Get started with an innovative approach to teaching history that develops literacy and higher-order thinking skills, connects the past to students' lives, and meets state and national standards (grades 7-12). Now in a second edition, this popular book provides an introductory unit to help teachers build a trustful classroom climate; over 70…

This collection of 10 My Favorite Assignments (MFA) was first presented at the 2023 Association for Business Communication Annual International Conference held Denver, Colorado, USA. Instructors can see innovative ideas for teaching current social issues, oral communication techniques, and methods to lead students to greater personal and…

In recent decades, nationalism has emerged from the distant purview of history to become the primary driver of some of the world's biggest news. Given the prominence of nationalist conflict, students in political science increasingly study the subject with modern references in mind. This article describes the design for a timely undergraduate…

James Loewen has revised "Teaching What Really Happened", the bestselling, go-to resource for social studies and history teachers wishing to break away from standard textbook retellings of the past. In addition to updating the scholarship and anecdotes throughout, the second edition features a timely new chapter entitled…

America's history books abound with stories of immigrants who contributed to the development of this country. In terms of social studies curriculum, all states require schools to teach about immigration. However, the question is how to teach this topic in a manner that will give students--elementary through high school--a better understanding of…

Students' observations about society often become the basis for class discussions in Peter Cipparone's fourth-grade classroom. As Chip Wood, an expert on child development, observed, nine-year-olds are often "struggling with the cognitive task of understanding ethical behavior at a new level." One of this author's goals…

Many social scientists have recently commented on the high levels of income inequality in the United States. Indeed, the last time income inequality was as great as it is today was 1928, the year before the stock market crash ushered in the Great Depression. In this article, the authors offer a historical look at income inequality and taxation in…

Data and primary source documents are important for understanding past and current events. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has committed itself to the collection and illumination of economic data and historical information for classroom teachers and researchers. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis provides a number of services--including…

Functional literacy is important in both English/language arts and geography. Using the "found poetry" strategy, students will summarize a piece of text, identify main ideas and find geographic connections. While using young adult literature is a great way to incorporate geography into English/language arts classroom, understanding of geography…

To teach scientific literacy to eighth graders, the authors created a yearlong project that emphasizes the various components and skills required to be a scientifically literate citizen. This project is broken into four separate components: skeptical thinking (pseudoscience), current-event article analysis, fiction and nonfiction literature, and…

This comprehensive, reader-friendly text demonstrates how personal connections can be incorporated into social studies education while meeting standards of the National Council for the Social Studies. Praised for its wealth of strategies that go beyond social studies content teaching--including classroom strategies, pedagogical techniques,…

Rice University has created a team-taught interactive biology course for nonmajors with a focus on cutting edge biology in the news--advances in biotechnology, medicine, and science policy, along with the biological principles and methodology upon which these advances are based. The challenges inherent to teaching current topics were minimized by…

Middle school history teachers confront the same challenge every day: how to convey the breadth and depth of a curriculum that spans centuries, countries, and cultures. In "Making History Mine", Sarah Cooper shows teachers how to use thematic instruction to link skills to content knowledge. By combining thought-provoking activities and rich…

In order to achieve its goals, the Social Studies course should convey social events, which took place within or out of the school context, into the classroom environment. Current events can be very beneficial so as to transfer the social events into classroom environment in the Social Studies courses. In this study, semi structured interview…

Barbara Petzen began working as a part-time outreach coordinator at Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) a week before September 11, 2001. She was finishing her dissertation in Middle Eastern studies, specializing in the Ottoman Empire and Arab history, and thought it would be a good job to have while she completed her…