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In a May post here at the Voices blog, I suggested that one of the things I thought colleges should be looking for from prospective students was civic engagement. Certainly, having students see themselves as actors and creators of history is one of my goals for my history students.

Civic Action Project (CAP) is a project-based learning model for civics and government courses. It offers a practicum for high school students in effective and engaged citizenship and uses blended learning to engage students in civic activities both in and out of the traditional U.S. government classroom. By using web-based technology and civics-based instruction and activities, students exercise important 21st century skills in digital literacy, critical thinking, collaboration, self-direction, and learning to be an engaged and effective citizen in a democracy.

With the presidential election dominating the news between now and November, there's no shortage of timely material to bring into classroom discussions. If used as the starting point for project-based learning, the 2012 election can engage students in thinking critically about everything from media messages to voter rights to public opinion polls.

When students become media literate, they learn to ask critical questions about how political advertisements were constructed, who paid for them to be produced and aired, and whether the information is credible or distorted. Often, such projects lead to students producing and publishing their own media messages.

In fact every time I have helped a teacher flip their classroom in the high school it has never involved videos. Instead it involves students actively finding information, making sense of it, and then coming to class ready to discuss with the teacher what they have learned, what questions they have and, what it is they still don’t know/understand.

Currently I am working with a history teacher who came to me with some “really dry historical content” that he needed to cover in his 11th grade Thailand and Southeast Asia history class.

The essential question: How does the past influence the present?