with the program, you can read more about Project Citizen here. But today […]
Every week, I take a moment to look back over the week’s news and op-eds related to civics education to see what’s going on around the country (and sometimes the world). This week was a slow news week, so it’s going to be a quick recap. Let’s dive in and see what’s going on. Another […]
Here’s a quick round-up of news articles and columns from around the country this week related to civics education. One article focuses on civics in action through project based learning in Florida. Another focuses on a push to lower the voting age in New York. And a third suggests that our failure to focus on […]
Good civics education gives students an opportunity to apply what they learn and practice being engaged citizens. This often involves some form of project based learning. Solutions Civics is another option that you can use to help structure and facilitate this process. It’s a series of lessons and resources developed by the Citizens Campaign. The […]
On Friday, November 10, I’ll be facilitating a professional development workshop on C-SPAN’s Classroom Deliberations at the NJEA Convention. But that won’t be the only presentation in Atlantic City that should appeal to civic educators. The Citizen’s Campaign is a non profit in New Jersey whose mission is to empower citizens to take a greater […]
Throughout the country, legislators are struggling to figure out how to improve civics education. Many people agree on the goal. They just don’t agree on the methods. In some cases, legislators have pursued misguided attempts to implement the citizenship test as a graduation requirement. This won’t do much, other than adding another barrier to graduation […]
Project Citizen is a project-based learning program created by the Center for Civic Education. It teaches students about public policy. It does so by leading them through the process of researching a problem and developing a proposal for the government to address that problem. The program is based on a textbook developed by the Center for […]