Educator Task Force (ETF) Members

Educator Task Force (ETF) Members Educator Task Force (ETF) Members

As part of the dissemination of the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap, we organized an Educator Task Force (ETF).

Members of the early ETF curated an initial collection of over 500 instructional resources aligned to the seven themes and five design challenges.

In addition to this collection, ETF members recently built robust, diverse, and accessible primary source collections, known as Spotlight Kits, that provide rich avenues for inquiry and that braid U.S. history and civic learning throughout.

See Full Resource Library
See List of Spotlight Kits

Educator Task Force Members

Valencia Abbott

Reidsville, NC

Valencia Abbott (Reidsville, NC) is currently the Social Studies Department Chair and History teacher at Rockingham Early College High School (RECHS) in Wentworth, North Carolina. The 2021-2022 school year marks her 17th year in education. After completing a master’s degree in Liberal Studies, she received a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in African American Studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

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In 2016, she received her Add-On Licensure Academically/Intellectually Gifted (AIG) from Duke University. She was a first-generation college student, receiving her BA in Political Science, Pre-Law with a minor in Speech from Catawba College, and this is a focus she shares with her students at RECHS as the school’s mission is to help students become first-generation college graduates for their families. She is currently serving on the National Council for History Education Teacher Advisory Group and the National American Civil War Museum Teacher Advisory Committee. She also served on the Fall 2021 EAD Educator Task Force. The other parts of her life are filled with three daughters, one son-in-law, four grandchildren, and two grand furbabies.

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Jessica Culver

Ozark, AR

Jessica Culver (Ozark, AR) teaches social studies, including Civics/Economics and concurrent college credit history courses, at Ozark High School in Ozark, Arkansas. Jessica holds an undergraduate degree in Social Studies Education, a graduate degree in History, and a graduate degree in Education/Library Media, all from Arkansas Tech University.

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She is a certified yoga instructor, a 2020-2021 Fulbright Teacher for Global Classrooms, a 2021-2022 U.S. Institute of Peace Teacher, a member of the National Constitution Center’s Teacher Advisory Council, a National History Day Teacher, and Economics Arkansas Master Economics Teacher, a National Geographic Educator, a Take Charge Today National Master Educator, a recipient of the 2021 Arkansas Ag in the Classroom award, and a nominee for the 2021 Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year National History Day award. Jessica is also active with the Bill of Rights Institute and the Jump$tart organization. Her students received recognition in 2021 with the Goethe-Institut’s “Our Sustainable Future” international competition for their work on environment and sustainability.

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Meredith Gavrin

New Haven, CT

Meredith Gavrin (New Haven, CT) has worked in the field of education for 30 years, primarily as both a teacher and school administrator. After teaching in New York City Public Schools, she co-founded New Haven Academy, an interdistrict magnet high school in New Haven, Connecticut, where she continues to work as an administrator and teaches one Civics class to seniors.

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She is also a member of the Advisory Group for the Partner Schools Network of Facing History and Ourselves and a board member of the Fund for Women and Girls at the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. She also served on the Fall 2021 EAD Educator Task Force.

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Margo Loflin

Norman, OK

Margo Loflin (Norman, OK) is a retired social studies teacher with 30 years of classroom experience in Norman Public Schools where she taught AP U.S. History, U.S. History, American government, AP Human Geography, and Oklahoma History. She served as the Social Studies Department Chair at Norman High School and is distinguished as the Gilder Lehrman History Teacher of the Year for Oklahoma.

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She was also recognized as the Oklahoma National History Day Teacher of the Year in 2015. She currently is a member of the Curriculum and Workshop Development Team for the Chickasaw Nation and a volunteer for the Oklahoma History Center.

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John Lovette

Denton, TX

John Lovette (Denton, TX) holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in history from the University of North Texas. In 1995, he was awarded the James Madison Memorial Fellowship. For twenty-one years, he taught United States History to 1877 with eighth graders at Strickland Middle School in Denton, Texas.

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For many of those years, he served as department lead and was the campus representative for the district curriculum writing team. He was named Middle School Teacher of the Year by the Texas Council for the Social Studies in 2019. Currently, he serves as the professional development specialist for secondary social studies for Denton ISD.

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Bryan Lowe

Parsippany Troy-Hills, NJ

Bryan Lowe (Parsippany Troy-Hills, NJ) is a fifth grade teacher at Littleton Elementary School in Parsippany Troy-Hills, New Jersey. He also has taught in Clark, New Jersey. While in Clark, Bryan created and directed the first social studies camp in the district, focusing on exploring multiple perspectives throughout history.

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He has been teaching for ten years and was selected as a finalist for the New Jersey State Teacher of the Year in 2020. He holds a certification in Teaching Prejudice Reduction and Genocide Studies. His current plans of academic development include graduate school where he is working on his master’s degree in Holocaust and Geneocide Studies. He also served on the Fall 2021 EAD Educator Task Force.

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Mario Mohorn

Atlanta, GA

Mario Mohorn (Atlanta, GA) is in his seventh year as a classroom teacher and his tenth year in the field of education. He currently teaches sixth grade social studies in Cobb County School district. Previously, he taught fourth and fifth grade. Currently, he is a doctoral student at Augusta University where his current research topics include service learning, art-based pedagogies, and civic engagement.

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His past research project included integrating social studies through language arts strategies. Additionally, Mario earned an Education Specialist in Reading Education certification from Georgia Southern University, a Master of Arts in Teaching (Elementary Education) from Shorter University, and a Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Urban Education from Georgia State University.

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Darlene Moore, Ed.D.

Hayward, CA

Darlene Moore, Ed.D. (Hayward, CA) has three decades of classroom teaching experience as a middle school and elementary school teacher. She has served as Department Chair as well as a Curriculum Council Representative at the district level. She received the 2015 Hayward Education Association Human Rights Award for her work empowering African American students and for improving the cultural competency of her school community.

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She has a demonstrated ability to develop forward-thinking lesson plans and instructional strategies that empower students to learn actively. She fosters a classroom environment that encourages students to be curious, think objectively, learn the curriculum and life skills, and to succeed. She is highly involved in the community, including as the founder of Motivating African American Students for Success and as a leader of the African American Student Achievement Initiative. Her areas of expertise include cultural awareness, curriculum development, IEPs, cross-curricular lessons, EdTeach, and inquiry-based learning, to name a few. She holds degrees from the University of California-Berkeley and Argosy University.

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Bridget Riley, Ph.D.

Kensington, MD

Bridget Riley, Ph.D. (Kensington, MD) is currently a middle school social studies teacher. She has also served as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion divisional Co-leader for her school community as well as a middle school advisor. Bridget earned her Ph.D. in history from University of Toronto and is working towards completion of a certificate in educational leadership from Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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Bridget is also an enthusiastic writer and has shared her work in numerous education publications. Her article, “Missing Women: Using Project Based Learning to Tackle Gender Imbalance in Social Studies Textbooks,” is featured in the January 2022 issue of the American Historical Society publication, Perspectives. Her most recent article on civic education and inquiry based learning has been published by Edutopia.

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Marc Turner

Columbia, SC

Educator Task Force (ETF) Members

Marc Turner (Columbia, SC) teaches U.S. History, U.S. Government, and Macroeconomics at the AP and Honors level at Spring Hill High School in Chapin, South Carolina. After 28 years in education, Marc has just about done it all. He has taught at the middle school, high school, and collegiate level.

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He is the President of the South Carolina Council for Social Studies and the Co-Chair of the South Carolina Council for History Education. Marc presents at state and national conferences, is a National Board Certified Teacher, a Fulbright Teacher Exchange alumnus, a James Madison Fellow, supports National History Day, and sponsors the Mock Trial and We the People programs at Spring Hill. Currently, he is pursuing a master’s degree in American History and Government from Ashland University.

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We the People

This theme explores the idea of “the people” as a political concept–not just a group of people who share a landscape but a group of people who share political ideals and institutions.

Read more about the theme in:

The Roadmap
The Resource Library
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Institutional & Social Transformation

This theme explores how social arrangements and conflicts have combined with political institutions to shape American life from the earliest colonial period to the present, investigates which moments of change have most defined the country, and builds understanding of how American political institutions and society changes.

Read more about the theme in:

The Roadmap
The Resource Library
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Contemporary Debates & Possibilities

This theme explores the contemporary terrain of civic participation and civic agency, investigating how historical narratives shape current political arguments, how values and information shape policy arguments, and how the American people continues to renew or remake itself in pursuit of fulfillment of the promise of constitutional democracy.

Read more about the theme in:

The Roadmap
The Resource Library
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Civic Participation

This theme explores the relationship between self-government and civic participation, drawing on the discipline of history to explore how citizens’ active engagement has mattered for American society and on the discipline of civics to explore the principles, values, habits, and skills that support productive engagement in a healthy, resilient constitutional democracy. This theme focuses attention on the overarching goal of engaging young people as civic participants and preparing them to assume that role successfully.

Read more about the theme in:

The Roadmap
The Resource Library
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Our Changing landscapes

This theme begins from the recognition that American civic experience is tied to a particular place, and explores the history of how the United States has come to develop the physical and geographical shape it has, the complex experiences of harm and benefit which that history has delivered to different portions of the American population, and the civics questions of how political communities form in the first place, become connected to specific places, and develop membership rules. The theme also takes up the question of our contemporary responsibility to the natural world.

Read more about the theme in:

The Roadmap
The Resource Library
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A New Government & Constitution

This theme explores the institutional history of the United States as well as the theoretical underpinnings of constitutional design.

Read more about the theme in:

The Roadmap
The Resource Library
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A People in the World

This theme explores the place of the U.S. and the American people in a global context, investigating key historical events in international affairs,and building understanding of the principles, values, and laws at stake in debates about America’s role in the world.

Read more about the theme in:

The Roadmap
The Resource Library
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The Seven Themes

The Seven Themes provide the organizational  framework for the Roadmap. They map out the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students should be able to explore in order to be engaged in informed, authentic, and healthy civic participation. Importantly, they are neither standards nor curriculum, but rather a starting point for the design of standards, curricula, resources, and lessons. 

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Driving questions provide a glimpse into the types of inquiries that teachers can write and develop in support of in-depth civic learning. Think of them as a  starting point in your curricular design.

Learn more about inquiry-based learning in  the Pedagogy Companion.

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Sample guiding questions are designed to foster classroom discussion, and can be starting points for one or multiple lessons. It is important to note that the sample guiding questions provided in the Roadmap are NOT an exhaustive list of questions. There are many other great topics and questions that can be explored.

Learn more about inquiry-based learning in the Pedagogy Companion.

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The Seven Themes

The Seven Themes provide the organizational  framework for the Roadmap. They map out the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that students should be able to explore in order to be engaged in informed, authentic, and healthy civic participation. Importantly, they are neither standards nor curriculum, but rather a starting point for the design of standards, curricula, resources, and lessons. 

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The Five Design Challenges

America’s constitutional politics are rife with tensions and complexities. Our Design Challenges, which are arranged alongside our Themes, identify and clarify the most significant tensions that writers of standards, curricula, texts, lessons, and assessments will grapple with. In proactively recognizing and acknowledging these challenges, educators will help students better understand the complicated issues that arise in American history and civics.

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Motivating Agency, Sustaining the Republic

  • How can we help students understand the full context for their roles as civic participants without creating paralysis or a sense of the insignificance of their own agency in relation to the magnitude of our society, the globe, and shared challenges?
  • How can we help students become engaged citizens who also sustain civil disagreement, civic friendship, and thus American constitutional democracy?
  • How can we help students pursue civic action that is authentic, responsible, and informed?
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America’s Plural Yet Shared Story

  • How can we integrate the perspectives of Americans from all different backgrounds when narrating a history of the U.S. and explicating the content of the philosophical foundations of American constitutional democracy?
  • How can we do so consistently across all historical periods and conceptual content?
  • How can this more plural and more complete story of our history and foundations also be a common story, the shared inheritance of all Americans?
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Simultaneously Celebrating & Critiquing Compromise

  • How do we simultaneously teach the value and the danger of compromise for a free, diverse, and self-governing people?
  • How do we help students make sense of the paradox that Americans continuously disagree about the ideal shape of self-government but also agree to preserve shared institutions?
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Civic Honesty, Reflective Patriotism

  • How can we offer an account of U.S. constitutional democracy that is simultaneously honest about the wrongs of the past without falling into cynicism, and appreciative of the founding of the United States without tipping into adulation?
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Balancing the Concrete & the Abstract

  • How can we support instructors in helping students move between concrete, narrative, and chronological learning and thematic and abstract or conceptual learning?
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Each theme is supported by key concepts that map out the knowledge, skills, and dispositions students should be able to explore in order to be engaged in informed, authentic, and healthy civic participation. They are vertically spiraled and developed to apply to K—5 and 6—12. Importantly, they are not standards, but rather offer a vision for the integration of history and civics throughout grades K—12.

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Helping Students Participate

  • How can I learn to understand my role as a citizen even if I’m not old enough to take part in government? How can I get excited to solve challenges that seem too big to fix?
  • How can I learn how to work together with people whose opinions are different from my own?
  • How can I be inspired to want to take civic actions on my own?
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America’s Shared Story

  • How can I learn about the role of my culture and other cultures in American history?
  • How can I see that America’s story is shared by all?
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Thinking About Compromise

  • How can teachers teach the good and bad sides of compromise?
  • How can I make sense of Americans who believe in one government but disagree about what it should do?
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Honest Patriotism

  • How can I learn an honest story about America that admits failure and celebrates praise?
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Balancing Time & Theme

  • How can teachers help me connect historical events over time and themes?
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The Six Pedagogical Principles

 EAD teacher draws on six pedagogical principles that are connected sequentially.

Six Core Pedagogical Principles are part of our Pedagogy Companion. The Pedagogical Principles are designed to focus educators’ effort on techniques that best support the learning and development of student agency required of history and civic education.

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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:

EAD teachers commit to learn about and teach full and multifaceted historical and civic narratives. They appreciate student diversity and assume all students’ capacity for learning complex and rigorous content. EAD teachers focus on inclusion and equity in both content and approach as they spiral instruction across grade bands, increasing complexity and depth about relevant history and contemporary issues.

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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:

Growth Mindset and Capacity Building

EAD teachers have a growth mindset for themselves and their students, meaning that they engage in continuous self-reflection and cultivate self-knowledge. They learn and adopt content as well as practices that help all learners of diverse backgrounds reach excellence. EAD teachers need continuous and rigorous professional development (PD) and access to professional learning communities (PLCs) that offer peer support and mentoring opportunities, especially about content, pedagogical approaches, and instruction-embedded assessments.

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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:

Building an EAD-Ready Classroom and School

EAD teachers cultivate and sustain a learning environment by partnering with administrators, students, and families to conduct deep inquiry about the multifaceted stories of American constitutional democracy. They set expectations that all students know they belong and contribute to the classroom community. Students establish ownership and responsibility for their learning through mutual respect and an inclusive culture that enables students to engage courageously in rigorous discussion.

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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:

Inquiry as the Primary Mode for Learning

EAD teachers not only use the EAD Roadmap inquiry prompts as entry points to teaching full and complex content, but also cultivate students’ capacity to develop their own deep and critical inquiries about American history, civic life, and their identities and communities. They embrace these rigorous inquiries as a way to advance students’ historical and civic knowledge, and to connect that knowledge to themselves and their communities. They also help students cultivate empathy across differences and inquisitiveness to ask difficult questions, which are core to historical understanding and constructive civic participation.

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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:

Practice of Constitutional Democracy and Student Agency

EAD teachers use their content knowledge and classroom leadership to model our constitutional principle of “We the People” through democratic practices and promoting civic responsibilities, civil rights, and civic friendship in their classrooms. EAD teachers deepen students’ grasp of content and concepts by creating student opportunities to engage with real-world events and problem-solving about issues in their communities by taking informed action to create a more perfect union.

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This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:

Assess, Reflect, and Improve

EAD teachers use assessments as a tool to ensure all students understand civics content and concepts and apply civics skills and agency. Students have the opportunity to reflect on their learning and give feedback to their teachers in higher-order thinking exercises that enhance as well as measure learning. EAD teachers analyze and utilize feedback and assessment for self-reflection and improving instruction.

X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:
EAD teachers commit to learn about and teach full and multifaceted historical and civic narratives. They appreciate student diversity and assume all students’ capacity for learning complex and rigorous content. EAD teachers focus on inclusion and equity in both content and approach as they spiral instruction across grade bands, increasing complexity and depth about relevant history and contemporary issues.

X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:

Growth Mindset and Capacity Building

EAD teachers have a growth mindset for themselves and their students, meaning that they engage in continuous self-reflection and cultivate self-knowledge. They learn and adopt content as well as practices that help all learners of diverse backgrounds reach excellence. EAD teachers need continuous and rigorous professional development (PD) and access to professional learning communities (PLCs) that offer peer support and mentoring opportunities, especially about content, pedagogical approaches, and instruction-embedded assessments.

X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:

Building an EAD-Ready Classroom and School

EAD teachers cultivate and sustain a learning environment by partnering with administrators, students, and families to conduct deep inquiry about the multifaceted stories of American constitutional democracy. They set expectations that all students know they belong and contribute to the classroom community. Students establish ownership and responsibility for their learning through mutual respect and an inclusive culture that enables students to engage courageously in rigorous discussion.

X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:

Inquiry as the Primary Mode for Learning

EAD teachers not only use the EAD Roadmap inquiry prompts as entry points to teaching full and complex content, but also cultivate students’ capacity to develop their own deep and critical inquiries about American history, civic life, and their identities and communities. They embrace these rigorous inquiries as a way to advance students’ historical and civic knowledge, and to connect that knowledge to themselves and their communities. They also help students cultivate empathy across differences and inquisitiveness to ask difficult questions, which are core to historical understanding and constructive civic participation.

X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:

Practice of Constitutional Democracy and Student Agency

EAD teachers use their content knowledge and classroom leadership to model our constitutional principle of “We the People” through democratic practices and promoting civic responsibilities, civil rights, and civic friendship in their classrooms. EAD teachers deepen students’ grasp of content and concepts by creating student opportunities to engage with real-world events and problem-solving about issues in their communities by taking informed action to create a more perfect union.

X
This resource aligns with the core pedagogical principle of:

Assess, Reflect, and Improve

EAD teachers use assessments as a tool to ensure all students understand civics content and concepts and apply civics skills and agency. Students have the opportunity to reflect on their learning and give feedback to their teachers in higher-order thinking exercises that enhance as well as measure learning. EAD teachers analyze and utilize feedback and assessment for self-reflection and improving instruction.

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