Flipping Civics

One of my goals for my third year as a teacher has been to develop the Civics course into a blended learning course. I was eager to take on this challenge as the Civics course has great potential to be integrated with other courses and real world opportunities for student engagement. I began by taking a look at the current Civics course of study, breaking it down into the "essential" modules and the "optional" modules. The flexibility of the Ontario curriculum expectations for this course allows for teachers to approach teaching Civics from many different angles. At Greenwood, our Canada World Studies department aims to provide authentic learning experiences for students based on real-world events. Therefore, the flexibility of this course is crucial in our ability to respond to current events such as elections and international events. Dividing the course into essential and optional modules will allow the classroom teacher to modify course on an adhoc basis to fit around current events that pop up during the school year. Personalization in the blended Civics course will come through choice of topics, content, and products, rather than through self-pacing as we see in Math courses. Here's a framework that I put together to guide the development of the course:

Goals of the Civics program:

• provide the best of both face to face and online instruction.
• allow students to engage in an informed dialogue about current real-world issues and apply their knowledge of fundamental concepts in the civics curriculum (democracy, human rights, citizenship) to those issues in a meaningful way.
• provide a progam that is personalized by choice of topical modules, completed both independently and in small groups.
• provide an opportunity for students to apply critical thinking skills in a real-world environment through project-based learning
• connect CHV2O curriculum with CHC2D curriculum through the use of integrated assignments, lectures, and guest speakers

Blended learning in the Civics classroom will:

• allow students to choose modules and topics from a menu of projects and independent study areas - allow for flexible integration between CHV2O and CHV2D
• incorporate some mandatory face-to-face meetings to allow for students to debate and dialogue around current events and issues
• allow students to self-pace to a certain extent - they will complete online modules on a flexible schedule, but must be prepared for in-class debates, discussions, activities, projects and field trips at certain points during the year
• cater to different learning styles
• incorporate project-based learning
• provide structures which allow students to get support when needed and to move ahead or extend their learning when needed
• transform the role of the teacher into a coach and guide, who assists with concept clarification, questioning and deeper problem solving.

Integration with Canadian History As you can see from the list above, one of the goals of the blended course is to connect Civics and Canadian History. I collaborated with my colleague who is also in the process of "blending" the Canadian History Curriculum to map out possible connections between the two courses. Some areas where we found overlap include: the War Measures Act (CHC) and the concepts of democracy (CHV); the women's suffrage movement (CHC) and how Canada's electoral process works (CHV); causes of WWI and WWII (CHC) and the fundamentals of human rights (CHV); the foundation of the UN (CHC) and the role of the UN in today's world (CHV). Overall, we see many opportunities for students to take their learning in history and apply it to today's world through a Civics framework. Building the Course My next step was to piece together unit plans and set up a system using Google Docs and Hapara to organize the course. I have found that these tools provide the best method for keeping track of student work and providing detailed feedback. Then I went about testing different methods of delivery for the video content of the course. Working with a friend at TED Ed, I used their platform to "flip" a couple of videos. The students were then asked to watch the videos and complete the questions as homework to prepare for a classroom discussion. This worked fairly well as most students seemed to have a good understanding of the content.  However, it was hard for me to quickly gauge their depth of knowledge. Therefore, I implemented another excellent app called Socrative.  This allowed me to quiz the students collectively during our discussion to ensure they had the appropriate content knowledge. My feedback to my friends at TED Ed was that an online discussion forum that would allow students to interact outside the classroom would greatly improve the system. They responded with a new discussion forum, which I implemented during the second term to allow students to have the opportunity to work together outside the classroom. Next on my agenda is to take the time to develop some engaging, informative videos that cover information in "essential" modules. The goal is to have these videos replace a normal lecture-style delivery of content, allowing students more time to engage in class discussions and project during class time. Overall, the combination of applications such as Google Drive, Hapara, TED Ed, Socrative and custom made videos will allow students to have more choice in their learning and also make connections to their studies in Canadian History.