Author: Zachary Cote

NCSS Recap and Our Impact Report

Thanksgiving is tomorrow! At Thinking Nation, we are so grateful for all of the people that we work with that are continuing to empower students and shift the paradigm of social studies education. There is a lot of work to be done, but so many are doing the work!

This was evident at the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) conference this past weekend in Boston, MA. There were thousands of educators all genuinely seeking to better our profession in order to empower students. The energy was real! I wanted to take a brief moment to recap some highlights and express gratitude about the conference.

On Thursday, our Director of Curriculum, Annie Jenson, and myself presented at the National Social Studies Leaders Association’s conference. On the surface, our presentation on how disciplinary assessments can build better alignment may seem boring, but at Thinking Nation we genuinely believe that better alignment in social studies will empower students and legitimize our discipline. We had such great conversations with other leaders in Social Studies that day.

Will and Annie fielding questions from eager educators in the NCSS Exhibit Hall

On Friday, the NCSS exhibit hall kicked off! It was such a busy day. But for me, the most enjoyable part was watching Annie and Will Pulgarin, our Implementation Specialist, passionately share our mission and vision with educators from around the world. I feel so much gratitude to them both and feel so fortunate to work alongside them as we seek to transform social studies education.

Also, for those of you who don’t know, Will currently lives in Colombia. This means we don’t get nearly as much in person time together as I’d like. His presence this trip was such a treat. More of us need colleagues like Will!

Melissa, Anton, Louise, and myself before our Vital Issue Session

On Saturday, both Annie and myself had presentations. I had lost my voice the day before, so my initial gratitude is to all of you who attended my session and put up with me sounding like one of our middle school male students (ha!). I was fortunate to be on a panel alongside Louise Dubé from iCivics, Anton Schulzki from NCSS, and Melissa Diliberti from the Rand Corporation to discuss the state of social studies education. My takeaway? We all see the real need for bettering social studies for students and so many of us our dedicating our careers to filling that need. I am grateful to my fellow panelists for agreeing to join me for this idea of a session!

Annie wrangling in energetic educators during her session on incorporating movement into teaching historical thinking

To end my Saturday before I headed to the airport, I got to watch an expert at work. Annie’s session was up there with the most engaging sessions of the weekend. She modeled key ways to incorporate movement in the classroom when teaching and practicing historical thinking. There were more people than seats in the room, despite it being the last session slot on a Saturday evening. She had us up and moving almost the entire time, demonstrating how we can both empower our students to think historically and keep the energy high in a class period. Honestly, I was smiling the whole time. There are few things more exciting than watching someone at the top of their craft. I’m grateful to have Annie on our team!

Historical Thinking Posters!

I know many of you were looking for our historical thinking posters at the conference so I am reposting them here! Click on the poster to download.

Historical Thinking Skills with Definitions
Historical Thinking Skills
THINKS Document Analysis Protocol

Our 2023-2024 Impact Report + Giving Tuesday

As a nonprofit organization, our mission is only realized with community support. It is in this spirit that we are launching our Giving Tuesday and end of year campaign. We want to make all of our formative assessments, and the AI-grading capabilities accessible to all, free of charge! But we can only do this with your support. With this audacious goal ahead, I ask that as you consider where you might give at the end of the year, you consider giving to make this project a reality.

Donate here

If we’ve learned one thing in the past decade, we can’t take democracy for granted. Empowering the next generation with the skills and dispositions necessary for civic success is critical for the longevity of our democracy. Join us as we equip and empower students as critical thinkers, actively engaged for the future of our democracy.

To learn more about Thinking Nation’s work last year and our efforts to realize this vision for democracy, please check out our Impact Report, released this week!

It is in this spirit, to better our future, that I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

Strong Schools, Stronger Communities: The State of Education in Los Angeles

On Friday, October 4, Alliance College-Ready Public Schools hosted a one day conference at the USC Tower in downtown Los Angeles: Stronger Schools, Stronger Communities. In alignment with its 20th anniversary and rebrand, Alliance invited education stakeholders throughout L.A. to attend the one day event. The premise alone sends a needed message to Angelenos—if we want to strengthen public education, we must work together.

Often, it feels like providing high quality education for all Los Angeles students is a competition. Traditional districts compete with charter schools for enrollments and we are still making sense of the mass exodus from public education to homeschooling during the pandemic. But rather than dwell on these hardships, the event served as a planning session for the future.

Given my current role as executive director of Thinking Nation , a Los Angeles-based social studies education nonprofit, I was especially curious about how local education leaders were going to think through our schools and our communities. At the heart of Thinking Nation’s mission is to empower students. We believe that social studies is uniquely set up to do so. But of course, our focus is just one part of a student’s day. This one day event, covering the entire school day, provides necessary context for us to fulfill our own mission. The word ‘progress’ defined the day. It was a remarkably inspiring time together. Early in the morning, our emcee and Alliance’s Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer, Jass Stewart, M.Ed., M.B.A.

, reminded us that when Alliance began in 2004, only 49% of Los Angeles high schoolers were graduating. In looking at LAUSD’s metrics for the 2022-23 school year, it’s now 84%. If we include charter schools, it is likely even higher. Those who care about education in L.A. have clearly done great work. But of course, the work is not over.

In the first session, panelists discussed the state of education in Los Angeles. Continuing to highlight progress, Dr. Fernando Guerra, the Director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, pointed out that capital funding is secure and will likely continue to be strong. While this funding doesn’t directly correlate to student outcomes, that funding is critical for teachers and administrators to focus on our students. But what should we focus on? This question transitioned the conversation to measurement and accountability. Myrna Castrejón, the President & CEO of the California Charter Schools Association challenged us to reach a better consensus about what makes a great school. Measurement is critical if we want to support all students, especially students in historically underserved communities. Our consensus must be backed by data, Mayra A. Lara, Ed.D., Director of Southern California Partnerships & Engagement at Education Trust – West, argued. In many cases, she pointed out, we simply don’t have the data necessary to meet student needs. To continue to progress, we must curate and make meaning of helpful data.

This focus on data and accountability is one of the core reasons that Thinking Nation works with many Los Angeles schools, including Alliance. We harness generative AI to provide feedback to students on how they think about history, that is historical thinking skills, in order to provide teachers with thorough data reports on student thinking. Our goal here, to measure student thinking rather than student knowledge, is critical in supporting teachers to empower their students with the skills and dispositions necessary for civic and economic success.

In his post-lunch keynote address, L.A. city council president, Marqueece Harris-Dawson demonstrated how student empowerment leads to progress. He shared about how Jefferson High School, just two miles from where we convened on Friday, only had 1 working toilet for its 3600 students in 1997.

Students were given the right tools, access, and time, and as a result, successfully pushed the city to reallocate $200 million in funds toward bettering school campuses. Harris-Dawson, who helped organize student activism during that time, showed us that when we tell students they are empowered, they will act on it. This takeaway, of progress toward student empowerment, was woven throughout the other sessions of the day. It was lifegiving to be among so many educators who saw that and relentlessly pursued better education in our city. Of course, as history teaches us, nothing is inevitable. Historical progress is never guaranteed and is always contingent on human choice. As evidenced by Friday’s conferences, hundreds of educators around the city are poised to make the choices that support our kids. Let’s join them.

The American Historical Association’s American History Report

On September 19th, our friends at the American Historical Association published a deeply needed report on the state of American History education in the United States. Having had the opportunity to work alongside the AHA’s Director of Teaching and Learning, Brendan Gillis, as well as speaking with two of the researchers on the report, Nicholas Kryczka and Scot McFarlane, as they finalized the project, I want to affirm just how much work went into this report. It is a prime example of what historians can bring to better understand the educational landscape in this country. 

Before I get into the main part of my own reflections on the report, I also want to shout out Scot McFarlane’s new initiative, the Oxbow History Company. The vision behind Oxbow, to take the tools of the historian and apply it to a variety of contexts, is brilliant. 

Back to the report. Both the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times published articles in response to the publication of the American Historical Association report: American Lesson Plan: Teaching US History in Secondary Schools. I appreciate that the report was referenced by these national news outlets, and, at least in the case of the New York Times, represented well. As part of my own reflective exercise, I responded to them both. I linked the original articles before my responses, and I encourage you to read them. I also hope that these responses are helpful as we think about how we can use this report to shift the paradigm of history education.

Response to the New York Times

As Dana Goldstein summarized, the American Historical Association report on history education is a needed anchor. Without this data, we might believe the polarizing narratives that teachers use their classrooms to indoctrinate students on their particular view of American history. These narratives come from both left and right. 

The AHA report paints a better picture. It is a testament to the power of research and evidence. It reminds us that history teachers are professionals. Most history teachers take their job seriously to present “multiple sides of every story.” They root their classrooms in evidence. 

In the face of narratives that opine otherwise, let’s remember John Adams’ comment during the  Boston Massacre trial, “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”

While the article acknowledges how teachers utilize primary sources, like the one above, I want to underscore how important this is. Giving students the opportunity to analyze primary sources empowers them to think critically, gain empathy for multiple perspectives, and effectively evaluate evidence. Let’s better support teachers in this work. These skills can strengthen both public education and our pluralistic democracy.

Response to the Los Angeles Times

LZ Granderson’s article highlighting the American Historical Association’s American History report draws needed attention to the state of history education. After reading the report, however, Granderson’s thesis seems incongruent with its findings. The report is not a reckoning of how history is taught, but an outline of the good work being done in history classrooms.

Of course, some of Granderson’s concerns over our nation’s collective knowledge of the past are warranted and need to be addressed. But, to say a report on education in American history classrooms “is not going to be pretty” severely misrepresents the AHA’s findings. The AHA notes that it “did not find indoctrination, politicization, or classroom malpractice.” History teachers are doing good work.

The evidence-based history that many teachers prioritize is a model for how to engage with the past. The AHA report embodies hope for American history education. Granderson’s problem may be there, but it’s not in our classrooms.

New Posters, New Podcasts!

The Thinking Nation team has been hard at work over summer so that we can best support all of the wonderful teachers we work with! In next week’s blog, we will look at some of the platform updates that took place recently, offering teachers and students a more streamlined way to engage with the disciplinary nature of our classes. This week, though, we want to highlight our new posters and podcasts that may be of particular help at the beginning of the school year.

First, you asked, and we listened! We created a few different posters that are available free for you to print out and hang in your rooms. We hope that these posters further cement the language of historical thinking and analysis in your classrooms as students begin to internalize that “unnatural act” of historical thinking (click on the poster image to download the file).

New Podcasts

We’ve had several new podcasts/youtube videos published in the last month. Head over to the Thinking Historically About series on our Youtube Channel to find the video versions of most of the conversations. All of the conversations are published as podcasts. Head over to Apple Podcasts or Buzzsprout to listen! Here are the episodes:

  • Thinking Historically About the Relationship between American Indians and Europeans with Dr. James Merrell, Vassar College (July 30)
  • Thinking Historically with Dr. Catherine O’Donnell, Arizona State University – Why Should We Think Historically? (August 5)
  • Thinking Historically About LGBTQ Protest with Dr. J.B. Mayo, University of Minnesota (August 13)
  • Thinking Historically About Japanese Incarceration during World War II with Dr. Lily Anne Welty Tamai, California State University, Channel Islands (August 27)
  • Thinking Historically About the Labor Movement with Dr. Dylan Shearer, University of Illinois, Chicago (September 5)

In each episode, the scholar explores the same essential question that guides our units. We hope these are helpful resources for you and your students as they engage in the work of the historian.

As you kick off the 2024-25 school year, we hope that these posters and podcasts better serve you as you aim to shift the paradigm of what social studies can be for your students.

This Week in History

There has been much talk in the media this week about historical moments. While we are certainly experiencing a very momentous time in our nation’s history at present, I went back into the past to consider a rather significant event that occurred on July 21, 1969. That was the day a man first walked on the Moon.

The United States space program was a capstone to a period of exploration and scientific discoveries. The 1960s were also a time of educational innovation. In 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched this period of change with the issuance of Proclamation 3363, designating  “the period from November 6 through November 12, 1960, as American Education Week; (urging) citizens throughout the Nation to participate actively the observance of that week in their schools and communities.” The proclamation also encouraged that Americans “study the programs of our schools and demonstrate our support for the work of our dedicated teachers. (And) take every opportunity to strengthen our educational system so that our young people can be prepared to meet the challenge imposed on our Nation by this competitive century.” And over the course of the decade the Federal Government became increasingly education-oriented. There was an increase in federal aid and more programs were created to support education.

On the national level, the most significant changes to education affected students who were disadvantaged economically or educationally, with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Bilingual education increased. And as scholars and theorists voiced criticism of the manner in which Americans were educated, across the country schools and teachers gained the freedom to try creative ideas in an effort to improve education. For social studies education specifically (because this is after all a social studies blog) students began studying old subjects in new ways. One of product of the civil rights movement was a change in the approach to teaching American history. Courses exploring the founding of the United States began emphasizing diversity. The struggles of black Americans for equality were added to course material, as were the experiences of Native Americans. Education experts pushed for teachers to be empowered to develop their students’ minds and encourage their intellectual curiosity, rather than merely stressing learning by rote memorization.

Fueling the transformation of social studies education were numerous grant funded projects, many notably led by historians Edwin Fenton and Richard Brown. They and others created instructional materials, provided professional development to teachers, and entered into agreements with publishers, to transform traditional content focused history taught through lectures and use of a textbook, into new frameworks characterized by engaging materials where teachers used methods of inquiry to get students thinking, seeing, and writing about the past. The goal Brown wrote was to commit “to the idea that ‘history’ is primarily a way of learning and secondarily a body of knowledge…. To be sure, we (agree) that history as a body of knowledge is also important—the more that one knows of the past the better one’s ability to ask good questions of it—but nonetheless, we (view) the body of knowledge as essentially a treasure trove to be used rather than ‘mastered’ as an end in itself….”

This echoes the mission and vision of Thinking Nation today. So, what happened decades ago to unravel the progress made by these and other visionaries? Their reforms in teaching were overshadowed by controversies associated with the diversity of the subject matter. “Academic freedom struggles emerged in cities and towns across the nation as the “new social studies” went on trial.  (Fenton), called it a “national conspiracy” led by a small and interconnected group of extremists. And so, it was “back to the basics” along with a revival of traditional history defined largely as the acquisition of historical “facts.” Among those contributing to the backlash of the “new social studies” were critics of progressive education, including “The Council on Basic Education, business groups, religious fundamentalists, textbook critics Mel and Norma Gabler, neoconservative educators Diane Ravitch and Chester Finn, and backed by conservative funders with deep pockets such as the Heritage Foundation.” (Evans, R. W. (2011). The Tragedy of American School Reform: How Curriculum Politics and Entrenched Dilemmas Have Diverted Us from Democracy. United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.)

What followed also included a growing concern about failing schools, a focus on standards, and eventually, the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 , promising to “combat the “soft bigotry of low expectations” in public education through a set of nationwide standards and federally enforced accountability.” Standardized tests focused on reading and math followed, and the era of teaching to the test began. And then of course, in early 2000s the United States began an intense focus on and funding of STEM courses. Social Studies was pushed to the side, as is covered in our white paper “A Second Class Subject? Why Social Studies Gets Short Shrift in U.S. Middle and High Schools,” published last November by the Education Week Research Center.  Now we find ourselves once again needing to transform social studies education—or perhaps “re-form” it back to what the innovators of the 1960s infused into the discipline.

Thinking Nation also believes in sharing the “undertold” stories of historical figures not featured in most textbooks. Our units cover “Women and the American Revolution” and “Women and the Civil War,” “The Jewish Experience in Nazi Germany,” “WWI and Minorities,” “Japanese Incarceration,” “El Salvadoran Migration,” “The Chicano Movement,” and more. There are Civics-Centered Topics which focus on “Protecting Civil Liberties,”The Citizen’s Role,” “Presidential Power,” “Social Media and Democracy,” and many more.

To learn more, you may download free resources available via our website. And feel free to Connect With Us to learn more

Back to School Webinar!

Please join Thinking Nation for: Empowering Students as Historical Thinkers: Transforming Social Studies Classrooms

Unlock the power of historical thinking in your classroom! Join us on Wednesday, August 7, 2024, from 3-4:30 PM CST for an exclusive webinar designed to provide you with methods to shift historical thinking from the teacher to the student. Gain practical strategies you can implement from day one, and receive free resources just for signing up, with even more available during the webinar. All registrants will additionally receive a recording of the webinar and a professional development certificate. Don’t miss this chance to equip yourself with everything you need for a classroom centered around historical thinking!

Register Today!

The National Charter Schools Conference – In BOSTON

Last week, Thinking Nation (Spenser, Liz, and I) flew out to Boston for the annual National Charter Schools Conference. As we’ve noted, this is the 2nd year that we partnered with the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools to do a themed student art contest and history exhibit for the conference. Naturally, since the conference took place right up until Independence Day in the city many see as the seed of the Revolution, our theme was easy! Below are some pictures of the little exhibit that attendees were able to take in. 

Some of the Student Art Work.
The Mini history exhibit we did with Revolutionary Spaces.

Overall, the conference was so exciting! The exhibit hall was bustling and we had so many great conversations with such passionate educators. The organizers of the conference, in particular Angela Christophe and Patricia Guidetti, truly put on such a wonderful event. We feel so fortunate to play a small, but personally special, part in it.

While at the conference it was great to meet or see again in person so many leaders in California Charter Schools, where we got our start, and in the civics space. Embodied relationships are so refreshing in the virtual world we often live in. 

The team at our booth!

Of course, what would a conference in Boston be like for Thinking Nation if we didn’t incorporate some mini history field trips? The three of us walked the Freedom Trail, which was really a surreal experience given it being the week of Independence Day. Some highlights for me personally, as it’s been a decade since I’ve been in Boston: 

Spenser standing on the site of the Boston Massacre.

1. Visiting the graves of the victims of the Boston Massacre – I don’t take lightly that Crispus Attucks has a named grave in a colonial Boston cemetery. Boston did not outlaw slavery until 1783, 13 years before Attucks, a African-Indigenous man was killed in front of the Old State House and memorialized in the Granary Burial Ground alongside the other four victims. In the spirit of this note, John Wheatley, who enslaved America’s first Black Author, Phillis Wheatley, is also buried there.

Faneuil Hall


2. Visiting Tremont Temple and Faneuil Hall. While these two sites hold great historical importance, those of you who know me know that I spent a year of my scholarly life with the writings of Frederick Douglass, so re-thinking these sites knowing he, too, visited and spoke at them, was especially exciting.


3. Having dinner at America’s oldest restaurant, Ye Old Union Oyster House. Not only did we eat right next to the “Kennedy Booth,” where JFK ate, but while there, I learned that before it was a restaurant (pre-1826), French King Louis Philippe I taught French to Bostonians there! How cool is that?

4. Seeing the beautiful mosaic representing the site of our nation’s first public school. After all, quality public education is why we were in the city!

The site of the first public school in the U.S.!
Hey Wally!

5. Attending a reception at Fenway. Fenway is one of those Baseball stadiums that borders a spiritual experience so any excuse to be alongside the green monster, and as the picture shows, Wally the Green Monster, is a good one.

Boston, you are a great city. It was a great National Charter Schools Conference!

Happy (Fiscal) New Year!

Happy (Fiscal) New Year! I am Spenser Mix, COO of Thinking Nation. We have grown significantly this past year in many ways. I am taking this moment to reflect on some of our larger accomplishments, none of which would be possible without our dedicated staff. Not only has our team grown in size, but through our shared efforts we have also grown closer.

Sample AI Feedback

AI IS HERE!!! The team pulled together and revolutionized our platform in ways previously thought unimaginable. AI has allowed us to offer our services instantly and with more fidelity. In 2020, when earning my MBA, I spoke with an engineer from Amazon about an idea to automate essay grading through AI. I was told AI should not be used in this capacity because (in their limited opinion) it eliminates the human aspect of education. Four short years later, here we are integrating that original idea. Today we understand that AI has the potential to enhance the human experience for teachers instead of depleting it. These tools are in place to lighten teachers’ workload, not eliminate them. As a former teacher, I understand how grading papers on the weekend drained me as a professional and made me a less effective teacher during the week. Thinking Nation embraces these tools so teachers everywhere can be their best selves in the classroom and spend more time living their teaching passions. This is only the beginning of our AI capabilities. Many more projects are soon underway!

Another large accomplishment for us last year was the company rebrand. After many attempts to curate the perfect depiction of Thinking Nation, the leadership team unanimously adopted this new design. The colors are engaging but not abrasive. The logo is simple yet impactful. What do you see first when looking at our logo? Do you only notice the two comment bubbles forming a “T”? Or does your artistic eye notice the “N” formed through the negative space between the two bubbles? The logo is meant to represent the ongoing civil discourse that is necessary to have an informed and active citizenry. A continued dialogue where opposing views can debate for the betterment of democracy. Needless to say, we love our new logo and its embodiment of our nonprofit mission, to cultivate thinking citizens. 

As a side project to this rebrand, we commissioned the creation of historical thinking icons. These icons are basic, yet thought-provoking. Just like the rest of our rebrand, this careful balance of meaning and impact is perfectly executed through these icons. They are quickly becoming a central part of our curriculum and soon to become iconic in their own right. This year we plan to incorporate these icons into student portfolios providing a visually pleasing and effective way for teachers to demonstrate student mastery of historical thinking skills. AI will become central to the creation and implementation of these portfolios. 

The achievements of 2023 are quickly becoming the foundations for 2024’s goals. The best is yet to come!

The Reagan Institute Summit on Education 2024

What can we collectively do to empower every learner? Dozens of government officials, education leaders, and teachers convened at the Ronald Reagan Institute in Washington, D.C. to think about the best way to answer that question. This past May 23nd marked the 7th annual Reagan Institute Summit on Education, RISE. 

Zach and Liz at RISE 2024
Zach and Liz at the Reagan Institute Summit on Education

The sheer location of the Reagan Institute, with the White House in sight, presents a sort of urgency to the event. In my job at Thinking Nation, I live in this state of urgency to pursue a better education for our students. Our organization seeks to shift the paradigm of social studies education by equipping teachers to empower their students in disciplinary thinking. We know that when students engage with the past they study, rather than merely remember it, they are empowered to flourish in both civic and economic life. I was anxious to hear how others’ areas of focus overlapped with ours. 

Many of the panels throughout the summit offered provoking ideas and plans of action. However, it was the first panel that I believe set the tone for needed conversations on how we can empower students. Three state leaders in education discussed accountability in schools as they answered the question “Have we reached the low watermark for accountability in schools?” Virginian State Secretary of Education, Aimee Guidera, Maryland State Superintendent of Schools, Carrie Wright, and North Dakota State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Kirsten Baesler each offered their state’s approach to cementing high standards and corresponding accountability in their schools.

Wright previously served in this role for the state of Mississippi. During her tenure, the state exponentially increased reading scores as evidenced by 4th graders in the state going from 50th to 21st in the nation on the NAEP reading scores. Now in her home state of Maryland, she offered up key aspects of that success. Data was at the core of it. 

Data has to drive instruction, and teachers need to know how to leverage the data effectively. If they don’t? “Build professional learning,” she noted. Building teacher capacity is critical to empowering students. This clear connection between accountability standards, corresponding data to measure those standards, and teacher capacity to use that data, was echoed by the other two leaders as well.

Guidera acknowledged that we, as the adults, need to hold ourselves accountable to helping students meet high expectations. In fact, Baesler took it further, stating, “There is education malpractice if we don’t believe our students can achieve high expectations.” But, as all three noted, with No Child Left Behind, the high standards were not coupled with building teacher capacity. This key component, professional learning for teachers, is key to the success of an accountability model embodied by high expectations. 

Thinking Nation prioritizes data at the center of all that we do with schools. In fact, we’ve leveraged generative AI to make that data instant and easily digestible by teachers in order to facilitate student growth effectively without overburdening teachers. Discernable data can better equip teachers, align whole departments, increase interdisciplinary collaboration, and most importantly, lead to empowered students. 

To be transparent, as a former middle school history teacher, I questioned the need for data in the classroom. I felt that it just encouraged teachers to teach to a test and weakened the art of teaching. But I was missing the bigger picture. 

Without data, I didn’t have a common language of success to use with my colleagues. As a department head, I struggled to break down the silos of our classroom walls. Collaboration without a shared focus and a way to measure that focus was always well intentioned but difficult to implement. Data has changed that. 

The shared focus exists by rooting social studies in the discipline, rather than the myriad contents contained within. Then, teachers can have a common language to measure success. They can engage in high level conversations about student success by leveraging resulting data from assessments on disciplinary thinking. When built into the accountability models of schools, we’ve found this to be transformative. It gives meaning to the classroom for students and empowers them as thinkers ready to shape the future. 

As the state leaders on the panel noted, we need high expectations in our schools. But building teacher capacity to help students meet those expectations is critical. In many ways, we’ve failed our teachers. We’ve continued to burden them with demands without giving them the tools to meet those demands. I hope that as other leaders and policy makers at RISE reflected on those insights, we can collectively work to enact real and systemic change to give teachers what they need to empower our students. Those students, our communities, and our country deserve it.

AI for Human Flourishing

Last week, I read The Atlantic article, “The Big AI Risk Not Enough People Are Seeing: Beware Technology That Makes Us Less Human” by Tyler Austin Harper. His primary case, that AI must be used for human flourishing, is one that I have often made in AI circles the last year. Harper has recently been one of my favorite journalists to read. His cultural commentary consistently verbalizes things I’ve been thinking about in ways I couldn’t have done so effectively. I’m thankful to the Atlantic for prioritizing his writing regularly. 

I want to take today’s post to dissect his claims a bit and also elaborate on how we take those claims seriously at Thinking Nation internally, as well as how we uphold the vision behind those claims in our collaborative work in the civics space. Generative AI has upended life as we know it, and it will only continue to do so. Not all upending is bad, though, so we must take into account how we use it in order to promote human flourishing. What we can’t do, as Harper so helpfully describes, is let it use us to detract from human flourishing.

Harper explores a space that we in the civics and history education space are perhaps not that up to speed in: online dating (disclaimer: I met my wife in HS, so have not had to navigate this space). In a growing “innovation” in that space, AI-run algorithms can weed out all the likely wasted first dates so that you can have the highest chance of relational success from the get go with the person you swiped right for. At its core, it’s a way to make the dating process much more efficient, but Harper points out the dehumanizing qualities that should really be the focus.

Harper marks the 20th century as one empowered by the onslaught of “disabling professions.” These professions took common skills to a community (medicine, schooling, child-rearing) and exported them to professionals. He calls these “disabling professions.” In some cases, such as medicine, this saved lives. But it also weakened human ability to cope with many aspects of life that had been inherent to human life for centuries (education) or even millennia (child-rearing). This “standardization and professionalization of everyday life” disabled normal human life.

In the 21st century, with the help of AI, these disabling professions were replaced by “disabling algorithms,” he argues. The latter being much more ominous for the future of humanity than the former.

He writes,
” Disabling Algorithms as tech companies simultaneously sell us on our existing anxieties and help nurture new ones. At the heart of it all is the kind of AI bait-and-switch peddled by the Bumble CEO. Algorithms are now tooled to help you develop basic life skills that decades ago might have been taken as a given: How to date. How to cook a meal. How to appreciate new music. How to write and reflect.”

Later in the article, he writes of the consequences of these disabling algorithms and how we need to have a clear understanding of our humanity to parse out the good algorithms from the bad. “We can’t take a stand against the infiltration of algorithms into the human estate if we don’t have a well-developed sense of which activities make humans human,” he posits. This is key. 

CivXNow AI Working Group

Back in the fall, I had the opportunity to serve on a working group under CivXNow around the intersection of civic, social cohesion, and AI. My constant push in every meeting was that our conversations around the barriers we should set around AI are all irrelevant if we don’t have a common understanding of what it means to be human. Without first defining the ontological characteristics of humanity, any sort of walls around AI are too flexible, constantly adjusting to the whims of society at any given moment. 

Harper addresses this need succinctly, “Without some minimal agreement as to what those basic human capabilities are—what activities belong to the jurisdiction of our species, not to be usurped by machines—it becomes difficult to pin down why some uses of artificial intelligence delight and excite, while others leave many of us feeling queasy.” If we don’t know what it means to be human, how will we know whether AI contributes to or detracts from human flourishing?

I had the opportunity to author the introduction and conclusion of the CivXNow Report that came out of our working group’s meetings. The report, titled “Unchartered Waters: Education, Democracy, and Social Cohesion in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” gives some recommendations for how we can work together to ensure AI’s support of humanity, rather than its replacement. You can access some of the resources developed here.

In the introduction, I start with the famous line of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” as it sets a tone of human equality (and therefore some definition of humanity) that AI must must be seen in light of, especially in a civics space. My portion of the introduction ends with this, “As a community, we must be willing to honestly think through the various uses of AI and its implications in order to successfully wield its power without compromising our own humanity.” These discussions are imperative as AI becomes more ubiquitous in our daily lives. Otherwise, we don’t run AI, it runs us.

AI and Thinking Nation

Sample AI feedback on a Student Essay.

At Thinking Nation, we think deeply about how to use AI on our platform. Currently, we use it to grade student work to provide students with instant feedback and teachers with clear data on student growth. Since all of this feedback and data enhances the teaching of history as a discipline and better facilitates students ability to engage with the past, it also enhances their own flourishing. We incentivize this approach to teaching social studies because we know this way empowers students with the agency they need to actively engage with the world around them. There are many uses of AI that we choose not to entertain as it could cloud the difference between human and machine and blurry distinctions are no distinctions at all.

Sample Teacher Data Report from AI-generated grading

I was incredibly encouraged by Tyler Austin Harper’s piece in The Atlantic. He is calling our attention to the intense ramifications of AI that are hidden in the mundane aspects of our lives. This calling attention to is critical as we move forward in the age of AI. I’ll leave a portion of the CivXNow report’s conclusion here as I hope to continue the conversation around AI, human flourishing, and education:

“As leaders in the civics and education spaces, we know that just because something can be done, does not mean it should be. One of the core aspects of being a good citizen is to think about what is best for the community, not just oneself. At the core of that civic aim is really a question of our humanity.

As people, we are inhumane when we detract from human flourishing; we are humane when we contribute to it. These are the terms in which we should think as we consider how to harness the power of AI in a way that centers our own humanity and, conversely, how AI might be used in ways that lessens that humanity.”

Our Platform Got a Refresh!

If you’ve been on our platform in the last couple days, you’ve noticed that we got a platform refresh! As a small nonprofit organization entering a space with many VC-backed edtech companies, it is always exciting when we can streamline the edtech side of things to be more user-friendly and helpful for our teachers and students. It’s always for the mission!

I wanted to take today to highlight some of these new changes for those teachers wondering about the changes. Let’s explore!

First, the teacher portal:

In addition to making the look feel cleaner and more intuitive, there are minor adjustments for teachers. For instance, the Icon Key is now on every page at the bottom, but with the option to minimize it to have more room to view your rosters.


Also simple changes, like the icons matching our brand colors have been updated, too. It’s the little things for this little organization, folks!

Now, if you ever want to unsubmit an assignment that is past the due date, you can. Before, teachers could only unsubmit active assignments, but thanks to your feedback, we’ve realized that sometimes that second chance comes for a student well after the assignment was due (I see you end-of-year make ups!). Hopefully, this will make it easier for the student to demonstrate their growth mindset and raise their scores! So teachers, just hover over any assignment that a student has turned in, and you can unsubmit it on their behalf.

We’ve also made the resources tab a lot easier to navigate! With buttons and more visible drop down menus, we hope it will be easier for you to find that resource you were looking for! Also, stay-tuned, in the next couple months, this tab will go over a 2.0 makeover as we sort the resources by historical/content topic, rather than type of resource. We hope that it will help you see all of the types of resources for each corresponding topic, rather than having to hunt around for them on the platform. Once again, thank you teacher feedback!

Students, too, have a more streamlined experience. On their homepage, the layout is much easier to see, and depending on which sources they want to see, they can simply click the buttons on the top of their screen. If a resource type is in green, it will show up, if it is gray, it won’t be visible. Hopefully this can help students focus on the task they need to first, as well as sort through the assignments as the year goes on and the resources accumulate.

The “Notes” and “Chat” features are more visible and easy to use, too. For both teachers and students, don’t forget that you can annotate or ask questions via chat when working on any assignment on the platform. Notifications for the chat will always show up in the top right corner of your homepage.

As you navigate the platform refresh, you may notice other subtle changes not addressed here, but hopefully they all provide a more user friendly experience. And of course, we’d love to hear more feedback if you have it teachers. Just send a help desk ticket once on your portal and let us know what you want to see!

The National Civic Collaboratory and Building Hope Summit

Last week, I was honored to attend my first National Civic Collaboratory. This summit is put on 3 times a year by Citizen University in order to shift “the current paradigm of individual achievement towards collaboration and shared success.” You know how much I love the language of paradigm shifting! Generously hosted at the Reagan Library by the Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, about 100 civic leaders gathered in Simi Valley, CA to commit to the broader work of strengthening democracy. 

There was such a wide variety of civic-minded organizations there, with representation from presidential foundations, former elected officials, educators, artists, philanthropy, youth-led organizations, and more. As a whole, it was an act of pluralism, where people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and visions came together to support one another in civic initiatives. I was both encouraged and inspired. As we at Thinking Nation continue to cultivate thinking citizens by shifting the paradigm of social studies education, I was so energized by the work of so many in the room over the summit’s two days.

Our little Civic Collab sign under the Reagan Library’s beautiful Wisteria (Go smell some, it’s blooming!)

The National Civic Collaboratory is a unique set up. When various organizations share to the group about their own work, the listeners are not asked to provide feedback or advice; rather, they are asked to make commitments of support. In this way, the civic circle grows exponentially. We all can leverage our own resources and networks to further civic’s ultimate aim of preserving and protecting democracy, even if we are not directly involved. This type of pluralism gave me great hope, even as I look at an increasingly polarized populus. I look forward to more of these and getting more involved with the other organizations in the community.

The Building Hope Impact Summit

In the same vein of finding hope wherever you may be, the leadership team at Thinking Nation is excited to head to Miami today for the 3rd annual Building Hope Impact Summit. Our own Spenser Mix and Liz Connolly will be presenting on how we are leveraging AI to empower students, which will surely be an engaging session (I’m looking at you, Spenser, and former 6th grade teacher!).

I’m excited to meet so many changemakers in the education community and learn from their successes (and hopefully share some of ours!). It is bound to be an enriching time. Whereas the National Civic Collaboratory gave me hope about the state of civic initiatives in a fractured democracy, I am excited to identify areas of hope in a fractured education system. Our students deserve it.

Not Too Late for Mock APs!

The last thing I want to put on your radar is our Mock AP exams! It is not too late to get your rosters all set up to give a Mock AP exam to your students on our platform. Our AI instantly grades the student exams, giving students immediate and specific feedback. Both the students and their teachers get detailed data reports that outline exactly what needs to be studies in the final days before the exam. If you are looking for a way to give your students the best shot to be successful on the big exam, this is it! If you want more information, head over here to download the informational flyer or request a meeting to set things up. Also, shout out to History For Humans for detailing the Mock APs on social media!

Final Days of Student Art Contest and a Podcast Interview on AI Updates

First things first before we jump into AI updates. Students and teachers: there are just a few more days to submit artwork or poetry for our annual art contest! The Contest officially closes at 11:59pm on April 1st. And this is not a joke! We are excited to see all the student submissions and showcase the top 20 at the National Charter Schools Conference in Boston at the end of June. You can find the flyer with all the details here and the link directly to the submission form here. Good Luck!

(Note: TEACHERS! There is also a raffle for a $100 Amazon gift card going on. For every student that submits in your class, you get one entry. So encourage those submissions so you can TREAT YOURSELF to a well deserved whatever-you-need!)

AI Updates for Mock AP Exams

Second, as many of you know, Thinking Nation has been hard at work integrating Artificial Intelligence into our platform in order to better shift the paradigm of social studies education. Our AI updates started in December, when we rolled out AI grading of student essays for our Curated Research Papers. This means that teachers and students can get instant feedback and data on the complex disciplinary thinking skills inherent to social studies. With robust, usable data accessible in an instant, we can better structure our classrooms around the discipline we teach, rather than only the content within that discipline.

Moreover, last week, we rolled out our Mock AP Exams that also have AI grading! This means that students can take a full length (in parts) AP Exam for APUSH, AP Gov, AP Euro, or AP World and get instant feedback! We’ve done the intricate work to align every question and rubric component to the Periods/Units, Skills, reasoning processes, Themes, and Stimulus types, too.

A sample snapshot from a teacher report for the DBQ.

So, when students complete the exam, they get a robust data report detailing exactly what they need to study before the big exam in May. It’s not too late to sign up to do this for your students, either! Here is a little flyer that outlines the pricing of the AP Exam. Or, if you want to talk to someone at Thinking Nation about setting this up for your students to do before the big exam, fill out this form and let us know you are interested in Mock AP Exams.

A Sample snapshot of the Teacher Report for the MCQs.

The EdSurge Podcast

Lastly, as the conversation around AI and education continues to boom, I was excited to join Rachel Davison Humphries from the Bill of Rights Institute on this week’s EdSurge podcast. The question at the heart of the podcast interview was “Could AI Give Civics Education a Boost?” We obviously think yes, and we outline how in the interview with host, Jeff Young. Please read the summary of the episode here, or you can download the episode from Apple Podcasts (or any other podcast directory).

Since day one, Thinking Nation has thought strategically about how we can shift the paradigm of social studies education. That goal has never changed, but now, with the introduction of Generative AI, we think we can push systemic change in a way that benefits all classrooms and provides more attainable equity across the country. 

Join us as we continue the mission!

Happy Civic Learning Week!

Today marks day 1 of Civic Learning Week! It has already been a busy one for us. 

The first mark we made on the week came in the form of an Oped I wrote in The Fulcrum that explored the essential nature of social studies skills for cultivating civic dispositions. In a recent oped on the same site, a binary of skills vs. content was established that I don’t think fully captures the goals of the social studies classroom. In today’s blog I responded and outlined just why the skills of our discipline are so essential. Give it a read.

Next, at 9am PT, I joined Dr. Larry Paska of the National Council for Social Studies for a webinar on the state of social studies education. If you’ve been following our blogs recently, you know we’ve hosted a mini podcast series on this topic, where I interviewed various thinkers about the subject. In fact, we released episode 6 of the series on Friday, March 8th. In that interview, I really enjoyed my conversation with Shawn Healy of iCivics. Shawn serves as Senior Director for Policy and Advocacy and he brought a really helpful policy perspective to the conversation. Take a listen!

Back to the webinar with Dr. Paska. We started with a brief interview of Dr. Bill Daggett of the Successful Practices Network. We wanted to hear what an outside perspective had to say about the current state of social studies education and were grateful to Dr. Daggett for sharing his own perspective built on decades of experience in the broader education reform movement. 

From there, Larry and I explored the research from Thinking Nation’s white paper, NCSS’s annual survey, and three studies that specifically looked at the state of social studies education in the elementary classroom. The studies are:

  1. 2020 Fordham Institute Study: “Social Studies Instruction and Reading Comprehension: Evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study”
  2. 2023 Rand Corporation Study: “The Missing Infrastructure for Elementary (K–5) Social Studies Instruction”
  3. 2023 CCSSO Guidelines: “Effective Social Studies Integration in Elementary Classrooms”

It was really helpful to take all the data together and think through its meaning and how we can best move forward as a discipline. There are so many exciting events for Civic Learning Week and it was exciting to kick off the week with NCSS!

Moving on to midday, Larry and I were the primary guest’s for KPBS’s Midday edition. KPBS is San Diego’s public radio station and it was such a treat to speak with host, Jade Hindmon. The recording of the interview should be uploaded as a podcast soon, and I’d encourage you to listen to this more focused (and less data-oriented) conversation around social studies and civic education. I’m grateful to KPBS for prioritizing Civic Learning Week in their programming!

Lastly, tonight, Thinking Nation will take over the #sschat feed on X for 10 or so minutes as part of Civic Learning Week. Follow the hashtag #sschat on the app from 5-6pm PT to engage with several organizations who are trying to think together about how we can make the most of this important week. 

Student Art Contest – Final Days!

It’s of course a busy week, and we hope that for your students it is too! Friday is the last day that students can submit an art piece for our annual art contest! As a reminder, We teamed up with the National Alliance for Charter Schools again this year to host a nationwide student art contest for middle and high school students. (Check out last year’s!)  This year’s National Charter School Conference will be in Boston, MA from June 30-July 3. Since the conference leads right into Independence Day in one of the nation’s most revolutionary cities, we decided to build our theme around the future of American democracy. Students can create a creative work of art that addresses the prompt: What does the future of American Democracy look like?

Submissions for this Student Art Contest for Democracy will be accepted until March 15th and the top 20 will be featured at the National Charter Schools Conference! The top 2 will even win cash prizes! For full details on the contest, check out the contest flyer. Be sure to have your students submit!

Socratic Seminars and Deep Conversation

I had the privilege of attending class in Mr. Martinez’s 8th grade class again last Friday. If you haven’t read about Abraham’s class, I’d encourage you to here or here! He’s such a stellar teacher and I appreciate every opportunity I have to attend his class.

Abraham and I will be presenting together next Saturday at the California Council for Social Studies, where our session is titled “Cultivating Community through Socratic Seminars.” At Thinking Nation, we’ve been quietly building Socratic Seminars for all of our units and Abraham has been generous enough to pilot them and reflect on his experience during our CCSS session. 

On Friday, I walked into his classroom in the middle of a seminar (sorry kids! Also, c’mon meetings…) and was instantly excited by what I walked into. The students had just finished engaging in one of our Curated Research Papers on Slave Resistance and were participating in the Socratic Seminar as the final piece before they wrote their essays. The inquiry question for that unit is “How did enslaved people resist their enslavement and why is this historically significant?” As I listened to the students, I heard them answering complex questions, referring to primary sources, and citing evidence from those sources to defend their answers. In fact, one of my favorite sounds during the 1.5 hours I was there was the 15 pages turning at once when a student spoke up and said something like, “As shown in Document B.” To hear the pages flipping in unity was a joy to historian ears.

A student preparing to engage in the discussion.

While I recorded many insightful moments provided by the young scholars in the room, I’ll share just a couple of them here.

The first example demonstrated a student’s commitment to methodology. Multiple students in the inner seminar circle were bringing up the point that running away was the greatest form of resistance. After hearing this multiple times, one student chimed in, “Wait, I’d like to ask a question. What are you guys referencing when you are saying that running away was the most common way to resist?”

This may not seem like much on the surface, but in this moment, the student wanted to source the claims she was hearing. She followed good historical thinking practice and asked a question of sourcing to the students. This high standard for evaluating claims is the type of disposition our democracy requires (Fortunately, the students were able to point her to the section of their materials that made that claim).

The second came when the students were discussing the significance of runaway slave advertisements. In a seemingly simple observation, a student said, “I’d like to add that running away was so common because they put it in the newspaper and it had its own section.” He went on to expand that it wasn’t just the language of the advertisement that revealed significance, but it was the existence of the ad. To him, the fact that newspapers would dedicate copy space to this regularly demonstrated just how prevalent of an event it was. This was great contextualization at work!

I was so impressed by what I heard in the class that day, and I hope that if you are planning to go to CCSS that you come to our session on socratic seminars or at least stop by the Thinking Nation booth (401) and say hi!

Thinking Historically About Podcast

Today we released episode 5 of our mini podcast series “Thinking Historically About the State of Social Studies Education.” As the other episodes have been for me, this was another great conversation with a insightful leader in the education space. My guest was Dr. Janet Tran, the Director of The Center for Civics, Education, and Opportunity for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute. If you read the blog a couple weeks ago, Janet was the mind behind the incredibly thought-provoking roundtable at the Reagan Library. Her deep and layered thinking only further shined in my conversation with her on the podcast. Please listen!

It’s been a busy week but also incredibly fulfilling. If you plan to attend the National Council for History Education’s conference in Cleveland please come say hi on Friday. And for my fellow Californians, I’ll see you Saturday in Garden Grove for CCSS!

AASA, Art, and Thinking Historically About

Last week, the Thinking Nation team exhibited and presented at AASA’s National Conference on Education in San Diego, CA. It was a busy and well attended conference and so nice for the Thinking Nation team to engage with school and district leaders from around the country. Spenser, Liz, and Valentina presented on Valentine’s Day about our AI initiatives and Zach presented the next day about how we can better align social studies departments at districts large and small. To read more about our sessions, check out the press release that went out before the conference.

The Thinking Nation Crew!
Spenser, Valerie, Liz, and Johanna representing Disciplinary Thinking Skills

For me, the best part of the conference was just hanging out with our team. Being a remote-working team, opportunities for us all to hang out in person are not lost on me. I had so much fun catching up with each person at our booth or offsite when we had meals together. I’m really so fortunate to work with the people I do, and last week’s time together only confirmed that.

Student Art Contest

As a reminder, our Student Art Contest is alive and well! As a reminder, We teamed up with the National Alliance for Charter Schools again this year to host a nationwide student art contest for middle and high school students. (Check out last year’s!)  This year’s National Charter School Conference will be in Boston, MA from June 30-July 3. Since the conference leads right into Independence Day in one of the nation’s most revolutionary cities, we decided to build our theme around the future of American democracy. Students can create a creative work of art that addresses the prompt: What does the future of American Democracy look like?

Submissions for this Student Art Contest for Democracy will be accepted until March 15th and the top 20 will be featured at the National Charter Schools Conference! The top 2 will even win cash prizes! For full details on the contest, check out the contest flyer. We can’t wait to see what students come up with!

The Podcast: Thinking Historically About

Lastly, since I didn’t get around to sending anything out last week, I want to make sure I let everyone know about last week’s podcast episode with Dr. Larry Paska, Executive Director of the National Council for Social Studies. I’m excited to have a more extensive conversation with Larry during Civic Learning Week, but if you are looking for a sneak peak of our conversation, check out the episode. If you want to attend the CLW webinar, sign up here!

This week’s episode features Andrea Foggy-Paxton, who I regrettably didn’t know about until we serendipitously sat next to each other at the Reagan Institute’s roundtable a couple of weeks ago. Andrea is Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Education Leaders of Color and Founder of Social Studies Accelerator. She also sits on the iCivics and Los Angeles County Board of Education boards.  I am so inspired by Andrea’s work in Social Studies that I had to have her on the podcast. I hope you all enjoy her insights and benefit from her wisdom in the episode!

Promoting Freedom and Democracy At Home and Abroad – Our Time at the Reagan Library

Quick Podcast Update

As I mentioned last week, we are releasing a new podcast episode every week leading up to Civic Learning Week (March 11-15). Today’s release is an interview with Jessica Ellison, the executive director of the National Council for History Education. Please listen!

Also, I was kindly invited by Dr. Almitra Berry to join her on her podcast, “Educational Emancipation Equity” recently. You can listen to our conversation here. As I tell her, we want to empower students and firmly believe that equipping them to think historically can do just that.

Promoting Freedom and Democracy

In another great opportunity to talk about the importance of social studies education as a means to preserve and protect our constitutional democracy, I facilitated a roundtable discussion at the Reagan Library on Tuesday, February 6 as a part of the celebration of President Reagan’s 113th birthday. 

Former Polish President, Lech Walesa, giving his address.

The public portion of the event began with a speech from former President of Poland and distinguished Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Lech Walesa. He had admirable reflections on the state of democracy and how we can sustain it, reminding us in the crowd: “First, we have to focus on the values that guide us—then we can focus on the laws and the economy.” So often, we miss the forest for the trees. His broad view was a good reminder.

After the address and public ceremony, a group of us joined together for the roundtable, “Promoting Freedom and Democracy at Home and Abroad.” The first roundtable was led by Consuelo Amat, SNF Agora Institute Assistant Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. She led us in a discussion of lessons from abroad about fortying democracy. Her insights to how people resist repressive regimes was incredibly illuminating and I wish her portion was longer!

I was fortunate to lead and facilitate the 2nd half of the roundtable around the topic, “Nurturing Civic Dispositions to Uphold Democratic Institutions and Integrity.” As a premise, I reinforced my case that a good history education is a civic education and called to attention the research findings of our white paper published in Education Week back in November. I then facilitated a discussion on how social studies educators can be at the forefront of this work.

I’m privileged that Ben Katcher, one of my favorite history teachers, was able to join for this discussion. Ben teaches at Valor Academy High School, a partner school of Thinking Nation’s. His practical insights brought the theory to life for those in the room without classroom experience. 

In an increasingly polarized country where more and more citizens are advocating for more authoritarianism, and by default, less democracy, conversations like this are vital for creating action and sustaining our democracy. I’m grateful to Dr. Janet Tran at the Ronald Reagan Institute’s Center for Civics, Education, and Opportunity for prioritizing this space and dialogue.

Spenser, Liz, and Zach hanging out on Air Force One before the roundtable began.

Another new Board Member

Last thing! Each week I want to highlight another new board member (last week’s being Dr. Marco Clark. This week, let’s welcome Paolo DeMaria!

Mr. DeMaria is president and CEO of the National Association of State Boards of Education. Prior to this role, he was the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Ohio. He focused on literacy outcomes, teacher excellence and leadership, career-technical education, business-education partnerships, and equity in Ohio’s education system. He previously directed the state’s Office of Budget and Management and was chief policy advisor to former Ohio Gov. Bob Taft and executive vice chancellor of the Ohio Department of Higher Education. He also spent six years as principal consultant for Education First Consulting. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and economics from Furman University and a Master of Public Administration in public administration leadership and financial management from the John Glenn College of Public Affairs at the Ohio State University.

To hear more about the historical thinking skill DeMaria most resonates with, watch the video interview with Tiana Day below.

A Student Art Contest for Democracy, The Road to Civic Learning Week, and Another Board Member!

Yesterday kicked off the shortest month of the year (but at least it gets an extra day this year!), Black History Month, and the first day of our 2nd Annual Art Contest. We teamed up with the National Alliance for Charter Schools again this year to host a nationwide student art contest for middle and high school students. (Check out last year’s!)  This year’s National Charter School Conference will be in Boston, MA from June 30-July 3. Since the conference leads right into Independence Day in one of the nation’s most revolutionary cities, we decided to build our theme around the future of American democracy. Students can create a creative work of art that addresses the prompt: What does the future of American Democracy look like?

Submissions for this Student Art Contest for Democracy will be accepted until March 15th and the top 20 will be featured at the National Charter Schools Conference! The top 2 will even win cash prizes! For full details on the contest, check out the contest flyer and/or attend our webinar this coming Monday, February 5th at 2:30pm PST. It’s also worth noting that the contest ends on the last day of Civic Learning Week, which Thinking Nation is excited to take part in this year.

The Road to Civic Learning Week

Today, Thinking Nation released the first podcast episode in a mini-series of our regularly monthly podcast: Thinking Historically About. For the six weeks leading up to Civic Learning Week, we are going to publish a podcast conversation with various leaders to talk about the state of social studies education. Civic Learning Week takes place from March 11-15 this year with the aim of “Making civic learning a nationwide priority for a stronger democracy.” On Monday March 11th, I will cohost a lunchtime chat with National Council for Social Studies Executive Director, Lawrence Paska, where we will dive into both the current state of social studies education and how we can best collaboratively move forward. More on that event to come.

In the time leading up to that week, however, we thought it would be helpful to get a pulse from various leaders about how they see things, as well as their interpretations of the findings of our White Paper published in Education Week back in November. We hope to provide opportunities for nationwide collaboration around how we can best identify the ways to support and sustain social studies education in order to preserve and protect our democracy. 

In our 1st episode, we are joined by two museum experts. Elizabeth Grant is the Chief Program Officer for the National Liberty Museum in Philadelphia, PA. Sarah Jencks is Principal Consultant at Every Museum a Civic Museum. In addition to their decades of museum-focused expertise, Both Liz and Sarah serve on the Board of Directors for the National Council for History Education. Both Liz and Sarah give us a lot to think about in our conversation as we think about how to best move forward as a field. We these episodes spur great conversation and action in your own education communities and that you all participate in Civic Learning Week (and submit for the student art contest for democracy)!

New Board Member Highlight!

Last thing! Each week I want to highlight another new board member (last week’s being Dr. Catherine O’Donnell). This week, let’s welcome Dr. Marco Clark!

As the Founder & CEO of Richard Wright Schools in Washington, D.C., Dr. Clark has been a transformative leader in the global educational space for more than 30 years. Richard Wright Schools prioritize not only academic excellence, but also holistic development, fostering a culture where every student can thrive and be empowered to become life-long learners, leaders, and responsible citizens poised to shape their communities. Dr. Marco Clark is also a noted educator, scholar, and speaker who shares his personal challenges with reading as a youth and his educational reform efforts to fight against literacy and community issues throughout the country. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Clark Atlanta University, a Master of Arts degree in special education from Coppin State University, a Master of Arts degree in education administration from Goucher College, and a Doctor of Education degree from Morgan State University.

As with last week, here is a brief video interview by Tiana Day to get to know him more!

January 2024 Organization Highlights

Today, I want to take some time to highlight some great things going on at Thinking Nation this month. But first, an inside scoop:

A Press Release – Thinking Nation’s Board of Directors

On Monday (1/29), you will see the publication of our first press release. It will highlight the doubling of Thinking Nation’s board of directors. As many of you know, the board of directors of a nonprofit organization is critical to driving growth and sustainability, and we are so fortunate to have such a wealth of knowledge and diversity of expertise on our board in order to help us fulfill our mission to cultivate thinking citizens. At any point, you can head over to our website to learn more about Thinking Nation’s board of directors, but in this space, I am going to highlight one of our board members in each post for the next few weeks.

First up, our resident historian. Dr. Catherine O’Donnell joined our board back in October 2023 and brings such a robust track record of centering historical thinking in her scholarship. We are grateful for her grounding perspective as we seek to shift the paradigm of social studies education toward a specifically discipline-driven, rather than content-focused approach. A bit more about Catherine: 

Professor O’Donnell, currently a distinguished faculty member at Arizona State University, brings a wealth of expertise in history and administration to her role as board member. She has authored several scholarly books and articles, including Elizabeth Seton: American Saint (Cornell University Press, 2018), which received the Distinguished Book Award by the Conference on the History of Women Religious and the Biography Prize from the Catholic Press Association. She is also a member of the Board of the Arizona Council of History Educators. Dr. O’Donnell received a Bachelor of Arts inSpanish and American Studies from Amherst College, a Master of Arts in history from the University of Michigan, and Doctor of Philosophy degree in history from the University of Michigan.

Also, here is a brief interview with Dr. O’Donnell, to get to know her better:

Dr. O’Donnell shares a little bit about what drew her to Thinking Nation

A Day with Indiana Teachers

Moving onto more Thinking Nation happenings, January has been quite the busy month for us. One particular event that I’d like to highlight here is a statewide virtual professional development we hosted for teachers across Indiana. The goal of our time together was to spend time understanding and practicing the ways that we can teach history in order to better align our classrooms across the 6 grade levels of secondary social studies education. It was entitled: “Building Alignment Across Social Studies: Creating a More Unified Social Studies Approach.”

Engaging with a couple dozen Indiana educators for a day and hearing how they could take some of the practices gleaned from the session back to their own schools in order to create robustly aligned social studies departments was definitely a thrill. We are incredibly thankful to Keep Indiana Learning for helping to organize the event. Indiana continues to pave the way in how we can see education as a civic endeavor and it was a joy to be a part in facilitating that goal for educators who care deeply for the students they serve.

I’m excited to share more on the many great events and announcements we have for the coming weeks, but for now, I’ll just say “stay tuned!”

“Thinking Historically About” – Thinking Nation’s Podcast

Back in September, we announced our new podcast, “Thinking Historically About.” Since then, we’ve released one episode a month featuring an interview with a historian. We discuss a particular Curated Research Paper that students engage with in our curriculum. In all of these instances, the interviewed historian consulted on the actual CRP, ensuring that it was aligned to scholarship and appropriately provided opportunities for students to analyze the questions in the same ways that scholars do. For a list of historians who have consulted on our curriculum, head to our website.

Next month, we plan to launch a parallel version to the podcast, where we think historically about the current state of education. We will primarily do this by bringing in key leaders and thinkers to discuss the findings and implications of our recently released white paper, courtesy of Education Week. We hope that our podcast continues to be a place for people to be thinking historically about both past and present issues.

For now, I want to highlight some of the episodes we released in the final months of 2023, and provide a quick summary of our January episode that was released today– an interview with historian John Fea.

In September, we released our inaugural episode with Nadya Williams, a scholar of Ancient Rome and Greece. In that first episode, Dr. Williams contextualized the evolution of citizenship in Ancient Rome for us. Students who engage with our resources are asked to evaluate how citizenship developed over time in Ancient Rome, and Dr. Williams gave us key insights into the types of primary sources that could be helpful to understanding everyday Romans during the age of the Roman Republic.

In October, we interviewed Dr. H. Paul Thompson, Jr.,  a scholar of temperance movements and 19th and 20th century Black American history. Dr. Thompson provoked deep questions around how we would frame our own exploration into how the New Deal impacted Black Americans. In that episode, we talked a little more at length about historical thinking more generally, giving listeners a helpful methodology for exploring the topic at hand. Dr. Thompson also reminded us about how important primary sources are to the historian’s job.

Then, in November, we coupled an additional interview with the release of  Nadya Williams’ first book: Cultural Christians in the Early Church. In this interview, Dr. Williams helps us better understand the similarities and differences with the two most known Greek city-states: Athens and Sparta. As she did in the first interview, Dr. Williams really pushed us to think more broadly and inclusively in our historical analysis. She also reminded us of the importance of sourcing, that is knowing the background information behind a source in order to better evaluate and analyze it.

Our last episode of 2023 was an interview with Pearl Young, a historian of the American South with particular emphasis on women and gender in the 19th century. In that episode, Dr. Young took on the role of both scholar and teacher, thinking strategically about how to best guide students through the Curated Research Paper that asked students to compare the experiences of women on the homefront during the Civil War. Her guidance in the pedagogical, as well as scholarly aspects, will hopefully help future students think more deeply about the subject when they engage with that unit of our curriculum.

Lastly, in our first episode of 2024, released today, we interview John Fea, a historian of Colonial America and the early republic era. Dr. Fea helps us to think historically about the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton and how their ideas shaped the founders’ vision for government. Dr. Fea really pushed us to think historically in order to best contextualize that particular time and place in order to best understand what shaped their views, and how their views shaped others.

We are excited to continue our podcast in 2024, and pushing the topics for what we are thinking historically about. I’m looking forward to interviewing others on the state of social studies education and what we can do about it. Stay tuned!

Historical Thinking, Meet AI: How We Now Grade Essays

One helpful way to understand the historical thinking skill of continuity and change over time is through turning points in history. Well, this week was a turning point in our own organization’s history. This weekend, we transitioned to Artificial Intelligence for grading essays. As I’ll address below, the human touch is still very much present, but we have spent the last few months working on the AI’s infrastructure and coding to give teachers and students detailed and instant feedback on the essays they write for our Curated Research Papers. We’ve tapped into AI to go beyond assessing memory of the past to using AI to assess historical thinking.

In the future, I’ll write more at length as to why this will be so transformational, but I do want to make the primary reason known right away: We can give students instant feedback and scores on complex writing tasks by programming the AI to assess the writing in the ways we tell it too. The level of detail in feedback that used to only be possible for the super humans among us can now be given to every student, every time. It’s remarkable. AI can enhance historical thinking

Simply, we can incentivize the type of inquiry-based lessons and assessments that we all know to be essential for real understanding without using up so much of our teachers’ outside-of-class time toward grading, or the time it took for our own graders to go through 1000s of essays that may come in any given week.

So what does this look like for Thinking Nation? From the inception of our organization, we always knew that removing the barrier of time spent grading for teachers was critical to shift the paradigm of social studies education. We also knew that social studies lacked key data metrics that could be used to appropriately assess student understanding within our discipline. This is why we’ve always graded the student essays for our partner teachers. 

Our goal was to give students detailed feedback and teachers data reports on student learning without burdening the teacher with losing 12 hours of their weekend to grading essays. As we’ve grown, though, doing this consistently and timely has become harder. Then ChatGPT came out a year ago. We began to see that, given the right prompts, AI could give robust feedback to complex writing tasks with remarkable accuracy. After that, we began to plan out how we could do this for our own CRPs.

Here is an essay graded by AI. This is only it’s first iteration, so the feedback can be strengthened, but this was provided within seconds of the student submitting their essay.

Now, once a student submits their essay, our AI instantly grades it, providing detailed feedback for every single category on the rubric. We know that AI comes with its own set of issues of course, so we still have all of our essays run through human eyes to check on AI’s understanding of our rubrics, for any bias in the programming, and language of the feedback given. We’ll be continuing to refine the algorithm based on the feedback from our (human) graders in an effort to give students immediate detailed feedback on their argumentative writing.

This new addition of AI will only further help our mission to shift the paradigm of social studies education. With immediate and detailed feedback, teachers can have students reflect on their writing in real time, enhancing students’ metacognition that is essential for the discipline itself to be cemented in their minds. AI is a game changer for enhancing historical thinking and we are really excited to provide our partner schools with a way to better shift the paradigm of social studies education.