Higher Education Pedagogy Revisited

This chapter is an update that examines the effect of using “deliberation” as a tool for teaching at the college level. The students in this study considered the economic benefits and expenses of a box store. Deliberation provides a unique insight into what might be a better understanding of what students are thinking. The literature review contains various forms of deliberation including the process of deliberation in education; the outcomes of deliberative polling events; deliberation with technology; and whether working has an impact on students who deliberate. The use of pre- and posttest surveys shows that students who engaged in a deliberative dialogue were more likely to increase their civic learning and to change their opinions about the issues discussed. The findings demonstrate that deliberation pedagogy influences students' beliefs at both the individual and aggregate level.

Debate for Civic Learning: A Model for Renewing Higher Education’s Civic Mission

Rapidly eroding financial support and tuition increases that outpace inflation threaten the viability of an education that considers civic engagement as foundational. Simultaneously, institutions of higher education are increasingly perceived by the public as market-driven entities existing for the economic benefit of the individual, the upward mobility of a social class, and in turn the further sedimentation of racial and class differences. Now, more than ever, our nation is in need of deliberate attempts to fashion common understandings, ways to navigate inevitable disagreements, and reasonable paths forward. Higher education is positioned to respond to these civic needs but requires a commitment to be bold and remain dedicated to our shared civic mission in the face of alarming polarization and vacated institutional trust. One way institutions of higher education can return to their shared sense of civic mission is with the integration of debate across the curriculum through innovative partnerships and collaborative design. Debate across the curriculum utilizes intentional course redesign to offer active learning experiences that combine public speaking, evidence-based reasoning, collaborative learning, and argumentation into various advocacy simulations. The debate for civic learning model has faculty partnered across multiple institutions to design, integrate, and assess debate-based pedagogy to positively impact student civic learning. Students and faculty across disciplines have reported that debate-based pedagogy helped improve classroom engagement, critical problem solving, perspective taking, empathy, and advocacy skills. This mixed-method research provides insights not only into debate-based course design and learning improvement strategies but also into how faculty, students, and administrators can partner between institutions to demonstrate a shared commitment to the civic mission of higher education and democratic promise of our nation.

Digital civic learning in schools: Youth perspectives and experiences

Purpose While living in the information age is not new, the continued spread of dis/mis/information in tandem with rising partisanship has made clear the educational need for robust and critical information and media literacy education (Bulger and Davison, 2018; Garcia et al., 2021; Reich, 2018; Wineburg and McGrew, 2016). Given that most young people (and adults) today get their information and news about the world through online sources, including social media (Pew Research Center, 2018; Garcia et al., 2021), it is imperative for the health of the American democracy that students’ school-based civic learning opportunities include digital civic learning, too. This paper aims to offer a study into one such schooling landscape in a large and diverse public school district in the USA. Design/methodology/approach A mixed-method approach – including an online survey and face-to-face group interviews – was used to understand the opportunity landscape more broadly and glean insight into the texture and nuance of youth perspectives and experiences on digital civic learning. Findings Analysis of data reveals a dearth of consistent and routine opportunities for digital civic learning within the Rio Public School District context. Originality/value Empirical research that examines and makes visible students’ lived experiences and perspectives with digital civic information is essential if as educators and researchers, the authors are to successfully design for more and better of these experiences.

The Impacts of College Students’ Civic Responsibility on Civic Engagement via Online Technology: The Mediations of Civic Learning and Civic Expression

This study focused on college students’ attitudes toward the relationship between online civic responsibility and online civic engagement and its impacts. It also investigated the mediating roles of online civic learning and online civic expression in this relationship. A survey was conducted in Taiwan, testing for indirect effects with mediated variables using a structural equation model. The study tested hypotheses about the mediations of online civic learning and online civic expression on this relationship between online civic responsibility and online civic engagement for college students. The results indicate that the mediators of online civic learning and online civic expression fully mediate the relationship between online civic responsibility and online civic engagement.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NATIONAL DEFENSE TRAINING IN LATVIAN SCHOOLS AS THE TOPICALITY OF NOWADAYS EDUCATION

Continuous changes in the global geopolitical space are highlighting our national interests in security matters, when thinking about the sustainability of our society and country. Both civic readiness to act in crisis situations and civic participation in strengthening national security are important. Therefore, following the introduction of a comprehensive National defense conception in Latvia, the acquisition of the subject of National defence training in secondary education programs will be compulsory from the academic year 2024/2025. The aim of the research was to substantiate the implementation of National defense traning in Latvian schools as a topicality of modern education. The new curriculum is included in the following areas of study: Health, Safety and Physical Activity and Social and Civic Learning. Nowadays, in the framework of pilot project, the new curriculum in the field of national defense is already being experimentally tested in 69 educational institutions: secondary schools, gymnasiums, vocational schools, colleges. The results of the research allow to conclude that: 1) the concept of comprehensive national defense has four dimensions (military, informative, psychological and civic dimensions); 2) all these dimensions were respected in the development of the National Defense Training curriculum. The content of education in the field of national defense will serve as a means of patriotic upbringing, but the training process itself will have an upbringing function. The implementation of National defense training must also be based on an ecological approach in providing an appropriate educational environment, paying attention to the contexts of indoor and outdoor environments.