Elementary students in North Carolina are not required to take social studies standardized tests. As a result, assumptions about social studies instruction have emerged. The assumptions represent perceptions or misperceptions about whether the subject is being taught, whether it is valued, and...

This article provides a starting place for teachers wanting to dabble with the latest trend in technology—podcasting. The authors present a general overview of a tool that will most likely be part of the teaching vernacular, if not now, in the very near future. We offer a short tutorial on...

Out of diminishing democratic ideals upon which this country was founded due to the blurring of the governmental branches by the current administration, one of the most worrisome is the piece of NCLB (2001) that has decreased the teaching of social studies in the early childhood/elementary...

Evaluating the effectiveness of an internationally-developed civic education curriculum, this study randomly sampled 1,015 students to assess student learning about democracy in Ukraine. Statistically significant differences were found between male and female Ukrainian students who participated...

This action research uses grounded theory and constant comparative analysis of electronic portfolios to explore how prospective secondary social studies teachers connect theories and practices of democratic education to give meaning to the complexity of learning how to teach in more democratic...

Nearly twenty years ago, Kelly (1986) forcefully argued that teachers had a responsibility to disclose their positions on controversial issues during discussion. Yet, while thoroughly grounded in theory, Kelly did not include classroom teachers’ responses in his call for teacher disclosure....

Even though young children ask many questions, the request for a question usually receives a story in response. The purpose of this action research was to determine if the implementation of questioning activities throughout the curriculum would make kindergartners aware of questions and enhance...

Teachers comment that there is no time in the day to cover social studies as they struggle to implement new programs designed to increase the reading levels of the students in their classrooms. Successfully adapting the project called Kids Voting USA during the fall, 2004 election helped...

The cost of war is extremely high. Human, monetary, and physical resources are all used in abundance during war. World War I was no exception. This war of attrition forced governments to devise means of convincing people on the home front to continue fighting the war. This WebQuest is designed...

This is a lesson set, or mini-unit, for students in grades 7 – 9 focused on the concept of revolutions. It follows a learning cycle format. This lesson set takes approximately four to five days to teach.