Ecological Pedagogy, Curriculum and Scholarship

0 publications

Culture, Curriculum and Education

0 publications

Critical Praxis and Curriculum Guides

The Critical Praxis and Curriculum Guides is a curriculum-based series reflective of theory creating praxis. The series targets not only undergraduate and graduate audiences, but also tenured and “experienced” teachers of all disciplines. Research suggests that teachers need to have well-designed, thematic-centered curricula and lessons at their disposal. This is accomplished when the school works as a community to meet their own needs. Community in this sense includes working collaboratively with students, parents, and local community organizations to help build the curriculum. Practically, this means that time is devoted to professional development workshops, not exam reviews or test preparation pointers, but real learning. Together with administrators, teachers form professional learning communities (PLCs) to discuss, analyze, and revise curricula and share pedagogical strategies that meet the needs of their particular school demographics. This communal approach was found to be more successful than requiring each individual teacher to create lessons on her/his own. Ideally, we would love it if each teacher could create their own authentic lessons because only s/he truly knows her/his students – and we encourage it, because it is possible! However, as educators ourselves, we understand the realities our colleagues in public schools face, especially when teaching in high needs areas. The Critical Praxis and Curriculum Guides provides relief for educators needing assistance in preparing their lessons. When possible, and in the spirit of communal practices, the series welcomes co-authored books by theorists and practitioners or solo-authored books by an expert deeply informed by the field. Because we strongly believe that theory guides our practice, each guide will blend theory and curriculum chapters creating a praxis. All, of course, in a critical pedagogical framework. Ultimately, the guides will serve as resources for teachers to use, expand upon, revise, and re-create.

13 publications

Critical Education and Ethics

ISSN: 2166-1359

The Critical Education and Ethics series intends to systematically analyze the pitfalls of social structures such as race, class, and gender as they relate to edu-cational issues. Books in the series contain theoretical work grounded in prag-matic, society-changing practices. The series places value on ethical responses, as prophetic commitments to change the conditions under which education takes place. The series aims to (1) Further the ethical understanding linking broader social issues to education by exploring the environmental, health-related, and faith/spiritual responses to our educational times and policy, and (2) Ground these works in the everyday world of the classroom, viewing how schools are impacted by what critical researchers do. Both theoretically and practically, the series aims to identify itself as an agent for community change. The Critical Education and Ethics series welcomes work from emerging scholars as well as those already established in the field.

18 publications

Teaching Critical Themes in American History

ISSN: 2576-0718

In the United States, the Common Core Standards, the C3 Frame-work for Social Studies Standards (NCSS), and the 10 themes of the National Curriculum Standards (NCS/NCSS) each pose challenges for teachers preparing to teach skills, content, and critical issues of American history. The problem for many middle and secondary teachers is that textbooks do not contain sufficient primary source documents and varied secondary literature linked to these stand-ards. The volumes in the Teaching Critical Themes in American His-tory fill this need by providing teachers with history content, peda-gogical strategies, and teaching resources. The series is organized around key problems/issues in American history so that teachers can select which critical topics upon which they might want to con-centrate. Middle and Secondary pre-and in-service educators will find the books in this series essential for developing and implementing American history and social studies curriculum in diverse and com-plex classrooms. Teachers will find the books in this series valuable as they search for methodologies and material that will help them address the Common Core Standards in the social sciences and his-tory. Community College history instructors can also find the books in this series helpful as supplementary texts in their U.S. history survey courses. The practical—not to mention exciting—implementation of perspectives offered in each title is a key fea-ture of this series. This series will address topics such as the formation of the Ameri-can Republic, the problem of slavery in America, causes of the Civil War, emancipation and reconstruction, America’s response to in-dustrialization, the New Deal, the fight for Civil Rights, and more. The Series Editors invite proposals for edited volumes in American history and social studies, along with articles and lesson plans for both the topics above, and other topics of the series.

13 publications