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The College, Career, and Civic Life Framework and recently revised social studies standards in a number of states have placed renewed emphasis on inquiry-based instruction rooted in rigorous and relevant questions, which necessitates a better understanding of how teachers develop questions capable of meeting the expectations set forth in these documents. The purpose of this paper is to examine teachers’ question-development processes and the impact of question development and implementation on their understanding of compelling questions.

This qualitative study examined how six high school civics teachers from a single Kentucky school district defined and developed compelling questions. Following recommendations for in-depth phenomenological interviews, this study implemented a three-interview sequence, each of which included a verbal report component. Additional data were generated through teacher-completed Question Development Tasks and Question Evaluation Tasks.

The findings suggest that participants’ attempts to craft questions that balanced relevance and complexity led them to engage in a deliberate, reflective question-development process. Teachers’ understandings of compelling questions were shaped by their question-development experience; however, teachers who implemented their compelling questions emerged with a more nuanced understanding of their construction and a deeper commitment to their use.

Although focused on a small group of teachers, this study provides valuable insight into teachers’ conceptions of inquiry, which may strengthen the supports teacher educators and administrators provide to those attempting to implement inquiry in their classrooms.

The purpose of this paper is to engage readers with Unity Productions Foundation (UPF) films, which provide a powerful, inspirational digital tool for teachers. The organization's mission is to create documentaries, films and educational materials that contribute to bringing to light compelling stories of Muslim engagement through history and culture. UPF films and educational projects aim to promote peace and understanding to increase cultural pluralism and counter bigotry in our world.

Teachers will be able to utilize the resources provided in this paper to harness the power of media in their classrooms. Outlining the process by which teachers can follow the C3 inquiry using the film Prince Among Slaves will prepare teachers to see the alignment of the C3 Framework with their teaching. The “best practice” classroom strategies in structuring deliberations are ones that encourage students to fully participate and emphasize their voice.

This paper will unpack the practice methods that address the film Prince Among Slaves to be of benefit when sharing narratives through digital film and engage students in critical thinking through the C3 Framework. UPF films are the product of scholarly research and innovative production teams as the films provide the opportunity to visualize and explore multiple perspectives to understand historical content by providing a context for inquiry teaching and learning that is inclusive through deliberative discussions in the classroom.

The author certifies that this manuscript submission is original work and that all authors were involved in the intellectual elaboration of the manuscript and all parties have been acknowledged.

The C3 Framework is a recent example in a long history within the field of social studies education of efforts to engage teachers and students in inquiry-oriented teaching and learning. While there is some research regarding the efficacy of the inquiry design model (IDM) of the C3 Framework, few studies have sought to engage social studies teachers as coresearchers as they integrate the framework. This study addressed a persistent divide between the theory and practice of integrating inquiry in the social studies.

In this study, a classroom teacher and a university-based researcher conducted a hybrid action research study to understand the instructional shifts that occur as the C3 Framework is fully implemented into instruction.

Based on the findings, the authors present a theory of action to highlight key opportunities to shift instruction, while also acknowledging the factors that might mitigate those shifts. In particular, the authors focus on teacher decision-making and contextual factors that allow for and hinder the full integration of inquiry.

This study is unique in developing a hybrid action research/qualitative case study that provides insider knowledge related to improving social studies teaching and learning.

Preservice teachers (PSTs) typically have few opportunities to observe social studies instruction in PSTs' elementary field placements. To practice effective integration as a pathway to include more social studies instruction, PSTs developed a unit plan based on inquiry during an undergraduate methods course. The purpose of this study was to explore what scaffolds were effective in PSTs' development of social studies inquiry projects.

The author used a multiple case study approach, examining initial submissions, feedback and resubmissions as PSTs developed PSTs' inquiry projects. The data were analyzed with an eye on PSTs' ability to plan a unit according to the four dimensions of the C3 Framework's inquiry arc (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS], 2013).

The author analyzed data related to PSTs’ area of highest need from PSTs' initial submissions: staging the task, formative tasks and resources. PSTs were able to develop inquiry projects after being supported in their (1) organization, (2) clarity, (3) alignment and (4) developmental appropriateness.

This study shows that novice teachers can create high-quality social studies learning experiences in elementary school when provided appropriate supports (in this case, feedback about organization, clarity, alignment and developmental appropriateness). With the tools to develop such projects, new teachers may be able to increase the amount of social studies taught in elementary classrooms.

Advanced Placement Human Geography continues to grow in popularity at the secondary level, but not without its supporters and critics. The purpose of this paper is to examine one critique, the lack of critical geography and then give two examples how teachers could incorporate it using inquiry.

Critical geography examines the praxis between space, place and identity, exposing power imbalances constructed within space and place. Critical geographers also consider how to transform space and place to be more equitable. This paper provides two examples of how critical geography can be infused into content covered in AP Human Geography using the C3 Framework and the Inquiry Design Model. By infusing critical geographic perspectives into AP Human Geography students practice asking questions about inequities in space and place with an opportunity to become agents of transformation.

There is a gap in AP Human Geography when it comes to incorporating critical geography. This paper looks to redress that by providing two examples on how critical geography could be used in an AP Human Geography curriculum.

This collection of two inquiries is given as ways that AP Human Geography instructors could incorporate critical geography into their classrooms.

Social studies research has long advocated inquiry as a desired instructional practice, but the increasing emphasis on the role students’ questions should play in inquiry requires research into what social studies teachers can do to elevate the place of student questioning in classrooms. This study examined the attitudes and actions of two secondary social studies teachers who self-identified as advocates of student questioning and who desired to incorporate more student questioning into their instruction. This study used qualitative research methods and generated data through multiple interviews and classroom observations with each participant along with content analysis of classroom materials. Findings suggest that even though the participants approached student questioning in unique ways, they shared a need for curricular control, often triggered by the pressures of standardized assessments, which influenced how they incorporated student questioning into their classrooms. This study provides valuable insight into the promise of student questioning and factors that must be addressed if teachers are to incorporate student questioning in ways that foster meaningful inquiry.

White nationalist groups have recently been at the forefront of American sociopolitical life, as demonstrated by the events in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. The purpose of this paper is to explore the historical roots and various waves of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

This paper offers high school teachers age-appropriate, evocative texts and disciplinary-specific, engaging tasks organized in a guided inquiry on the KKK, America’s most prominent hate organization.

Students are positioned to utilize newly-constructed understandings to take informed action on the local, state and national level.

Recently-published research has explored late-nineteenth century and early-twentieth century manifestations of the Klan, but not mid-twentieth and twenty-first century outbursts.

This theory-into-practice article centers on American history through the optics of one religious organization's contestations – the Elim Springs Church of Jesus Christ, or Harshmanites as they are commonly known – with state and society. Secondary students explore the history and myriad responses from citizens and the federal government, which provides insight into what it means to be an American.

Embedded action inquiry (EAI) couples investigation with informed action. This whole-class exploration of 19th and 20th century American history transforms into individual, independent inquiries about related historical and current civil liberty contestations. Students communicate newly generated, fully substantiated understandings first to an academic audience and then to the community.

Teachers direct students' historical reading, thinking and writing toward informed civic participation. Engaging primary and secondary sources spark students' curiosity and scrutiny; writing prompts and scaffolding guide students' text-based articulations.

Harshmanite history, initiated by an iconic leader and maintained by the congregation into its 3rd century, illuminates the best and worst aspects of America. Secondary social studies students can examine emergent, local tensions when citizens' religious freedoms confront civic duty and societal responses. Through EAI, a novel adaptation of inquiry, students make meaning out of the local history and contribute to civic dialogue.

Massively parallel desktop computing capabilities now well within the reach of individual academics modify the environment for posterior simulation in fundamental and potentially quite advantageous ways. But to fully exploit these benefits algorithms that conform to parallel computing environments are needed. This paper presents a sequential posterior simulator designed to operate efficiently in this context. The simulator makes fewer analytical and programming demands on investigators, and is faster, more reliable, and more complete than conventional posterior simulators. The paper extends existing sequential Monte Carlo methods and theory to provide a thorough and practical foundation for sequential posterior simulation that is well suited to massively parallel computing environments. It provides detailed recommendations on implementation, yielding an algorithm that requires only code for simulation from the prior and evaluation of prior and data densities and works well in a variety of applications representative of serious empirical work in economics and finance. The algorithm facilitates Bayesian model comparison by producing marginal likelihood approximations of unprecedented accuracy as an incidental by-product, is robust to pathological posterior distributions, and provides estimates of numerical standard error and relative numerical efficiency intrinsically. The paper concludes with an application that illustrates the potential of these simulators for applied Bayesian inference.