Meira Levinson

A toolkit of strategies for postsecondary instructors to use to cultivate safe, inclusive learning spaces and improve teaching. Based on work conducted through the Instructional Moves project at Harvard University, Instructional Moves for Powerful Teaching in Higher Education outlines the many ways in which good college and graduate school teaching is rooted in deliberate pedagogical choices that support active learning. Jeremy T. Murphy and Meira Levinson distill good instruction to its essential components, analyzing the careful steps successful instructors take to create learning spaces that encourage all students to do ambitious work. Profiling professors in a range of contexts and disciplines, Murphy and Levinson take readers on deep dives into individual instructors’ teaching methods in actual classrooms. Each real-world example is accompanied by a set of practical action points that can be adopted by both new and experienced instructors, communities of practice, and educational developers and coaches. Collectively, the examples underscore how students with differing abilities, diverse identities, and disparate worldviews can all benefit from student-centered learning environments, in which collaboration is valued and students are afforded opportunities to apply what they have learned. Murphy and Levinson spotlight inclusive instructional moves such as community-building exercises, interactive lectures, and discussion facilitation that nurture a sense of belonging and encourage student engagement in both in-person and online settings. They also explore the benefits of innovative teaching formats such as flipped classrooms, simulations, and virtual learning. Instructional Moves for Powerful Teaching in Higher Education illustrates how pedagogical shifts small and large can improve college teaching powerfully.

Based on a 5-year study of an elementary school with socioeconomic diversity, the authors provide an active model of civic engagement organized into three settings: Classroom, School, and Community. Each chapter includes an overview of what research has demonstrated about civic engagement in that particular space, offers detailed descriptions of activities, and closes with lessons for practice. This case study demonstrates how putting civics at the center of the curriculum gives purpose and motivation to traditional academic learning, including tested subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics. As former elementary school teachers, the authors focus on what is possible in schools rather than a romantic vision of what schools could be. Classroom teachers, school principals, community members, and teacher educators can use this resource to foster a deeper, richer understanding of what is entailed in civic life.

Based on a 5-year study of an elementary school with socioeconomic diversity, the authors provide an active model of civic engagement organized into three settings: Classroom, School, and Community. Each chapter includes an overview of what research has demonstrated about civic engagement in that particular space, offers detailed descriptions of activities, and closes with lessons for practice. This case study demonstrates how putting civics at the center of the curriculum gives purpose and motivation to traditional academic learning, including tested subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics. As former elementary school teachers, the authors focus on what is possible in schools rather than a romantic vision of what schools could be. Classroom teachers, school principals, community members, and teacher educators can use this resource to foster a deeper, richer understanding of what is entailed in civic life.

While teaching at an all-Black middle school in Atlanta, Meira Levinson realized that students’ individual self-improvement would not necessarily enable them to overcome their profound marginalization within American society. This is because of a civic empowerment gap that is as shameful and antidemocratic as the academic achievement gap targeted by No Child Left Behind. No Citizen Left Behind argues that students must be taught how to upend and reshape power relationships directly, through political and civic action. Drawing on political theory, empirical research, and her own on-the-ground experience, Levinson shows how de facto segregated urban schools can and must be at the center of this struggle. Recovering the civic purposes of public schools will take more than tweaking the curriculum. Levinson calls on schools to remake civic education. Schools should teach collective action, openly discuss the racialized dimensions of citizenship, and provoke students by engaging their passions against contemporary injustices. Students must also have frequent opportunities to take civic and political action, including within the school itself. To build a truly egalitarian society, we must reject myths of civic sameness and empower all young people to raise their diverse voices. Levinson’s account challenges not just educators but all who care about justice, diversity, or democracy.

What should the aims of education be in a liberal society and who should exercise control over education? How can children be taught to become good citizens of a pluralistic state? The Demands of Liberal Education seeks to answer these questions by drawing upon political theory, philosophy of education, and empirical research to develop a liberal theory of children's education that is provocative and new. The book argues that contrary to the assumptions of many philosophers, educators, parents and politicians, the liberal state is obligated as a matter of justice to help all children develop the capacity for autonomy. Levinson argues that liberal governments should exercise much greater control over schools than they now do.