Management of "wicked problems", messy real-world problems that defy resolution, requires thinkers who can transcend disciplinary boundaries, work collaboratively, and handle complexity and obstacles. This paper explores how educators can train undergraduates in these skills through applied community-based research, using the example of…

Is it actually certain that our students are changing during our social studies classes? This paper aims to reveal structural development and evaluation in social studies education which is related to national curriculum requirements and focused on particular students in order to test the effectiveness of the lesson. In order to increase students'…

With contributions from leading experts across disciplinary fields, this book explores best practices from the field's most notable researchers, as well as important historically based and politically focused challenges to a field whose impact has reached an important crossroads. The comprehensive and powerfully critical analysis considers the…

Stress has an established association with depression. However, not all adolescents experiencing stressors become depressed and it is helpful to identify potential resilience factors. The current study tests a theoretical extension of a stress-diathesis model of depression in a Chinese context, with stress, coping, family relationships, and…

Service-learning projects help students make connections to their community and help them to think about civic participation. The projects can range from very simple short-term philanthropy to very complex direct involvement by the students across multiple years. Students learn both social problem-solving skills and academic knowledge through…

Intended to help Future Farmers of America (FFA) members develop skills in improving their communities under the Building Our American Community Program, this publication provides guidance on how FFA chapter members can be active citizens and use democratic processes. Section I, Identifying and Analyzing Communities, consists of four chapters.…

Dawson, Fairfax County/U.S.A. is a hypothetical community developed by the authors as a teaching aid for undergraduate and graduate courses in environmental engineering, providing a context for problem solving and role playing. It was contrived to provide students opportunities to: (1) identify important community relationships, (2) appreciate the…

This handbook, a how-to-do-it summary, explains the needs assessment in adult education programs. It contains workshop materials necessary for developing an organized needs assessment. Needs assessment, a systematic method of identifying what needs to be done in a given area, is operationally analyzed according to symptoms, problems, diagnosis,…

How fiction is used in a college-level political science seminar to teach about democratic decision making and U.S. politics is described. The fiction used is clustered around the following topics: community-level decisions, limits to consensus, group values and politics, acquiring elected offices and trying to keep them, and public bureaucracies.…

An approach for classifying the cognitive levels of social studies teachers' verbalized and written questions is presented. The system can be used by teachers to plan discussions intended to involve students in higher level thinking. (RM)

The strength of communities is defined by the ways in which people help each other, and provide information, emotional support or other resources to those who have problems or who want to change or improve their lives in some way. The Helping Network Study focuses on the the quality of community, on the parts of helping systems that people use…

A series of check sheets developed for the use of Teacher Corps Comunity Councils in their daily work are compiled in a single volume. The check sheets are intended to assist in developing strength from which they can share equally with the school district and the college in planning, implementing, and evaluating their Teacher Corps projects. In…

To continue to be an effective local educational leader in curricular change, fiscal policy making, and, above all, in planning for education, the school administrator must have a continuous flow of usable information on public opinion. The purpose of this book is to provide the administrator with practical methods for systematically monitoring…

This resource unit, developed by University of Minnesota's Project Social Studies as part of a course on Our Political System, introduces eighth graders to decision making at the local level. This unit, much shorter than the others in the course, attempts to have pupils use concepts learned earlier to analyze one or more crucial problems in their…

This monograph provides a description of the teaching methods and goals of the "Assessment of Neighborhood/Transnational Human Relations through Original Studies" (ANTHROS) project. ANTHROS is a team-effort community discovery project for young people between the ages of 15 and 20. Its aim is to increase knowledge of the international links of…