With the midterm elections at the forefront of many of our minds this week, I decided to focus last Sunday's #caedchat on strategies and resources for teaching the election and government, and was lucky to have friend, former social studies teacher, podcast host and educator extraordinaire, Ryan O'Donnell, join me to co-moderate and offer his extensive repertoire of social studies pedagogy and resources to the conversation.
We had a great turnout of educators from all grade levels, who shared fantastic resources, strategies and insights to help other teachers get the conversation around the election and the voting process going in their own classrooms. The prevailing theme of the evening? All agreed that more needs to be done to teach students about our government and their role within it. And our chat participants had some great ideas for teaching civics not just in our history classes, but cross-curricularly in all grade levels and subject areas, including articles, lesson plans and protocols from iCivics, Newsela, and the NYTimes, just to name a few.
So to help us do that, below are a few of my own classroom resources for teaching government/election across the curriculum, as well as some of my favorite resources and teaching tips from Sunday evening's #CAedchat:
Introduction to Government hyperdoc for our 2nd graders
Scratch Project with our 2nd graders: They wanted to create a voting app to help improve the vote counting process.
FYI-- slide deck is an ongoing work in progress based on what my students need as they work throught their project :)Raspberry Pi voting Booth project-- breadboarding buttons & LEDs
(created for grades 3-5)We introduced our 48 second graders to @scratch today! Our design opp? How to improve the speed in which ballots are counted (after reading @Newsela article)... Ss learning to code & prototyping a voting app! #CUSDRockstar #dtk12chat #CSed #MakerEd #caedchat #K2CanToo #csk8 pic.twitter.com/gwKEcoHY7l— Amanda Haughs (@MsHaughs) November 9, 2018
A6) Thank you @facinghistory , thoughtful resource on fostering civil discourse. Page 11 strategy, building silent conversation.https://t.co/DdNvHVWc1a #caedchat— Rachael Collins (@rcollins_edu) November 5, 2018
A8) Teaching Tolerance .org is such a great resource. For example this link about staying non-partisanhttps://t.co/f966jWQZV9— Ryan O'Donnell (@creativeedtech) November 5, 2018
“Staying nonpartisan doesn’t mean staying quiet”#caedchat
A6: Good model for how to treat controversial topics - treated in a balanced way - is procon: https://t.co/W9UAbVdm9a #caedchat— Rick Stevens (@rickeducation) November 5, 2018
A6) present both sides, prepare yourself & Ss by acknowledging own bias, teach civil discourse, create norms for tough conversations #caedchat— R. Solorzano-Duenas (@historyhistory4) November 5, 2018
A6 Simply ask how they feel about the thing THEN use their feelings as the fuel for creating their response. This creation can be the most integrated, rigorous, beautiful synthesis of their high-order thinking. You can assess the crap out of it. #caedchat #pbl https://t.co/MGEuqs3ipy— Mike Strong (@MrStrong3rd) November 5, 2018
A6: One approach I have used with controversial topics is anonymous polling, Apps, clickers, whatever - help get the conversation going. It is critical to allow voices to be heard. https://t.co/3aHPXJ4n4T #caedchat— Rick Stevens (@rickeducation) November 5, 2018
We used Structured Academic Controveries (SAC) with our students.https://t.co/ouDvmm3Tjc#caedchat— Karalee Nakatsuka 🐸 (@historyfrog) November 5, 2018
A6) Plus check out this from— Ryan O'Donnell (@creativeedtech) November 5, 2018
Facilitating Challenging Conversationshttps://t.co/qBRNfaHMMx #caedchat
Yes! Combined CS w/history last couple years and worked w/Ss to create digital voting booths w/@Raspberry_Pi & @scratch Other classes came through to vote on our machines #caedchat https://t.co/iBKeOAAZ2h— Amanda Haughs (@MsHaughs) November 5, 2018
Three branches of government. Important concept for students to learn. #caedchat https://t.co/OBnZGdG0j3— LemarrTreadwell M.Ed (@LemarrTreadwell) November 5, 2018
https://t.co/9nI1fAZeru (So you think you can Vote lesson is great)— Karalee Nakatsuka 🐸 (@historyfrog) November 5, 2018
Electoral Dysfunction Video w Mo Rocca--available online
Today's CBS Sunday morning:https://t.co/0Ly4QYa5PI
BrainPOP#caedchat pic.twitter.com/Si3sZghtGo
Q4) Here is a shameless plug regarding this topic! I co-host a podcast called “Talking Social Studies” (w/ @CHitch94 @STLinOK @ScottPadway— Ryan O'Donnell (@creativeedtech) November 5, 2018
& we had an episode all about Teach The Election. You can see our show notes here https://t.co/TKyS5PXRGs#caedchat
Agreed @MrStrong3rd! I think media literacy ties in well too. Always trying to figure out what this all looks like at primary level— so far, mainly talks around empathy and respect #caedchat https://t.co/b5RBPR4Cfe— Amanda Haughs (@MsHaughs) November 5, 2018
A3: In the past we’ve had Ss learn more about a local proposition on the ballot, and create persuasive ad either for/against. We started talking generally about how Bill becomes a law this year and relating to how we can pitch ideas for rules needed on campus #caedchat https://t.co/qqZqJSKjds— Amanda Haughs (@MsHaughs) November 5, 2018
The goal is for our Ss to be knowledgeable, active, participatory, and to be critical thinkers! #caedchat @creativeedtech @MsHaughs C3 Framework #sschat @CAsocialstudies @scottmpetri #sschat https://t.co/IT2FsHFCRc https://t.co/nj0ZiIWdo5— 🥑Connie Mimura (@MsMimura) November 5, 2018
A3: I thought these were some good tips https://t.co/AfeJq9MxJS #caedchat— Dale Chu (@Dale_Chu) November 5, 2018
A2) We need to rise above the standards & stress the local vote. Low voter turnout and general apathy become a part of that conversation. We need to share the data with our kids. Midterm Math Infographic from @icivics! https://t.co/6d7vWKqMDF#caedchat— Rachael Collins (@rcollins_edu) November 5, 2018
A2 Government should be relevant to our students' lives. Service learning like @crfusa 's Civic Action Project and awards like https://t.co/v7aEGdVtS0 are essential. #caedchat— Scott M. Petri (@scottmpetri) November 5, 2018
A1 Most recently we took a look at inequalities found in the power line undergrounding plan map for the city of San Diego. #caedchat https://t.co/BhZo9Fr0i3— Mike Strong (@MrStrong3rd) November 5, 2018
A2) One of my fav tools for helping students understand how we elect who we do in our wacky Electoral College, is to walk them through this site https://t.co/AcPYWb2gHY . The maps of past elections is eye opening. #caedchat— Ryan O'Donnell (@creativeedtech) November 5, 2018
I would have liked the students to hold a Skype Conference with a local/statewide candidate with prepared questions. Live interview would be engaging and relevant. @FresnoEdTech #caedchat https://t.co/rZpqiKmXHQ— LemarrTreadwell M.Ed (@LemarrTreadwell) November 5, 2018
