#PoolsidePD Takes a Deeper Dive Into Inquiry

by Mary Ellen Daneels, Civics Instructional Specialist


This week, the Illinois Civics Hub (ICH) at the DuPage Regional Office of Education took a “deeper dive” into inquiry as the primary mode of learning. The ICH hosted a webinar that examined “teacher moves” recommended by Pedagogy Companion to the Educating for American Democracy (EAD) Roadmap to support student centered inquiry in the K-12 classroom.

The EAD Pedagogy Companion is designed to support classroom teachers, students, and district and community stakeholders with research and actionable steps to support the civic mission of schools. Importantly, it presents the Six Core Pedagogical Principles exemplified by the “EAD teacher,” designed to focus educators’ effort on techniques that best support the learning and development of student agency required of history and civic education. These principles include:
  • Excellence for All
  • Growth Mindset and Capacity Building
  • Building An EAD Ready Classroom and School
  • Inquiry as the Primary Mode of Learning
  • Practice of Constitutional Democracy and Student Agency
  • Assess, Reflect and Improve
For the past two weeks, the ICH has hosted online professional development webinars focused on “inquiry as the primary mode of learning.” Last week’s webinar looked at the role of essential and supporting questions in curriculum design, taking inspiration from the EAD Roadmap themes to guide and drive inquiry. This week, the ICH explored five research-based “teacher moves” to support rigorous and engaging student learning in K-12 classrooms.
  • Introduce new concepts by building on background knowledge
  • Engage students in historical thinking skills
  • Design lessons that uncover the complexity of an event, dynamic, social group, or leading individual
  • Incorporate opportunities to analyze diverse forms of evidence, including images as well as texts
  • Build student engagement with media literacy
If you missed the webinar, you can access a recording to view for your own #PoolsidePD. The webinar not only explored each of the teacher moves above, but also demonstrated strategies and resources for each “move.”

It is not too late to register for the rest of our Illinois Civics Hub summer Professional Development series. There are two strands of professional development. On Tuesday mornings, powerful pedagogy will be the focus to help with summer curriculum projects. Topics include tools for performance assessments, rubrics and Making Thinking Visible for formative assessment, navigating current and controversial issue discussions, simulations of democratic processes and service learning.

Wednesday morning webinars will put the spotlight on some of the leading civic learning providers in the nation including iCivics, Stanford History Education Group, National Archives Foundation, Chicago History Museum, Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, and the Bill of Rights Institute. Each will address a thematic question from the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap.

Each session begins at 9:30 a.m. CT. Educators who register can join live to interact with participants, or watch a recording of each session for their own #PoolsidePD. The webinars are free, and Illinois educators can elect to earn PD credits for attending the webinar and completing a brief, post-webinar application activity.

A description for each webinar and information to register for professional development credits through the DuPage Regional Office of Education is available on the Illinois Civics Hub Professional Development Calendar.

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