Open classroom climate for discussion (OCC) is consistently associated with positive civic outcomes for students, but research on the determinants of OCC primarily focuses on individual- and school-level indicators or uses qualitative or non-representative samples. This study considers how teacher instructional practices influence the presence of…

For three years, a flagship university-school partnership program developed a multifaceted approach to integrate news and current events into in-school and after-school instruction in K-6 schools. Three case studies detailing the program's impact on an undergraduate novice instructor, an in-school technology mentor, and an experienced classroom…

Where the author teaches is far from the ocean, bordered on one side by forests of ponderosa and by the High Desert on the other. So when his first graders walked into class on the Monday morning after the 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami along the coast of Japan--and their usual light conversations about the weekend included some sobering…

Student understanding and motivation are increased if history is taught from the present to the past with an emphasis on current affairs and their effect on the student

This document presents the proceedings of 16th Annual Research Forum held June 15, 2011, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Included herein are the following 25 action research papers: (1) The Effects of Prompted Math Journaling on Algebra 1 Students' Achievement and Attitudes (Heidi I. Arnold); (2) Group Work and Attitude…

The Problem Panel Project is an instructor-developed, one-semester course in contemporary problems. Based on the inquiry approach, the course is structured for independent research and group work and requires no traditionally-structured daily lesson plans. The course is divided into six procedural points. First, students decide which contemporary…

The underlying objective of this book is to review past and present curriculum patterns to emphasize the changes being carried out today so that preservice, beginning, and experienced teachers may glean some new ideas about involving the child in the process of learning. All of the social disciplines help explain the complex process of man's…

Educational research on the social studies since the 1960's, indicating that many changes have occurred yet implying that there is still a further need for research and improvement, is summarized in this booklet. Because the vast amount of research on social studies makes it impractical to report a great deal of it, many of the findings reported…