Social Studies Education

As generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) becomes increasingly integrated into K-12 education, it holds significant potential to enhance social studies instruction through personalized learning, inquiry-based exploration, and interactive simulations. However, the responsible and ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) and GenAI in social studies requires a clear framework that aligns with the discipline’s emphasis on critical thinking, inclusivity, and civic engagement. This article introduces CIVIC, a framework of five pillars for using AI in social studies education: encouraging human-AI cointelligent partnerships in learning, ensuring responsible, inclusive, and equitable AI use, promoting the critical evaluation of AI-generated content, enhancing inquiry-based learning, and preparing for the future in the era of GenAI. Drawing from current literature and research, the CIVIC framework offers practical strategies for educators to incorporate AI and GenAI effectively into their classrooms while addressing challenges related to bias, data privacy, and the ethical implications of AI in historical and civic contexts. By following these guidelines, educators can leverage AI to support student engagement and learning while preparing students for the complexities of an AI-driven society.

In this editorial, the authors explore how history educators are navigating generative AI (GenAI) in the classroom. Drawing on insights from a Summer Institute providing professional development about GenAI and the metaphor of Seven Blind Mice, they describe how teachers come to GenAI with partial understandings, conflicting emotions, and a shared desire to make sense of a rapidly evolving tool. Building on existing frameworks like technoskepticism and technoromanticism, they introduce technocuriosity: a conceptual and methodological stance rooted in situated experimentation, speculative ethics, and critical engagement. Rather than asking whether GenAI should be used, technocuriosity asks how it is being configured, what it makes possible, and who gets to shape its educational futures. They argue that GenAI is not just a tool but a figural, co-intelligent actor in classrooms and that history educators have a critical role to play in steering its development.

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies can offer vast professional resources for teachers, empowering them to differentiate their practice, create curricular materials, and generate lesson plans for any topic. But should these novel tools to generate classroom activities and learning experiences be trusted? This study investigates 310 AI-generated lesson plans, featuring 2,230 learning activities, created by ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot for the 53 content standards mandated in the Massachusetts eighth-grade United States and Massachusetts Government and Civic Life curriculum. The AI-generated plans were evaluated for impacts on student thinking skills using Bloom’s Taxonomy and inclusion of diverse content using James Banks’ Four Levels of Integration of Multicultural Content Model. Analysis of the data revealed that the AI-generated lesson plans rarely cultivated higher order thinking or introduced diverse perspectives in each lesson. Regarding the potential of GenAI to support teachers with instructional tasks, we recommend that teachers critically evaluate and revise AI-generated lesson plans to provide more expansive, creative, and critical learning experiences.

Inquiry-based learning is not common in secondary geography classrooms in the United States. The goal of this initial foray into design-based research was to maximize the potential of online video-case technology to disrupt this trend and support geography teachers in enacting high-quality problem-based geographic inquiry (PBGI). Informed by research on video and multimedia production for professional development, the authors worked with a team of social studies teachers in Mississippi to design PBGI curriculum materials and create a video case for use in future professional development with preservice and in-service geography teachers. This paper describes key features of the video case and presents findings on modifications to the video case that might improve its potential as a professional development tool.