Students in all content areas are almost exclusively presented with text-based instruction that starkly contrasts their experiences outside a classroom. With the advent of sophisticated technologies unknown to earlier generations, modern students are evermore immersed in visual data such as...

Public debates driven by incomplete scientific data where nobody can claim absolute certainty, due to the current state of scientific knowledge, are studied. The cases of evolution theory, global warming and H1N1 pandemic influenza are investigated. The first two are of controversial impact...

Purpose The recent motion picture Selma infused fresh interest – and controversy – into the political and emotional peak of America’s modern Civil Rights Movement. Ava DuVernay, the film’s director, faced criticism for her exclusion of the Jewish presence from the movie’s portrayal of...

Inquiry-based instruction in social studies began as a transformative movement whose proponents included Shirley Engle, Donald Oliver, and James Shaver in the middle of the twentieth-century. Inquiry-based instruction is relevant to twenty-first century social studies and is gaining even more...

Purpose Visual documents (e.g. maps, editorial cartoons, historical photographs, portraits, documentary films, historically-based movies, etc.) are common curriculum resources within social studies classrooms; however, only recently scholars have begun to systematically research ways to more...

Middle level teachers, at times, link historical content with relevant English literature in interdisciplinary units. Elementary teachers periodically employ history-themed literature during reading time. Interconnections between language arts and history are formed with developmentally...

State and national initiatives place an increased emphasis on both students’ exposure to diverse texts and teachers’ integration of English/language arts and history/social studies. The intent is for students to critically examine diverse accounts and perspectives of the same historical...

State and national initiatives provide teachers opportunities for interdisciplinary units with increased significance of non-fiction in English Language Arts and decreased reliance on the textbook in history and social studies. In these three disciplines, beginning in elementary school, students...

As most teachers realize, classroom discussions have limitations including time restraints, reserved participants, or domineering discussants. With the advent of Web 2.0, the opportunities for class discussion have expanded to include synchronous and asynchronous discussion boards, blogs, and...

College instructors are entering a new frontier of teaching in the 21st century. Millennial students are bringing to university classrooms different experiences regarding the ways they learn and engage in critical thinking. As online universities gain more popularity across the country, higher...