CIVITAS: An International Civic Education Exchange

The CIVITAS Exchange is a cooperative project of a consortium of civic education organizations in the United States and other participating nations. Bowling Green State University’s leads a partnership of the Alabama Center for Civic Education, Center for Citizenship Education (Poland), and the All-Ukrainian Association of Teachers of Social Studies and Civic Education (Ukraine). Participants sponsor seminars and exchanges of delegations of educators, scholars, and officials, and jointly adapt and develop curricular materials. The primary purpose of the project is to exchange ideas and experiences leading toward the goal of developing civic competence and responsibility among youth in emerging and established democracies.

Each year this project conducts educator exchanges from Poland and Ukraine with their counterparts in the United States. The exchanges are used to further partnership goals including curriculum development, teacher education and democratic school reform. Each partnership has established areas for focus of their annual exchange activities:

2007-08 Activities

Objective #1: Exchange of educators and educational gatekeepers from all sites
-Identify exchange delegates in all four countries and schedule exchange visits to schools.
-Conduct exchanges and have delegates complete follow-up activities.

Objective #2: Conduct Project Citizen in Poland and Ukraine
-Identify Project Citizen classrooms and provide training as needed
-Coordinate and conduct project citizen regional and national showcases

Objective #3: Conduct International Project Citizen activities
-Identification of PC coordinators in all sites interested in international project
-Exchange of PC coordinators to each site
-Development of e-mail communication between classes in both countries
-Development of website to showcase common projects

Objective #4: Conduct exchange of preservice teachers to “Expedition Inside Culture”
-Identify student teacher participants
-Conduct student camp in Poland
-Compile student reports, lesson plans and web site

Objective #5: Integration of Civic Education in the study of media
-Identification of US resources for integration of civic education in the study of media
-Identification of experts in the US integration of civic education in the study of media
-Meetings with US experts and Ukrainian delegation
-Development of curriculum guide for integration of civic education in the study of media
-Compilation of list of companion resources

Partnerships

Ohio-Poland Partnership
Civic education in pre-service teacher education and democratic school reform

Ohio-Alabama-Ukraine Partnership
Curriculum development for integrating civic education in the content areas of the social studies

For previous year's objectives, click here.