Assessing democratic classroom practices among secondary school civic education teachers in the global south: case study of South East Nigeria

Abstract

Democratic classroom practices are all strategies adopted by classroom teachers to actively engage students in the learning processes. Considerable literature assessing influence of Civic Education on youths' active participation in a democratic society exists. Not much have reported an empirically conducted study on classroom best practices adopted by Civic Education teachers in the Global South. This paper examines classroom democratization by Civic Education teachers in South East Nigeria, students' and teachers' perceptions of democratic classroom, and challenges confronting classroom democratization. Focus Group Discussion and Democratic classroom questionnaire were used to elicit information from 151 civic education teachers and 1400 senior secondary school one (SS1) students. Findings revealed that Civic Education teachers in South East Nigeria adopted democratic classroom practices marginally. Recommendation includes more adoption of democratic classroom best practices for development of students' critical thinking abilities, preparing them to become participatory in their civic duties and reducing crimes among today's youths.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Innovative Pedagogy and Lecture Method on Students Academic Achievement and Retention in Computer Programming

“…us, with IP integration, teachers were able to maintain concentration and deep learning among the students which is why the treatment group outperformed the control group in computer programming. Also, the structured content, students' curiosity, and eagerness to learn as well as active participation in the teaching and learning process [33,34,36] are indicators of better performance. Based on this, current studies have established that a combination of traditional teaching methods with active teaching techniques like context-based learning, problem-based learning, among others is an effective means of achieving innovative teaching and learning of practical skills and theory [110].…”

“…e author stresses that the traditional method/lecture method (LM) focuses more on the standardized test without giving students room to think out a solution to a problem; thus, students are constrained to rote learning [33]. According to [34], problem-solving skills are not encouraged in the traditional method of teaching because it lacks flexibility and cannot meet today's educational needs of learners and society with regard to hands-on training or skill acquisition [35][36][37].…”

Young digital citizen answers: Can online learning improve the quality of civic education learning?

“…In the 21st century learning paradigm, education is characterized by differences in learning orientation, where there must be an educational interaction between teachers and students to achieve learning goals (Conklin, 2009;Scott, 2014) The learning process must be directed at the formation of creative, innovative, and characterized students in the digital era by utilizing technological advances and digital media, from the opinions of experts and research results (Conklin, 2009;Gallardo-Echenique et al, 2015;Scott, 2014). it can be understood that civic education learning in the development of 21 st century education, especially online learning, is able to provide a meaningful role, such as making students more active than before, digital media literacy, critical thinking, creative and innovative in learning or when preparing students to become teachers who are able to fight digital adaptation in the future (Biamba et al, 2021;Dias & Soares, 2018;Sampermans et al, 2021;Wong et al, 2017).…”

Teacher Perceptions and Implementation of a Democratic Classroom Atmosphere in Elementary Schools

“…To address these issues, it is crucial to establish a democratic learning environment in the classroom (Fadhilaturrahmi, 2018). In addition, a democratic classroom atmosphere regularly involves students in developmentally appropriate ways in shared decision-making, which increases their responsibility in helping to make the classroom a good and comfortable place to learn (Biamba, et al, 2021).…”