iCivics Usage in the Classroom

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What is iCivics?

iCivics is a website that I came across while searching for content to teach in my Level I course during the fall of 2017. iCivics offers a wide variety of resources that teachers can use inside of the classroom. As the importance for U.S. Citizens engaging in civil duties withing their local community grows, what better way to teach them at a young age. iCivics provides important topics that every single U.S. citizen should know about their government. As an educator, I find this resource very useful because it is a new approach to teaching civics to students. There are fun games, activities, and discussions that are covered through this website. The games that iCivics has to offer are aligned with the Common Core standards which make it easier for the teacher teaching the unit. This is by far what I find most valubale about this source as a future educator. There are many sites out there that offer free educational tools but you have to go through them and see if it connects with your standards. With iCivics that step is already taken. In a screenshot I took on the topic of understanding the Constitution and the Bill of Rights this is what I found.


https://www.icivics.org/teachers/lesson-plans/no-bill-rights-no-deal-hs
As you can see here, iCivics lays out all of the learning objectives of the lesson plan that is designed by iCivics and taught by the educator in the classroom. However, what I found next was much more useful. iCivics has a custom link that attaches individual state standards to the standards of the iCivics lesson.

https://www.icivics.org/node/2249127/standards


This is phenomenal for future teachers and especially teachers that are just starting to make their lesson plans. By using this source, teachers are easily able to connect iCivics lessons with the mandatory Iowa Core standards.

iCivics is great for students, educators, and administration. By using iCivics in the classroom, educators can engage the students in civil discourse and also allow them to have fun while doing it. I will definitely use iCivics in my future classroom as a supplementary learning tool.



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