Session 5
(9:45 - 10:30)

Presenter & Affiliation:  CLICK HERE to learn more about our esteemed panel!

Session Description:  This 45-minute panel brings together voices from K-12 and Higher Education to examine the current landscape of education in Delaware. As public scrutiny and pressure on schools increase, this session will explore the challenges and innovations facing Delaware social studies educators and advocate for the central role of social studies in a full and robust education. Participants will be invited to reimagine themselves not only as classroom practitioners, but as civic leaders and national change makers shaping the future of education.

Room: Ballroom

Presenter & Affiliation:  Frank Schlupp, Villanova University

Session Description:  How can artificial intelligence help students think historically? This session presents a pilot study using Sam Wineburg GPT, an AI tutor designed to scaffold sourcing, contextualization, corroboration, and close reading—core habits of historical thinking. Grounded in research on student engagement and disciplinary inquiry, the project explores how generative AI can personalize feedback while preserving the reflective, evidence-based reasoning essential to social studies. By “looking back” to Wineburg’s cognitive model of expert historians and “thinking forward” to AI-enabled classrooms, this presentation bridges tradition and innovation in the teaching of historical thinking.

Room: Lavender

Presenter & Affiliation: Brandon Beck, University of Maryland, Baltimore County 

Session Description:  This session explores life history as a powerful, underused tool for civic education. Social studies educators will learn strategies to guide students in excavating, analyzing, and archiving local life histories, fostering deeper civic engagement. Participants will examine the oral history of a southern Black educator to understand how Black teachers have historically advanced civic learning during uncertain times. The session offers practical methods for culturally sustaining pedagogy and aims to reignite educators’ passion for teaching social studies. Attendees will leave with actionable tools to enrich their classrooms and connect civic education to lived experiences and community narratives.

Room: Rosemary

Presenter & Affiliation: Sarah Lane, SphereEd

Session Description:  Explore today’s complex economic landscape with resources that support critical thinking and civil discourse. Help students analyze the economic and societal impacts of globalization and protectionism, preparing them to become informed citizens who understand these economic principles. Gain strategies and resources such as fantasy-based simulations, examining historical political cartoons, and using modern real-world case studies, like the journey of a T-shirt around the globe. Draw on historical examples while guiding students to envision how these concepts continue to shape national and global economies today and into the future.

Room: 184

Presenter & Affiliation:  Joshua Zarbo, TeachRock

Session Description: This interactive session introduces 5 new strategies to enhance student engagement in historical inquiry. By practicing the “5 M’s” strategy developed by TeachRock, participants will gain new skills that utilize music as a primary source to examine U.S. history and culture from a “bottom up” perspective. This “history from below” exploration by way of American music culture may have a broader appeal to a diversity of classrooms due to the differing perspectives experienced from a “people’s” viewpoint. Exploring American experiences via the 5 M’s strategy can often foster captivating learning environments that include more student voice and choice.  

Room: Thyme

Presenter & Affiliation: Christina Ross, iCivics

Session Description: At a pivotal moment in education, Teaching Through a Civic Lens invites participants to reflect on how classrooms have long served as microcosms of democracy and how they can continue to prepare students for civic life in a changing world. By looking back, we honor education’s role in cultivating informed, engaged citizens; by thinking forward, we envision classrooms that embody civic practice through inquiry, collaboration, and shared problem-solving. This session challenges educators to design thoughtful questions that deepen inquiry, shape curriculum, and model democratic values so students learn to live and lead in a healthy democracy.

Room: Sage