Zachary Cote, Author at Thinking Nation

Finishing the Year Strong and Looking Ahead

With Easter past us, almost all of our schools have now come back from Spring Break. This means we have entered the final stretch of the 2024-2025 school year.

For some of us that means sprinting to make up for lost ground (If that’s you in the AP space, check out our Practice AP exams to give your students a clear roadmap for crunch time studying), or moving to big research or community projects, or even just counting down the days for this year to end, knowing that next year will be a better one (This was definitely me as a first year teacher).

Regardless of what the final stretch of this academic year looks like for you, one thing that is common in all of our circumstances is an eye toward the future. Our team at Thinking Nation has already begun meeting with many of our current school partners to sketch out implementation, professional development, and assessment plans for the 2025-2026 school year. This is critical for student success.

Thinking Nation's 10 historical thinking skills — Historical Thinking Skills

Many of the readers of this newsletter and blog have found us through our free resources that support better protocols around teaching historical thinking. I always love hearing the stories from teachers and school leaders about how they utilize THINKS as a document analysis strategy, or have our historical thinking posters up in their classrooms, or use our historical thinking definitions and icons to guide their district PLCs. I love these stories!

But I also want to acknowledge that schools partner with Thinking Nation in far more robust, and therefore more effective, ways.

If you currently don’t partner with Thinking Nation and use our platform, consider this a re-introduction to what we do and offer. Our AI-driven platform has hundreds of historical thinking assignments and assessments that utilize the vast content areas of social studies to teach and assess the core disciplinary thinking skills that unite our discipline. Our professional development supports teachers as they empower students. Schedule a time with us to learn how we can support your unique needs.

Students at a school that partners with Thinking Nation engaging in a socratic seminar. — Students engaging in one of our socratic seminars

We’ve linked hundreds of primary and secondary sources to our THINKS protocol and thinking skill-specific graphic organizers like causation, historical significance, and historical empathy.
We’ve developed hundreds of formative assessments on individual thinking skills like quantitative analysis, contextualization, and evaluating evidence that provide a clear common language for success for students and teachers alike.
We have over a hundred pre-created socratic seminars and Curated Research Papers to give students extended opportunities to engage in the discipline of history.
We have provided hundreds of hours of professional development supporting teacher professional growth and district alignment.

When students engage with Thinking Nation’s resources, they are empowered as doers of history, rather than operating as passive receivers of a historical narrative.

Student agency increases, classroom rigor strengthens, conversations are rooted in academic discourse, and literacy skills grow.

Within our platform, we also harness the power of generative AI to provide students instant feedback on their thinking and writing skills, as well as generate easy to digest data reports for teachers to track student growth and align with other teachers at their site or district.

Students who engage with Thinking Nation’s resources are better equipped to analyze information, write effectively, and make and defend robust claims. As our vision states, Thinking Nation students are better equipped to contribute to a flourishing democracy and thrive in an ever-changing world.

If you are re-thinking how your social studies program for the 2025-26 school year because you want to challenge your students, prepare them for success, and facilitate better collaboration with your department, we’d love to connect. Reach out to us and we will set up a time to talk about your school’s priorities and how Thinking Nation might be able to help you shift the paradigm of social studies education.

Reflecting on the National Council for History Education

Last week, Spenser and I headed to St. Louis, MO for the annual National Council for History Education (NCHE) conference. I took some time on the plane home to reflect on my time there and thought it was worth sharing with all of you!

Another airplane (long 😬 ) post as I’m now headed back home from NCHE. Well, National Council for History Education, you curated quite the conference. I was continually humbled by the number of people who came up to me to share how they engage with Thinking Nation. To those of you who came up and shared, thank you. It meant so much!

Sometimes, we continue to press into a vision, seeing its worth but unsure of its impact. Hearing impact stories was like caffeine for the tired soul. Professors of History came and shared how they utilize our historical thinking skill icons as references in their classrooms. Professors of Education shared how they provide our Source Analysis protocols (available for free :)) to the future teachers in their methods class. Thinking Nation has become a framework for understanding how to teach the discipline of history. A vision for systemic change in social studies is taking shape!

Teachers came up to Spenser and me and shared how they embed our historical thinking skills into their classes to provide consistency through the discipline. Scholars showed me how they cite our white paper in their own work. Museum educators even came and shared how they use our framework in their own spaces! Several people came up just show gratitude and provide encouragement for our mission. Honestly, I could go on. I left so encouraged and excited for how Thinking Nation can and does support schools and the broader social studies landscape and am thrilled for the continued work to be done.

Speaking of continued work, being able to sit down and talk collaboration with so many fellow colleagues just continued to fuel my fire to do this work.

Finally, to end the conference presenting alongside Ebony McKiver of Social Studies Accelerator about how we can build better bridges between museums and K-12 institutions and having people come up to us and thank us and tell us it was the best session they attended, or that they plans for how to do more explicit integrations in their own community, was so encouraging.

Again, I’m so humbled and encouraged. Thank you for a dynamic NCHE 2025. Can’t wait for 2026!

EDUCATION NONPROFIT THINKING NATION MAKES HIGH-QUALITY ADVANCED PLACEMENT (AP) SOCIAL STUDIES TEST PREP MORE EQUITABLE AND ACCESSIBLE BY BRINGING AI-POWERED PRACTICE EXAMS DIRECT TO STUDENTS

New AP Practice Exams Mirror Authentic AP Exam Testing Experience, Provide Instant, Detailed Feedback to Help Students Prepare and Boost Scores

NORTHRIDGE, Calif., March 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — As we head into the final months of the academic year, Advanced Placement (AP) exams taking place this May 5-16 mark a critical milestone for millions of high school students striving to earn college credit and showcase proficiency in coursework. To support students in their preparation for AP exams this spring, Thinking Nation, a national 501(c)(3) committed to empowering students to thrive as engaged and critical thinkers for the future of democracy, today announced the launch of its AI-powered AP Practice Exams for AP U.S. History, AP European History, AP World History, and AP Government and Politics students.

“We designed these AI-powered practice exams to give students a true AP exam experience with instant, actionable feedback,” said Valentina Carvajal Bueno of Thinking Nation who held a key role on the AP Practice Exam development team. “Every student deserves access to high-quality test prep, and this tool helps level the playing field so every student can prepare with confidence.”

Thinking Nation’s AP Practice Exams simulate the official AP exam environment, including the writing component, from section timing to question difficulty, to prepare students for exactly what to expect at an affordable price. Unlike other study methods or preparation tools, Thinking Nation’s AP Practice Exams provide instant, AI-generated feedback and actionable study insights, helping students pinpoint exactly where they need to improve.

Students can choose to complete an entire exam or focus on specific sections, tailoring their prep to their needs. By practicing in an authentic test setting, students gain confidence, reduce test anxiety, and improve their time management—key factors in earning a top score. Simultaneously, students have the option of sharing their test results with their teachers, providing them with valuable data on the specific units, skills and exam components to target instruction in the final weeks leading up to the exams.

AP U.S. History teacher, History for Humans creator, and teacher coach Dan Lewer shared, “Thinking Nation’s AP Practice Exams are an amazing resource to help students feel more prepared and confident for the AP exams – one I plan to use with my students every year. The instant feedback on both multiple choice and free response questions helps students understand how to improve their scores in real time. Not only does it save teachers valuable time on grading and feedback, but the detailed performance reports also provide essential insights to guide review before the big day.”

Developed and evaluated by experienced AP teachers and AP exam graders, Thinking Nation’s AP Practice Exams are in strict accordance with the most current guidelines and criteria from the College Board, the AP exams’ governing body. This alignment ensures that students become well acquainted with the exam’s structure and expectations.

“I wish something like this existed while I was in high school. I’ve made a career by making one-minute history videos, but unfortunately, students today need to have more in-depth knowledge and access to affordable test prep if they’re going to pass the AP,” said history teacher and Thinking Nation partner Lauren Cella. “That is why I trust Thinking Nation’s team of AP graders, historians, and AP teachers who have created this test to be as close as possible to the real thing.”

The AP Practice Exams are available 24/7 and are priced at $15 per exam to make quality test preparation accessible to all students. Other practice test packages, courses, and tutoring costs range from $295 to $799 or more and do not offer the targeted feedback and authentic simulation that Thinking Nation’s AP Practice Exams do. Students and parents can learn more about Thinking Nation’s AP Practice Exams and directly purchase one by visiting the organization’s website.

Subscriptions to Thinking Nation’s AP Practice Exams are also available to teachers and school districts. Teachers can easily assign the exams to students, who can then submit their responses online. Detailed performance feedback is generated instantaneously, allowing students to make targeted improvements in their preparation and teachers to fine tune classroom instruction and reviews leading up to the official AP exams. To learn more about the AP Practice Exams platform and how to implement it in your school or classroom, visit Thinking Nation’s website.

To contribute financially to the organization’s work to transform social studies classrooms across the country, go to thinkingnation.org/donate.

About Thinking Nation
Thinking Nation is a national 501(c)(3) committed to empowering students to thrive as engaged and critical thinkers by supporting teachers with meaningful curricula, training, and technology to transform social studies education for the future of democracy. We believe that education is our greatest equalizer, and that every student, regardless of zip code or socio-economic background, deserves access to learning practices that reflect the diversity of identities, histories, contributions, and experiences to support enriched educational opportunity, equity, and success for all. Thinking Nation currently serves more than 35,000 students in 16 states and the District of Columbia. For more information about Thinking Nation or to support the organization’s work to transform social studies classrooms across the country, please visit thinkingnation.org/donate.

Media Contacts
Laura Wessells and Martha Holler
ShinePR for Thinking Nation, thinkingnation@shinepr.com

Civic Learning Week is a Time for Teacher Appreciation

[A quick note: It was so great to meet so many of you at the California Council for Social Studies conference this past weekend. I loved hearing so many inspiring stories at our booth and sessions!]

This is the week!

I feel like the phrase “now more than ever” is a perennial favorite in the civics community. But perhaps it is because the time is always ripe to practice civics. Civics goes beyond knowledge of the government. It is a worldview that we can collectively exercise to both strengthen our democracy and our society. Civics Matters.

In this 3rd annual Civic Learning Week, orchestrated by our friends at iCivics, I wanted to take the time to reflect on what Civics education means in Thinking Nation classrooms.

As I wrote awhile back, I believe that a quality history education is an exercise in civics. When we teach history, we are equipping students with valuable dispositions that transcend the classroom. When students practice historical empathy they are utilizing essential skills for understanding their neighbors and the diverse perspectives they encounter. They can apply the same skills used in contextualizing past events when they are better trying to understand the context of our time. When evaluating evidence in primary sources, they are internalizing questions that we must ask about present sources if we want to be media literate. I could go on.

Historical thinking empowers students to be the citizens our society needs if we want to preserve and protect our constitutional democracy. As I reflect on what this means for us at Thinking Nation during Civic Learning Week, I want to take a moment to thank some teachers who are doing this in their classes.

Shouting Out Our Teachers!

The Inner/Outer Circle of a Socratic Seminar

📣 Shout out to Mrs. Mayra Brady at Cabrillo Middle School in Ventura, CA! Mrs. Brady had her 6th graders engage in a socratic seminar using primary sources from Confucianism and Daoism. During the seminar, students challenged one another to think critically about similarities and differences between the philosophies, pushing one another to cite evidence to support their claims.

📣 Shout out to the social studies department at Birmingham Community Charter High School in Van Nuys, CA for creating vertically-aligned goals around student thinking using student writing data. I’m grateful to Dr. Carlo Aaron Purther, the department head, for putting the needs of teachers first so that they can put the needs of their students first. The resulting student growth is admirable.

📣 Shout out to Miss Emily Reuter at Alliance College-Ready Gertz-Ressler High School in Los Angeles, CA for carving out the time for her students to prep for the AP exam through providing multiple practice exams.

📣 Shout out to Ms. Ali at Maya Angelou Schools in Washington, DC, for leaving no stone unturned when exploring ways to empower her students with the skills and dispositions they need for success.

📣 Shout out to Ms. Becca Schaeffer-Dombkowski at Highland High School in Highland, AR for giving her students who feel less comfortable in writing the opportunity to share their evidence-informed perspectives through socratic seminars in her class.

I have the privilege of working with many teachers throughout the country and the above examples are only scratching the surface of all the amazing work I get to witness in classrooms, department meetings, and PLCs. Civics may not be in the title of many of those classes, but rest assured, students are being equipped with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to contribute to a flourishing democracy and thrive in an ever-changing world.

This Civic Learning Week, we are so grateful for all of you.

Welcoming Valerie Nesmith-Arechiga to the Team!

For this week’s blog, I asked our new Director of Partnerships to take over and introduce herself. We are thrilled to have Valerie on the team as her passion for relationship building is so critical for cultivating thinking citizens. Read on from Valerie to learn more about what makes her such a great asset to Thinking Nation!

Valerie Presenting for the Rockport Fulton District Administrators Retreat.

I’m Valerie Nesmith-Arechiga, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be part of this amazing community! With over a decade of experience as a teacher, instructional advisor, and administrator, I’ve dedicated my career to supporting educators and transforming schools. And now, as the Director of Partnerships at Thinking Nation, I’m on a mission to build powerful connections with teachers, administrators, and district leaders to drive real, lasting change!

🌟 My passion? Empowering educators through dynamic professional learning communities and data-driven conversations that equip them with the tools to make real-time instructional shifts—helping students soar to success! I firmly believe that strong relationships build strong schools, and I can’t wait to collaborate with each of you to foster a culture of growth, equity, and excellence.

Welcoming my middle school students the on the first day of school by showcasing our local mascot, cheerleaders and athletes from Texas A&M-Corpus

Oh, and did I mention I’m also a doctoral candidate at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi? My research on Latina K-12 principals fuels my drive for inclusive leadership and equity in education—because when we lift each other up, we all rise!🌟 I’m beyond excited to be part of the Thinking Nation mission, and I can’t wait to connect, learn, and grow with this incredible community. Let’s make magic happen together! 💡🎉

THINKING NATION TO LEAD CONVERSATIONS ON HISTORICAL THINKING AT REGIONAL AND NATIONAL EDUCATION CONFERENCES IN Q1 2025

Sessions Will Explore Civic Learning, Literacy, AI and Innovative Approaches to Social Studies Education

NORTHRIDGE, CA (Feb. 18, 2025) – Thinking Nation, a national 501(c)(3) committed to empowering students to thrive as engaged and critical thinkers for the future of democracy, is excited to announce its participation in four major education conferences taking place across the nation between February and March 2025.

“February and March are such exciting months for us at Thinking Nation as we get to make our way across the country to collaborate and learn from social studies educators in a diversity of contexts,” said Zachary Coté, Executive Director, Thinking Nation. “We are humbled to be able to share the things that inspire us in our sessions and we are eager to learn from so many people who care about the future of social studies education.”

During the four conferences, Mr. Coté and Director of Curriculum Annie Jenson will lead sessions that focus on civic learning, literacy, AI, and innovative approaches to teaching social studies. Session details follow:

Minnesota Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference, St. Cloud, MN

Session Title: “Harnessing Storytelling: The Essential Role of Social Studies Teachers in the MN READ Act”

Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025 | 3:00 – 3:50 p.m.
Ms. Jenson will discuss how high school educators can integrate storytelling—a practice long embraced by Indigenous traditions— into the classroom to create more inclusive, inquiry-driven learning experiences that spark curiosity, build literacy skills, increase engagement, and encourage meaningful connections to history. This session will provide practical strategies for selecting and implementing historical fiction in ways that cultivate empathy, promote critical thinking, and bring the past to life in today’s classrooms.

Middle States for the Social Studies Annual Conference, Lancaster, PA

Session Title: “From History to Humanity: Fostering Historical Empathy Through Perspective Taking”

Day, Feb. 28, 2025 | 9:25 – 10:10 a.m.

Ms. Jenson will lead two sessions at the conference. On Friday, February 28, 2025, she will provide high school educators with concrete strategies to integrate historical empathy into the classroom, helping students move beyond presentism to see the humanity within history. Revealing how complex individuals have contributed to history, a nuanced view of America’s past emerges with a greater appreciation for its ongoing diversity. Through hands-on activities, interactive discussions, and collaborative brainstorming, participants will explore how complex individuals have shaped history and gain practical tools—such as graphic organizers and formative assessments—to integrate perspective-taking into their teaching. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies to create more nuanced, inclusive, and engaging history lessons.

Session Title: “Walking in Their Shoes: The Role of Historical Fiction in Building Empathy and Engagement”

Day, March 1, 2025 | 2:40 – 3:25 p.m.

Ms. Jenson’s Saturday, March 1, 2025, session will explore the power of storytelling in the classroom and how historical fiction can bring diverse voices to life for students. Through hands-on activities, interactive discussions, and collaborative brainstorming, participants will engage with practical resources—such as graphic organizers and lesson planning templates—to develop tailored strategies for integrating historical fiction into their curricula. Attendees will leave with concrete ideas to enhance student engagement, foster perspective-taking, and deepen historical understanding.

California Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference, Burlingame, CA

Session Title: “AI Can’t Replace Historical Thinking, But It Can Help Us Teach It”

Friday, March 7, 2025 | 11:20 a.m. – 12:20 p.m.

Mr. Coté has been selected to lead two sessions at the conference. On Friday, March 7, 2025, he will lead an interactive session on the paradox of AI in history education—while AI offers efficiency, it provides little incentive for students to think historically. Educators will explore strategies to empower students as critical thinkers in the age of AI, engage in an AI-graded assessment on historical analysis, and discuss how to integrate AI responsibly in the classroom. Attendees will leave with practical insights and free resources to enhance historical thinking while maintaining civic responsibility in their teaching.

Session Title: “Does History Really Repeat Itself? Helping Students Understand Change Over Time”

Saturday, March 8, 2025 | 2:40 – 3:40 p.m.

In his second session, Mr. Coté is joined by Carly Donick, an educator from the Ventura Unified School District in Ventura, CA, and the recipient of both the California Council for Social Studies and National Council for Social Studies Middle School Teacher of the Year awards. They will help participants explore continuity and change over time as more than just academic tools. This session will propose that continuity and change over time are dispositions that cultivate literacy growth in academics and empathy in students’ social-emotional growth. Participants will engage with easy-to-use tools that foster the historical thinking skill of continuity and change over time that can provide meaning to how we interact with historical narratives in the classroom.

National Council for History Education Annual Conference, St. Louis, MO

Session Title: “Building Bridges between K-12 and Museum Institutions Strengthens Learning”

Saturday, March 22, 2025 | 2:00 – 3:00 p.m.

Mr. Coté will be joined by Ebony McKiver of Social Studies Accelerator in a collaborative discussion on strengthening the connection between K-12 classrooms and museum institutions. Too often, teachers underutilize museum collections and expertise, while museums create lessons that rarely reach students. This session explores a Washington, DC-based case study demonstrating how intentional collaboration can bridge this gap, aligning historical standards with local resources. Participants will engage with practical strategies to integrate museum expertise into their curriculum, making history more accessible and relevant. By fostering stronger partnerships, this session aims to enhance historical inquiry and model a more cohesive approach to public education.

In addition to speaking at two education conferences this quarter, Mr. Coté will attend the Civic Learning Week National Forum held at Stanford University on March 13, 2025.

For more information on Thinking Nation’s innovative approach to fostering historical thinking in social studies education, visit thinkingnation.org. Educators can explore Thinking Nation’s Best Practices Repository for valuable resources and strategies. To contribute financially to the organization’s work to transform social studies classrooms across the country, go to thinkingnation.org/donate.

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About Thinking Nation

Thinking Nation is a national 501(c)(3) committed to empowering students to thrive as engaged and critical thinkers by supporting teachers with meaningful curricula, training, and technology to transform social studies education for the future of democracy. We believe that education is our greatest equalizer, and that every student, regardless of zip code or socio-economic background, deserves access to learning practices that reflect the diversity of identities, histories, contributions, and experiences to support enriched educational opportunity, equity, and success for all. Thinking Nation currently serves more than 35,000 students in 16 states and the District of Columbia. For more information about Thinking Nation or to support the organization’s work to transform social studies classrooms across the country, please visit thinkingnation.org/donate.

Media Contacts

Laura Wessells and Martha Holler

ShinePR for Thinking Nation, thinkingnation@shinepr.com

Setting the Tone for Historical Thinking

January was a long month. Still, there were two incredibly bright spots that I want to draw attention to.

On January 24th, Thinking Nation spent the day at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Then, on January 28th, I had the privilege to work with the social studies leaders representing all of the Regional Education Service Centers in Texas in Waco, TX. Both instances were unique and yet there was a unifying principle that was woven through each: setting the tone for historical thinking.

The National Archives

First, our experience at the National Archives was incredible. As many readers know, Thinking Nation is partnering with several Charter School LEAs in D.C. to provide a custom curriculum that is both aligned to the new standards for the District and designed to empower students to think and consider the diverse stories throughout history.

Our Group in the Rotunda at the National Archives

Our Director of Curriculum, Annie Jenson, and myself had the privilege of walking through the new curriculum with almost 40 middle and high school teachers who serve students throughout D.C. We started our morning hearing from the National Archives’ education team about the wealth of great primary sources accessible through DocsTeach. Then, before the building opened to the public, we were welcomed into the Rotunda to see the original Founding Documents and into the Records of Rights exhibit that houses many fascinating documents around human rights, including a 1297 copy of Magna Carta.

To have that time at the start of our day with such important documents was really such a special experience. I’m so grateful to the National Archives for hosting us.

The rest of our time was leading a professional learning day for the teachers using our curriculum. We explored the thinking behind the curriculum, walked through some of the resources, and practiced the types of thinking that the curriculum demands of students. There was so much energy and collaboration in the room. It was such an exciting way to kick off the curriculum that students are now engaging with across Washington, D.C.

Our professional learning day in the Jefferson Room of the National Archives

The Texas Regional ESC Collaborative

Just four days later, I was in Waco, TX working with regional social studies leaders from across the state of Texas. Together we explored two questions:

1. How do we build a common language for what it is we do as social studies educators?
2. How can we incorporate a common language for success for our students across social studies?

Using Thinking Nation’s resources and assessments, we walked through ways to effectively answer both questions. Without getting too much in the weeds, the throughline answer to both of these questions is historical thinking.

At Thinking Nation, we define historical thinking as:

The disciplined process of properly analyzing and interpreting sources, events, and their outcomes in order to better understand the past and the people who shaped it.

Perhaps we can unpack this definition in another post, but I hope it serves as a helpful grounding to what we explored in Waco, and four days prior, in Washington, D.C.

As anyone who has spent any time with me knows, I think alignment is critical to social studies’ longevity and success. This naturally means that alignment in social studies is critical to the preserving and protecting of democracy. If we can’t align around what it is we do and how we measure success in what we do, we can not appropriately collaborate across our discipline—a discipline that empowers students with the skills and dispositions to contribute to a flourishing democracy.

We are living in polarized and unpredictable times. But historical thinking can unify our pursuit for a healthier democracy. When teachers in Washington, D.C. were analyzing primary sources in order to determine their historical significance, they were practicing historical thinking. When leaders in Waco, TX were evaluating the evidence behind certain historical claims, they were practicing historical thinking. In both cases, the thinking processes practiced served to empower the learner as an active participant in the learning process. Moreover, the learner’s agency in the process provided them with the necessary skills and dispositions to contribute to our democracy (Check out this past blog post to download free historical thinking posters!).

We all teach in diversity of contexts. Still, if we can collaboratively set the tone of our classrooms around historical thinking, we can better serve our students and prepare them for civic and life success. I was so encouraged through my experiences in Washington, D.C. and Waco, TX that there are so many of us seeking to do that.

Press Release: THINKING NATION PARTNERS WITH PUBLIC MEDIA BROADCASTER WETA TO MAKE HISTORICAL THINKING RESOURCES AVAILABLE WITH THE RELEASE OF GREAT MIGRATIONS: A PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

New Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Docuseries Tells the Story of African American Movement Over the Last Two Centuries; Thinking Nation Resources Support Educators in Teaching Social Studies as a Discipline, Empower Students to Thrive as Engaged and Critical Thinkers

NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Jan. 24, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Thinking Nation, a national 501(c)(3) committed to empowering students to thrive as engaged and critical thinkers for the future of democracy, today announced its partnership with WETA, the flagship public media company in the nation’s capital, to make historical thinking resources available across the nation concurrent with the release of the new PBS docuseries Great Migrations: A People On The Move. The series premieres Jan. 28 at 9 p.m. ET on public television stations nationwide and continues the following three Tuesday nights.

The four-part Great Migrations series will focus on African American movement over the 20^th and 21^st centuries and the meaning behind those movements. At the center of Great Migrations is renowned historian and scholar Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and American Research at Harvard University. Dr. Gates also hosts the acclaimed series Finding Your Roots. Great Migrations will be broadcast on 350 public stations nationwide.

“We are delighted to collaborate with Thinking Nation on engaging educators and students with the themes of this series,” noted Amy Labenski, Senior Director, National Impact & Engagement, WETA National Productions. “Our organizations have a shared goal of empowering deep engagement with history and civics, and this project allows us to serve communities across the nation with quality materials.”

Through the partnership, WETA will make educational materials from Thinking Nation’s inquiry-based platform available to high schools across America in tandem with the release of Great Migrations. Thinking Nation’s materials support educators as they engage students and help them learn to contextualize information, assess the multi-layered causes of moments, evaluate the evidence they encounter, and empathize with the perspectives of others.

“We are thrilled to begin this partnership with WETA. Our nonprofit exists to ensure educational equity by empowering every student to think deeply about the information they engage with, and being able to provide schools with our resources in partnership with WETA means we can better realize our mission as an organization,” said Zachary Coté, Executive Director, Thinking Nation. “Further, we cannot understand American history without understanding African American migration. We are grateful to WETA for allowing us to support the learning of this essential history.”

WETA is the second-largest producing station for public television in the United States and serves the public with educational initiatives and high-quality programming on television, radio, and digital. WETA is known for producing and distributing a range of popular educational, cultural, and public affairs programming, including PBS News Hour; collaborations with Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. such as Finding Your Roots; and films by Ken Burns and Florentine Films, such as Leonardo da Vinci and the forthcoming The American Revolution. WETA also develops rich educational materials that inspire learning, support educators, and equips families with valuable resources to help children succeed.

For more information on Thinking Nation’s innovative approach to fostering historical thinking in social studies education, visit thinkingnation.org. To donate and support the organization’s work to transform social studies classrooms across the country, go to thinkingnation.org/donate.

Media Contacts
Laura Wessells and Martha Holler
ShinePR for Thinking Nation, thinkingnation@shinepr.com

Press Release: THINKING NATION LEADS 38 D.C. PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS FOR HISTORICAL THINKING WORKSHOP AT NATIONAL ARCHIVES BUILDING

Previously Announced Partnership to Create Customized Curriculum for D.C. Local Education Agencies Kicks Off Jan. 24 With Professional Development, Introduction to New Curriculum, and Exclusive Access to National Archives’ Records of Historical Significance

NORTHRIDGE, Calif. and WASHINGTON, Jan. 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Thirty-eight public charter school social studies teachers will join Thinking Nation, a national 501(c)(3) committed to empowering students to thrive as engaged and critical thinkers for the future of democracy, at the National Archives Building on Jan. 24 for a historical thinking workshop as part of a previously announced partnership to customize a new social studies curriculum that moves beyond textbooks and features an inquiry-based approach to learning. The day will include professional development, an introduction to the new curriculum, and exclusive access to the National Archives’ records of historical significance.

The education partnership involves four Washington, D.C. public charter schools, or Local Education Agencies: E.L. Haynes Public Charter School, Friendship Public Charter Schools, KIPP DC, and Maya Angelou Schools. The new curriculum, developed with input from scholars and community members, will give students studying Grade 7 United States History and Grade 10 World History the agency to analyze the past and involves object-, place-, and document-based resources from Washington, D.C.-area museums, historic, sites, archives, and libraries, such as the National Archives. This innovative approach to learning is designed to foster a richer, more dynamic learning environment, and ultimately, to cultivate students’ civic engagement, heightened cultural awareness, and enhanced reflection and communication skills.

“I cannot imagine a more appropriate venue for kicking off this exciting curriculum with our D.C. partners,” said Thinking Nation Executive Director Zachary Coté. “The National Archives preserves records that are vital for understanding the past, and we at Thinking Nation are grateful that they are hosting this workshop, which will equip teachers to empower their students to do just that.”

Just as the standards-aligned curriculum follows an inquiry-based approach to learning social studies that emphasizes questioning, investigation, and critical thinking to promote a deeper understanding, foster curiosity, and improve retention, so will the day’s historical learning workshop. Teachers will actively participate in the same strategies prescribed for use with students–things like a web quest, a silent discussion, and an annotated source collection–and model best practices.

National Archives’ education leaders, Samantha Hunter-Gibbs and Caitlin Cutrona, will provide the participating educators with tours of the exhibit spaces, including the Rotunda galleries and train the educators on the resources available from the National Archives.

For more information on Thinking Nation’s innovative approach to fostering historical thinking in social studies education or to support the organization’s work to transform social studies classrooms across the country, visit thinkingnation.org.

Press Release: THINKING NATION RELEASES 2025 PREDICTIONS FOR K-12 SOCIAL STUDIES AND CIVICS EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES:

NORTHRIDGE, Calif., Jan. 6, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Thinking Nation, a national 501(c)(3) committed to empowering students to thrive as engaged and critical thinkers for the future of democracy, today released its 2025 predictions for K-12 social studies and civics education in the United States. These forward-looking insights reflect the evolving landscape in education and emphasize the trends of equity, critical thinking, and actionable learning.

“Perhaps the best foundation we can set for our nation’s birthday in 2026 is to shift the paradigm of social studies and civic education in 2025,” said Thinking Nation Executive Director Zachary Coté. “In many ways, 2025 is a year of transition. Our predictions below illuminate how this historical moment can be used to empower students and strengthen our democratic resolve.”

2025 Predictions for K-12 Social Studies Education

Expanded Use of AI in the Classroom
AI will become a more prominent tool in classrooms, assisting educators with assessments and innovating student learning experiences, making history and civics more engaging and accessible. However, its ethical use will be critical to ensure it enhances, rather than replaces, humanistic teaching practices.
Democratization of Education
Efforts to make college-level education more accessible will grow, with schools and nonprofits expanding dual-enrollment opportunities, fostering greater equity in and accessibility to higher education. This will afford every high school student the opportunity to work with a college professor and will accelerate the trend to earn an associate’s degree in high school.
Growth in Community-Based Learning Fundamentally Shifts Pedagogy
Schools will increasingly connect with local resources—museums, cultural institutions, and community history—to create immersive, placed-based learning experiences for students. This approach will shift teaching methods in a manner that addresses bipartisan priorities and fosters a deeper connection to local and national narratives.
A Civic Renaissance in Education
Curricula emphasizing critical thinking and historical analysis will gain traction, signaling a shift away from rote learning to a deeper exploration of history and civics as disciplines essential to the success of our modern democracy. The trend of teaching students to think like historians will gain momentum, with a focus on primary source analysis, contextualization, and evidence-based argumentation.
A Shift Toward Global Civic Education
Recognizing the interconnectedness of the modern world, educators will increasingly integrate global studies into civics and social studies curricula. This approach will emphasize pluralism, cross-cultural understanding, international relations, and the role of the United States in a broader global context, preparing students to navigate and contribute to an interdependent and diverse world.

As Thinking Nation prepares to celebrate its five-year anniversary in 2025, the organization expects philanthropic and public funding to increase in order to make these predictions a reality. This important financial support will help prioritize impactful initiatives that foster civic engagement, counter polarization, and prepare students to strengthen democracy.

Media Contacts
Laura Wessells and Martha Holler
ShinePR for Thinking Nation, thinkingnation@shinepr.com

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.!

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.

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

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!