Build educator capacity and cultivate dynamic classrooms
For more than a decade, iCivics has provided educators nationwide with high-quality civics and history curriculum. However, we know that educators need more support in order to create transformative civic learning opportunities that extend beyond the classroom walls.
Our team’s coaching will equip your teachers for success by enhancing their skills, introducing innovative strategies, and providing expanded resources that build confidence and positively impact student outcomes.
Maximize your District's Professional Development with our Unique Approach
Provide educators with the rigorous training and proven strategies needed to master content, refine skills, and confidently apply best practices in order to nurture students’ civic development.
Elevate your professional development with our paid professional learning offerings, which are grounded in these effective practices and standards to provide a distinct learning experience:
Lead with Inquiry
Pathways are structured inquiries grounded in a compelling question, with carefully curated, research-based sources and tasks.
Drive Continuous Improvement
Pathways create a cycle for educators to learn new strategies, put them into practice, and then reflect and improve.
Foster Collaboration
Pathways intentionally create collaborative environments for teachers to learn from one another and share challenges and successes.
Cultivate Leadership
Pathways provide supportive coaching, walkthroughs, and constructive feedback that nurture and grow educators into leaders.
Paths to Professional Learning Services
Facilitated learning walks allow district and school leaders to see social studies systemically, informing decision-making to support teachers and students.
Deliver focused, high-impact learning that builds skills, knowledge, and mindsets. District offerings are for groups of 10+ and tailored to your district’s unique objectives.
Learn at your own pace and engage through self-study or interactive collaboration. Individual offerings have no minimum enrollment required, ideal for targeted development or small teams.
Menu of District Courses
Fostering an Inquiry-Based Classroom
This pathway focuses on building a culture of inquiry in a civically minded classroom and equipping educators to plan, create, and teach with an inquiry lens.
Offered for K-12 teachers of all subjects.
Supporting Social Studies Best Practices in Classrooms and Schools
This pathway provides training to create and foster momentum for pedagogical shifts around inquiry-based learning, information, and media literacy, and implementing iCivics’ core curriculum.
Offered for instructional coaches & school leaders who support social studies and civics teachers.
Implementing Core Curriculum: Through Inquiry: Beginnings to 1877
This pathway supports educators in implementing the iCivics core curriculum, United States History Through Inquiry: Beginnings to 1877.
Offered for 8th-grade US History teachers.
Introducing Civics 101 & 102
This pathway offers an introduction to civic education and how it can be applied within any classroom.
Offered for K–5 and 6–12 educators.
*NEW* Teaching Media and Information Literacy in the Digital Age
This pathway supports educators in equipping students to develop skills to question, find, evaluate, and communicate information responsibly in order to become informed, engaged citizens.
Offered for K-12 teachers of all subjects and media specialists.
*NEW* Enhancing Elementary Civics and Social Studies
This pathway guides educators through Private i History Detectives, our K–5 social studies and civics curriculum, and supports the implementation of the inquiry-based curriculum.
Offered for K-5 teachers and leaders.
*NEW* Integrating Civics and Literacy
This pathway helps educators deepen their understanding and application of basic and disciplinary literacy practices, ultimately preparing their students to be informed, engaged citizens.
Offered for K-12 teachers of all subjects.
*NEW* Connecting Social Studies Coordinators
This pathway builds a virtual community of practice and leverages that community to explore problems of practice, including aligning work to district priorities, accessing resources, and engaging stakeholders to create systemic shifts in social studies instruction.
Offered for district social studies and civic leaders.
Menu of Services for Individual Offerings
Fostering an Inquiry-based Classroom
Building a culture of inquiry requires creating and using questions, gathering and adapting primary and secondary sources, and scaffolding skills essential to content, disciplinary, and informational literacies.
Objectives:
• Engage informed citizens through inquiry.
• Build inquiry skills: questions, sources, tasks.
• Create relevant questions, curate primary and secondary sources, and build tasks that scaffold literacy.
• Foster critical thinking and collaboration.
• Cultivate classroom inquiry, empowering engaged, informed citizens.
Offered for K-12 Educators
Self-guided Learning Pathway completion time: Approximately 12 hours.
Collaborative Learning Pathway completion time: 20 Hours, including three synchronous virtual sessions.
Register Today
Introducing Civics 101 & 102
Discover methods for incorporating civic education into classroom culture and management. You will make connections between civic education and important pedagogical strategies such as inquiry, differentiation, information literacy, and multilingual learning.
Objectives:
• Foster a collaborative classroom culture through civic education.
• Connect learning to community, building service and leadership skills.
• Explore civic lens applications: inquiry, culture, discussion, media literacy, and iCivics resources.
• Designed for classroom and community needs, this course empowers participatory students.
Offered to K-12 Educators with 0-3 Years of experience teaching Social Studies.
Self-guided Learning Pathway completion time: Approximately 12 hours.
Collaborative Learning Pathway completion time: 20 Hours, including three synchronous virtual sessions.
Register Today
Coming Soon: Supporting Social Studies Best Practices in Classrooms and Schools
This pathway provides training to instructional leaders to create and foster momentum for pedagogical shifts around inquiry-based learning, information, and media literacy, and implementing iCivics’ core curriculum.
Objectives:
• Empower instructional leaders to support social studies educators. This pathway provides training to create momentum for pedagogical shifts.
• Learn to foster inquiry-based learning, enhance information and media literacy, and effectively implement iCivics’ core curriculum.
• Equip leaders to drive change and enrich student civic engagement.
Offered to School-level instructional coaches & school leaders who support social studies or civics teachers.
Self-guided Learning Pathway completion time: Approximately 12 hours.
Collaborative Learning Pathway completion time: 20 Hours, including three synchronous virtual sessions.
Join Wait List
Coming Soon: Elementary Civics and Social Studies
Ready to take the next step?
Why invest in building educator capacity in your district?
Only 22 percent of 8th graders in the United States scored proficient or above in the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in civics, meaning that they understand civic principles and know how to apply them.
So what can we do? There are several factors that make a difference in students’ civic proficiency, from dosage to pedagogy to family engagement.
The 2022 NAEP data tells us that the single most important factor is teachers’ confidence in their ability to explain the importance of participation in the political process and government, accounting for a 35-point difference in student performance.
Teacher Confidence in Explaining the Importance of Participation in the Political Process and Government
This is where iCivics can support you. Our team’s coaching—paired with our best-in-class curriculum—can save your educators time, build their capacity, positively impact student outcomes in your district, and enhance your district’s professional development support.
Together, we will build the best pathway forward.
Download the brochure
Learn more about our professional learning for districts and explore our menu of services.
