Are you a Social Studies teacher? Do your students sometimes zone out when you discuss the Constitutional Convention? The branches of government? Checks and balances? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then 60 Second Civics is for you!
60 Second Civics is a daily podcast by the great folks at the Center for Civic Education. Each brief podcast discusses an aspect of Civics, ranging from the founding fathers fear of direct presidential elections to James Madison’s contributions at the Philadelphia Convention. Each podcast is accompanied by a single question quiz that helps check students’ understanding of the content. Wouldn’t this be great for a bellringer or opening activity?! Especially in a 1:1 classroom?
Here are a few ideas for using 60 Second Civics in your classroom:
- Gamifying 60 Second Civics
- Add 60 Second Civics to your course Symbaloo page
- Assign 3-5 podcast sections to your students (simply tell the students which podcast to listen to)
- Create a Kahoot with questions taken either from the podcast itself or the quiz question
- Play Kahoot with your students to check for understanding
- 60 Second Civics: Student Version
- In preparation for a test, or to prove mastery of a concept, students can create their own 60 Second Civics podcast.
- If students are using a Chromebook or iPad…
- Have your students create a brief presentation (using Prezi, Google Presentation, Keynote, etc)
- Have students create a screencast, using Screencastify or Explain Everything, of their presentation and explain what they have learned in 60 seconds.
- The teacher will need to set parameters of the assignment…what information to include, the minimum time required, etc.
How else could you use 60 Second Civics in your classroom?
Thanks for reading 🙂
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