This study examines how a social studies methods course, with an emphasis in civic education, is taught and carried through from its original implementation within a teacher education social studies course to practicing teachers’ classrooms. Findings suggest that by implementing social action...

This paper focuses on how one Student Teacher (ST) shifted his planning from teacher activities to student learning during a semester-long student-teaching practicum course in social studies. The study of this shift provides a glimpse of the enormity of the ST’s task and the ways in which he...

Turkey is located in one of the most significant active seismic regions in the world. The country also is subject to many other natural and manmade disasters. In 2004, the Turkish Primary Education curriculum was revised radically with hazard education being included in social studies programs....

In working with pre-service and beginning middle grades social studies teachers, the authors have found that those teachers often struggle to organize and sequence content in meaningful ways. Although many national and state curriculum writing bodies have provided organizational frameworks to...

Challenging students to create digital documentary films in history courses engages students in both mastery of content knowledge and higher order thinking experiences. Teachers considering this type of work must contend with the focus on standards-based testing, a wide breadth of content to be...

The purpose of this study was to use the inquiry process to engage fifth grade students in a community-based project that would educate them about what it means to be a civic-minded citizen. While the unique nature of any community-based project prevents exact replication of the project in...

This article examines ways in which graduates of an online teacher certification program integrate technology into social studies instruction. With dramatic growth in the number of online teacher certification programs, educators are faced with how to ensure their graduates incorporate effective...

Recreational use of MP3 players, cell phones, computers and/or video game units is on the rise among today’s students. This article helps teachers integrating economics into their classrooms plug into this M2 frenzy. It identifies numerous high-quality resources with economic content that are...

In this paper, we outline the rationale for developing the Survey of the Status of Social Studies (S4). The instrument contains items for analyzing the organizational structure, instructional decision-making, professional attitudes, and demographics of social studies teachers....

The U.S. has a deficit problem. Both political parties agree that the debt and the deficit must be addressed, but are at odds about how to do so. Worse still, there are members of both parties who make finding solutions difficult because of entrenched ideology. As we approach the second year of...