Dr. Cheryl A. Ayers, co-director of the Center for Economic Education at Virginia Tech which is part of the Virginia Council for Economic Education, has published another article in the top-tier, peer-reviewed Journal of Social Studies Research: Teaching students to “think like economists” as democratic citizenship preparation. View article here.
Expanding upon her practice-based theory of effective economics instruction, Dr. Cheryl A. Ayers’ latest research article takes an in-depth look at integrating economic reasoning skills across all subjects to better prepare students for democratic citizenship such as casting more informed votes, understanding current events, and discussing controversial issues while simultaneously cultivating more civil dialogue around opposing viewpoints and developing an accurate disciplinary understanding of economics.
In this article, Dr. Ayers examines “economic reasoning tools and citizenship preparation – by describing the instructional benefits, challenge, and practices of integrating greater disciplinary understanding in economics across all secondary social studies subjects”.The three Virginia “teachers in this study demonstrated specialized content knowledge in economics by teaching economic reasoning skills primarily geared toward citizenship preparation: namely, casting more informed votes, understanding current events, and discussing controversial issues. The most often taught economic reasoning tools were the EWT principles, PACED decision-making models, and cost-benefit analysis charts.” The three teachers profiled in the article were former winners of the Virginia Council for Economic Education’s Outstanding Economic Educator Awards.
From the topics such as the Stock Market Game to the 2016 presidential election to the domestic abuse policies within the National Football League to the Eboli Virus to Entitlement Spending, Dr. Ayers provides real-world, real-classroom examples of innovative economic education focused on developing “critically-minded, reflective citizens”.
The Journal of Social Studies Research is an internationally recognized peer-reviewed journal designed to foster the dissemination of ideas and research findings related to the social studies. Here is a link to the editorial board. JSSR is the official publication of The International Society for the Social Studies (ISSS).
In January 2018, Dr. Ayers published another article in the Journal of Social Studies Research: “A first step toward a practice-based theory of pedagogical content knowledge in secondary economics”: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885985X17300177
Dr. Ayers is with the Center for Economic Education, Virginia Tech; the Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, University of Virginia; the U.S. Economic Empowerment Project, Founder and Director; and is an Economic Education and Research Consultant.
