Civic Learning Week 2024!
MCLC is excited to host another Civic Learning Week (March 11 - 15, 2024) that will include sessions here in Massachusetts as well as an expanded set of events at the national level to build a broad base of support for civic education across the country.Register today
Civic Knowledge, Skills and Dispositions in the Elementary Classroom - with Discovering Justice
How can we cultivate our young students' civic identity, knowledge, skills, and dispositions so they are prepared to be active and thoughtful members of our democracy? In this interactive workshop, led by Laura Brenner, Education Director at Discovering Justice, participants will engage with the history and social science practice standards as well as Discovering Justice’s new Children Discovering Justice Curriculum to deepen your understanding of and practice with integrating civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions into social studies and across the school day. We will explore concepts like perspective taking and issues of equity and justice. There will be opportunities to talk to your colleagues and gain some tips and tools to use with your students.
Massachusetts Civic Learning Week 2022
The week’s programming is hosted and organized by the Massachusetts Civic Learning Coalition (MCLC) in partnership with teachers and students from across the Commonwealth. Everyone is invited to attend and participate in Civic Learning Week events, including students, teachers, administrators, policymakers, parents, and the general public.
FULL DETAILS & REGISTRATION LINKS
Planning Civics K-12 - with We the People
Civics serves as the backbone of the MA History and Social Science Curriculum Framework. It spans all the grades so that students will develop an understanding of civics and the motivation to engage in civic life at the earliest ages and support that learning throughout the full extent of each students’ academic career. Making this happen poses some challenges. What is a developmentally appropriate way to engage students in the early grades? How can we build an effective progression of content and skills as students advance through the grades? How can we best prepare students to succeed with the civics projects expected at grade 8 and high school? District administrators will join Roger Desrosiers, President of the Massachusetts Center for Civic Education, to share models developed by We the People and Project Citizen to address these challenges.
Teaching Hidden Histories
Young people are asking school districts for help in preparing them to understand and address inequities in our society. Many teachers would like to explore these issues, but lack the content and pedagogical tools to do this work. The “Teaching Hidden Histories” program has combined scholars' expertise in the history of traditionally marginalized communities, pedagogy experts, and local Essex County, MA sources to provide educators with the resources to start these discussions.
Culturally Responsive Teaching with Re-Imagining Migration
The ever-increasing diversity of our schools and civic-life challenges all of us as educators to ensure that we make the best use of culturally responsive teaching practices. But what does that actually look like? In this webinar, designed for both administrators and teachers, Re-imagining Migration will share their work with schools to build an effective culturally responsive culture.
WEBINAR: Civics in the Elementary Grades
We know from current and past research, that the elementary grades lack high quality instructional resources - and time - to teach civics and other social studies content. In response to this persistent call by K-5 teachers for easy-to-use curriculum resources that would help them to get their students excited about inquiry in social studies and civics, veteran and award-winning educators Laurie Risler and Kelley Brown created the History’s Mysteries curriculum featuring primary sources from Massachusetts collections and the Library of Congress. Please join us for this session with Laurie and Kelley that will provide an overview of the curriculum, while also highlighting the characteristics of high quality instructional resources for these grades in general.
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WEBINAR: Civics, Student Voice and Inclusion
To become thoughtful, informed civic participants, students need practice, just as they do with any other learning. They need not only to learn about, but also to experience democracy in school. For this session, representatives from Building Audacity will present their work to increase youth power by supporting youth led change-making and providing resources to adults interested in creating inclusive, youth-focused learning spaces. Please join us to see how Building Audacity’s experience may inform your work to better address student voice and inclusion in your work as an administrator or teacher.
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Massachusetts Civic Learning Week 2021
Join us for a series of morning, afternoon and evening events all across the Commonwealth that celebrate civic engagement, civic learning and civic leadership. Included are over 35 free events all happening digitally. In addition to General Audience events, there are specialized tracks for students, parents, educators and administrators.
REGISTER FOR EVENTS
Download the PDF Calendar
Access the Marketing Toolkit
Looking for more ways to engage in the week? Check out the Activity Boards for all audiences.
WEBINAR: Making Civics Happen K-12 - The Administrators’ View
The first training in the series will focus on supporting administrators, sharing recommendations from three administrators recognized for their leadership in implementation of civics education across the grades.
Please join us for this panel discussion with these leaders from the field:
Gorman Lee is the Social Studies Director for Braintree Public Schools and has gained statewide prominence for his many years of leading the professional development program of the Massachusetts Council for the Social Studies.
Nancy Milligan, the Assistant Superintendent of the North Middlesex Regional School District, is widely respected for her leadership of a consortium of many districts across the state that have collaboratively developed social studies curriculum to address the new demands of the 2018 framework.
Kevin Dean, the Humanities Pathways Supervisor at Lawrence High School, has partnered with a variety of organizations to develop creative methods to build students’ civic engagement and assist teachers in advancing their practice in collaboration with the Lawrence community, work that has brought innovative approaches to carrying out civics projects.
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NERCVirtual2020
The Northeast Regional Conference for the Social Studies (NERC) is excited to kick-off its virtual conference experience by hosting a keynote address series live on October 4 and 5 online through ZOOM live web conference. Conference workshops, master classes and webinars will take place virtually throughout October and November with additional sessions still to be scheduled. All keynote sessions, workshops, and webinars are FREE – registration required – for all K-12 social studies teachers (active and retired), student teachers, and college and university faculty.
To register for free, please click here.
To register for PDPs and enroll in Master Class, click here. Fees involved.
2020 Civics Literacy Conference
Registration is now open for the Civics Literacy Conference which will be held virtually from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Wednesday, September 23rd and Thursday, September 24th. This conference is a convening of K-16 educators as well as leaders from state and community organizations to promote high-quality civics teaching and learning. Events include an opening plenary featuring Scott Seider and Daren Graves, authors of Schooling for Critical Consciousness; a panel discussion on media literacy; and 20+ workshops on civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Click here to see the full agenda and register for workshops; workshop space is limited.