Microsoft: Minecraft Education, Search Coach, and Search Progress. Digital Inquiry Group staff is collaborating with Microsoft’s Minecraft Education on the creation of a new Minecraft Education World and developing a suite of curriculum materials to support students to become more thoughtful consumers of the internet. DIG staffers are also collaborating with Microsoft on the creation of curriculum and professional development for Microsoft’s Search Coach and Search Progress.
Civic Online Reasoning Across the Curriculum. If students are to become discerning consumers of online information, digital literacy must be integrated into the core curriculum. As part of this project funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Digital Inquiry Group staff will collaborate with educators across the country to develop subject-specific digital literacy curriculum materials for use in secondary and post-secondary classrooms.
Reading Like a Historian: Preparing Students to Understand the Past and Present. Students encounter the past and the present on their phones. Despite their familiarity with digital devices, research shows that they struggle to evaluate online information. This project, funded by a Department of Education American History and Civics National Activities grant, will produce new Reading Like a Historian lessons with embedded digital literacy instruction, online professional development to support teachers in using these new resources, and an independent evaluation by the American Institutes of Research.
Educating for American Democracy K-5 Implementation. Elementary history teachers need more document-based, inquiry-driven curriculum materials and professional development. In this project, supported by the Educating for American Democracy (EAD) participants, the Digital Inquiry Group is deepening its partnership with Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the nation’s second largest, to create new K-5 Reading Like a Historian lessons aligned to the EAD Roadmap and to provide professional development for LAUSD teachers.
This project was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Implementation Phase of the Educating for American Democracy Initiative: Pilot Projects in Elementary. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.