Jim Knauer Director, Pennsylvania Center for Civic Life and Democracy Lab at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania jknauer@lhup.edu http://www.teachingdemocracy.org Voice: 570-893-2491 Fax: 570-893-2711
This is my first time participating in a Wiki, which is obviously a very powerful tool for collaboration and networking * my special responsibility on the conference planning team. So it*s a perfect time to experiment!
I am a professor of political science at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania and director of the Pennsylvania Center for Civic Life. The Center*s most ambitious project to date is Democracy Lab.
Democracy Lab is a web resource for high schools and colleges interested in promoting civic engagement, developing student civic leadership and transforming campus climate. Through its developmentally sequenced set of learning experiences for classroom and co-curricular use Democracy Lab addresses the widely recognized failure of formal schooling to develop strong citizens at both the high school and college level.
Our 10-week, NIF-style forums are easily integrated into classes across the curriculum. In addition we provide a developmental sequence of civic leadership mentoring. Student online trainees can be involved for several semesters as they become powerful change agents at their own schools. Lots of information about Democracy Lab is available at http://www.teachingdemocracy.org.
We are also actively involved in research on deliberative learning, cognitive development, civic engagement and pedagogy. Our research efforts are currently supported by the Kettering Foundation and CIRCLE. We are actively pursuing other funding sources and are currently finalists for a FIPSE grant.
Of course I am very interested in talking to anyone interested in using Democracy Lab or exploring collaborative research possibilities. Somewhat longer term, I would like to explore new directions for Democracy Lab: o the introduction of other dialogue and deliberation models for classroom use o involvement of secondary and tertiary schools outside the United States o involvement of non students in DL classroom forums o incorporation of expert and public official panels in online forums o development of a consortium of institutions to expand DL
