Teaching Civic Engagement with Bridget Trogden, James Burns, Megan VanGorder, and Nafisa Nipun Tanjeem

Share your thoughts about this episode as a text message. The Civic Engagement & Voting Rights Teacher Scholars program serves as an avenue for faculty to work together to create classroom teaching materials – by faculty, for faculty – to support a thriving American democracy. The Teacher Scholars are recruited and supported from across the nation to work in cross-institutional, cross-disciplinary, humanities and arts-based faculty learning communities. The Teacher Scholars design, create, and disseminate openly licensed pedagogical materials for use in college courses nationwide.Today's guests are the co-directors of the program, Bridget Trogden, dean of undergraduate education and academic student services and professor of education at American University, and James Burns, professor of history at Clemson University, as well as two program participants: Megan VanGorder, assistant professor of history at Illinois State University, and Nafisa Nipun Tanjeem, associate professor of interdisciplinary studies at Worcester State University.We have a lively conversation about the importance of teaching civic engagement in the year 2026, the strategies that these faculty use to engage students in these challenging topics, and the value of a faculty development experience structured like this one. Episode ResourcesCivic Engagement & Voting Rights Teacher Scholars ProgramThe program’s repository of open educational resourcesMegan VanGorder’s resources for “Key Issues in State and Federal Constitutional Government”Bridget Trogden’s faculty pageJames Burns’ faculty pageMegan VanGorder’s websiteNafisa Nipun Tanjeem’s websiteBethany Morrison’s Teaching Hub collection “Teaching for Democratic Engagement and Civic Learning”Support the showPodcast Links:Order The Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching by Annette Vee, Marc Watkins, and Derek Bruff.Intentional Teaching is sponsored by UPCEA, the online and professional education association.Subscribe to the Intentional Teaching newsletter: https://derekbruff.ck.page/subscribeSupport Intentional Teaching on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intentionalteachingFind me on LinkedIn and Bluesky.See my website for my "Agile Learning" blog and information about having me speak at your campus or conference.