The most meaningful EAD lesson I have done so far has been exploring the theme of Our Changing Landscape with 3rd-grade students across my district. The lesson was designed with inquiry and civics at heart. Having gone through the CPTL training on the EAD Roadmap this spring, I have a clear picture of not only how to begin implementing civics education into almost every lesson but also understand the importance of doing so. Using inquiry as an essential element of the lesson engages students to want to know more and personalizes civics learning for each student.

Today, we spotlight Amanda Juvera, who participated in our Civic Leadership Institute.

Today, we spotlight Simran Padney, who participated in our Civic Leadership Institute.

Alondra Salazar is a first-generation American educator who began working in education in 2010. She has been a front office secretary, McKinney-Vento Liaison, teacher, Social Studies Instructional Coach, and most recently, Student Culture Coordinator. She has an undergraduate degree in Social Studies and a Master’s in history; her passion is helping students identify what they are learning; this is her motivator for advocating for Social Studies education.

Education is based, in large part, on questions. We ask questions to learn things; we ask questions to determine what someone else knows, and we ask questions to infer what someone else understands. And yet, in most classrooms, most questions are generated by the teacher, and student-generated questions are unstructured, based on an individual student’s skill and knowledge, and often asked in pursuit of clarity of instructions or ideas. In short, students are most often cast in the role of answering questions about content rather than generating them.