Trauma studies scholars emphasize naming or acknowledging trauma to promote healing. In response to the recent political and curricular whiplash in the Commonwealth of Virginia, this paper investigates the prevalence and nature of traumagenic events in Virginia's social studies standards. Data analysis suggests that conceptual insights from trauma…

Objective: As a result of the SARS-COVID-2 pandemic, many students had to leave highly interactive face-to-face learning environments in classrooms and join online learning environments. By autumn 2020, some large numbers of US institutions had opted for face-to-face, hybrid and fully online teaching formats. For many of them, the challenge lay in…

Across the country, effort is underway to restrict discussion, learning, and student support related to race and gender/sexual identity in educational settings, targeting schools with state legislation and politicians' orders; national conservative media and organizations; Board directives; and local actors wielding media-fueled talking points. To…

We designed and implemented a hybrid elementary social studies education elective focused on antiracist teacher education, place-based teacher education, and archaeology with partners at an historic site, James Madison's Montpelier. Our action research study indicates that, in the midst of injustices highlighted in 2020, participants engaged in…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand, from the perspective of students with disabilities, what special education leaders and their respective classroom educators should consider in the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) features and tools to support individualized instruction. This study utilized an immersive and…

Integrating climate change into environmental education programs and formal science classrooms can be difficult, as the issue remains controversial and highly politicized among the American public. This study proposes that the same cultural values that shape worldview differences and divide public opinion on anthropogenic climate change will…

Essentially, the syllabus is a physical artifact outlining key structural elements of a course. It often serves contractual, record keeping, and/or communication functions. It is the place where faculty describe what content they will cover, what books and articles their students will read, the assignments they will complete, dates when things are…

Evolutionary theory is central to the biological sciences, and to critical aspects of everyday life, and yet a significant proportion of Americans reject evolution. Our study sets out to examine the role of a second year college general education course in affecting students' acceptance of evolution. We report three years of data using the Measure…

Higher levels of civic and community engagement in higher education are positively associated with students' academic performance and they also build upon citizenship skills such as informed voting. Yet, while these are worthy and important outcomes of higher education, students from disadvantaged backgrounds can have more difficulty navigating…

Purpose: Key elements of a curriculum are presented for a faculty development program that integrated sustainability content with effective course design methodology across a variety of disciplines. The study aims to present self-reported impacts for a small number of faculty participants and their courses. Design/methodology/approach: A yearlong…

In this report, the authors present findings from their analysis of social studies state standards. The following questions guided their work: (1) To what extent do middle and high school (grades 8-12) history and civics state standards support teaching about political parties? For the states that do include language about political parties, what…

Experiential learning theory places experience at the center of learning. Kolb's four-stage cycle of experiential learning suggests that effective learners must engage fully in each stage of the cycle--feeling, reflection, thinking, and action. This research assesses the alignment of Kolb's experiential learning cycle with the week-long Summer…

The authors investigated the design and implementation of the capstone courses that are part of Virginia's College and Career Readiness Initiative. Based on a set of performance expectations for college readiness, two capstone courses--one in English and one in mathematics--were developed to help support high school juniors and seniors who intend…

College 101 courses--also called student success, introduction to college, orientation to college, or freshman experience courses--provide students with information about college and campus services, assistance with academic and career planning, and techniques to improve study habits and personal skills. This study investigated College 101 courses…

In this paper we share findings of a textbook analysis in which we explored the treatment of segregated education in eight, widely-used secondary United States history and government textbooks. We positioned our findings within the historiography related to the African American school experience which challenges the notion that the lack of…