About The Choices Program
The Choices for the 21st Century Education Program is a national education initiative developed at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.
The Choices Program provides teaching resources on historical and current international issues, offers professional development for classroom teachers, and sponsors programs that engage students beyond the classroom.
About Our Teaching Resources
Teaching Resources Are Grounded in Scholarship
Units feature rich content, drawing on the best scholarship available. You'll find historical and contemporary primary source documents, including maps, images, and editorial cartoons. A growing library of Scholars Online videos, aligned with printed units, brings content experts directly into your classroom.
Choices Curricula Promote 21st Century Skills
Choices teaching resources address a range of 21st century skills including critical thinking, creativity and innovation, collaboration, media and technology literacy, global awareness, and civic literacy. See 21st Century Skills for more.
The Structure of a Choices Curriculum Unit
Choices units put students in the position of decision-makers, sometimes at an historical turning point, sometimes facing a critical current question. Using this approach students examine the historical, cultural, and political circumstances leading up to that moment and then, taking on the roles of those who faced difficult choices then or must face them now, to make decisions. See a chart comparing the Choices approach to current issues and historical turning points.
What Research Says
Mission
The program seeks to empower young people with the skills, knowledge, and participatory habits to be engaged citizens who are capable of addressing international issues through thoughtful public discourse and informed decision making.
- Teachers using Choices curriculum resources report positive academic outcomes for students.
- Choices materials and pedagogical approaches work well with students of varied academic ability levels.
- Students in Choices classes appreciate the opportunity to engage in serious discussions in which the views of students take center stage.
- Students in Choices classes form rich conceptions of what it means to be engaged citizens.
- Research findings are drawn from a longitudinal study (Discussing Controversial Issues) housed at the Wisconsin Center for Educational Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For complete results see What the Research Says.
Alignment with Standards
The teaching resources and pedagogical approach of the Choices Program align with national standards for social studies, U.S. history, world history, civics and government, economics, geography, and environmental science. See Standards.
The Choices Program also fits in well with the "Common Core Standards in English Language Arts and Literacy.
