Civics for Today’s America: An Inquiry Approach, Wells, Spring 2025

Course Description

Pundits say that our country is experiencing a Constitutional Crisis.  Serious questions are being raised by the actions of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches of government. Participants in this course will learn how to build an engaging, inquiry based social studies unit based on the C3 Civics Standards that will lead to a student’s deeper understanding of how our government is designed to work and whether the dramatic changes we see today are Constitutional.

Audience: K-12 teachers and curriculum leaders with a Bachelor's Degree

Course Goals & Objectives

Course Goals:

• Provide a thorough overview of the C3 Civics Framework and its Inquiry Arc.
• Provide an overview of the structure of our Government.
• Present the key features of inquiry based social studies lessons: questions, tasks, sources, and presenting arguments.
• Support participants as they design an inquiry based Civics Lesson.

Course Objectives:

Participants in this course will demonstrate their ability to do the following:

• Develop an understanding of the C3 Civics Framework and its Inquiry Arc
• Develop an understanding of the roles of the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of our government.
• Identify and understand the role of questions, tasks, sources and the presentation of strong arguments in an inquiry based Civics Lesson.
• Demonstrate an overall understanding of inquiry based Civics instruction by developing a unit that will be taught in the participant’s classroom.

Course Schedule:

Pre-Reading:

The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards, pages 31-34 covering Civics Standards.

Workshop:  Can they do that?

• Readings: Swan, Lee & Grant, chapters 1-2, Waserman and Fullmer, chapters 2-4
• Written Reflection: Describe your Compelling Question and link it to the C3 Framework. Due on May 11^th
• Forum Response: Post your Compelling Question to the group and describe your reason for choosing it.
• Class project: Choose a Compelling Question that can lead our class project inquiry.

Week Two:  Questions, questions, questions

• Readings: Swan, Lee & Grant, chapters 3-4, Wasserman and Fullmer, chapter 6
• Written Reflection: Describe the supporting questions for your inquiry. Due on May 18^th
• Forum Discussion: Post the supporting question  that you added to the class project and explain how it supports our inquiry.
• Class project: Based on what you have learned from this week’s readings, add a supporting question to the class project inquiry template.

Week Three: Tasks and Sources that support Inquiry

• Readings: Swan, Lee & Grant, chapter 5 and 6, Wasserman and Fullmer, Chapters 7-9
• Written Reflection: Describe the task that you added to your inquiry and explain how you would scaffold the source for this task. Due on May 25^th
• Forum Discussion: Describe the task that you added to the class project and explain how you would scaffold the source for this task.
• Class project: Based on what you have learned from this week’s readings, add a task and a source to the class project inquiry template.

Week Five: Taking Informed Action

• Readings: Swan, Lee & Grant, chapter 9
• Written Reflection: Share a draft of your IDM Due on June 1^st
• Video Session to discuss our class inquiry and our individual inquiry projects.

Week Six:  Designing your IDM

• Readings: Swan, Lee & Grant, chapter 10
• Written Reflection: Make revisions to your IDM based on instructor feedback and feedback from classmates. Due on June 8^th
• Forum: Describe how the informed action that you expect your students to take at the end of your inquiry.

Instructor

David Wells, M.Ed.

David has been a Vermont teacher, principal and superintendent for over thirty years.  He believes in making classrooms safe and engaging for students with plenty of project-based learning.  When he is not teaching at Vermont State University, you can find David spending time with his grandchildren or restoring vintage typewriters!

Required Texts

Costs of required texts, if any, are not included in the course tuition.

Swan, Lee & Grant, Inquiry Design Model: Building Inquiries in Social Studies, 2018

Wasserman and Fullmer, The Basics of American Politics: 17th Edition, 2023

National Council for the Social Studies (2014) C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards

For additional course information

David Wells
802-461-6905

For additional registration information

Center for Schools Team

(802) 468-1325

Register Now!