Participatory Literacy and Taking Informed Action in the Social Studies

The purpose of the social studies is to prepare students for life as citizens in a democratic society, and this requires attention to the variety of digital spaces inhabited by our K-12 students in today's increasingly digitized world. Incorporating participatory technologies into structured inquiries in the social studies may help develop students' skills and abilities in critically sourcing, evaluating, sharing, and creating media, and provides the opportunity for increasingly democratic participation and civic engagement both in and out of the school setting. In this chapter, the authors suggest the integration of participatory literacy with the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) framework as a means of supporting students in taking informed action.

Creating the Citizen

This chapter presents an approach to civic education that integrates critical literacy with the research-based promising practices of civic education and the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies Standards. The authors present a definition of critical literacy that reflects a broad-based approach to the concept while exploring what critical literacy may look like within a civic education classroom and the ways in which this reflects a particular approach to good citizenship. Perceived connections between critical literacy, the promising practices, and the dimensions of the C3 Framework are illustrated throughout the chapter, and the authors provide a real-world example to demonstrate what integration may look like in practice through either extra-curricular or classroom-based student engagement.

A Recommendation Model for College Career Entrepreneurship Projects Based on Deep Learning

The recommendation system is an active, personalized, and real-time technology platform proposed in the 1990s to solve the problem of information overload. The recommendation system can constantly adjust the recommendation results according to the real-time behaviors of users. In other words, if the user’s interest changes, the recommendation system can present different information to the user. Therefore, the recommendation system is the best way to solve the problem of information overload in entrepreneurial projects. Based on the ConvMF algorithm, this paper proposes an entrepreneurial project recommendation algorithm based on a deep neural network and matrix decomposition. A deep neural network was established for the extraction of the hidden features of entrepreneurial projects, and a convolution neural network was used to process the text description information of entrepreneurial projects. One-hot coding was used to process the regional characteristics and financing round characteristics of entrepreneurial projects, and word embedding was used to process the label features of entrepreneurial projects. The implicit features of users are extracted from the user’s rating matrix using matrix decomposition technology. Finally, recommendations are made according to the implicit characteristics of users and the items learned.

Supporting quality social studies instruction: the social studies practices continuum

PurposeThis article presents the social studies practices continuum, which is a tool that supports social studies teachers in implementing inquiry-based practices in their classrooms. It was designed by the authors based on similar instruments found in science education and informed by the College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies Standards.Design/methodology/approachThe article describes the instrument's creation and describes its use with preservice teachers in teacher preparation programs, inservice teachers during district-based professional development.FindingsThe continuum has been used as a reflective tool for teachers and curriculum developers, and as a tool for instructional coaches and administrators to improve teaching practices.Originality/valueThis article offers a new tool for teachers and supervisors to use in improving instruction.

Library Impact Practice Brief: Freshman Fellows: Implementing and Assessing a First-Year Primary-Source Research Program

This practice brief describes the assessment project undertaken by the Sheridan Libraries at Johns Hopkins University as part of the library’s participation in ARL’s Research Library Impact Framework initiative to address the question “(How) do the library’s special collections specifically support and promote teaching, learning, and research?” The research team investigated how the Freshman Fellows experience impacted the fellows’ studies and co-curricular activities at the university. Freshmen Fellows, established in 2016, is a signature opportunity to expose students to primary-source collections early in their college career by pairing four fellows with four curators on individual research projects. The program graduated its first cohort of fellows in spring 2020. The brief includes a semi-structured interview guide, program guidelines, and a primary research rubric.

What Should We Teach?

Chapter 3 delves into the specific civics and ethics skills and knowledge that are necessary to teach. It dives into US standards, approaches, and frameworks, including the college, career, and civic life (C3) framework for social studies state standards; the civics assessment framework; the 10 proven practices for civics education; connected civics; action civics; and the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) framework. It also includes the Jubilee Centre for Character & Virtues framework from the United Kingdom. From these frameworks, the chapter poses three different themes and nine guiding questions. The three themes are real-world knowledge and action; connection and community; and critical thinking and inquiry, and the nine questions form the basis for the subsequent chapters in the book.