Online Courses

Sign up for one of our upcoming online courses! Each course consists of 10 hours of learning across four sessions:

  1. Two live, 2-hour sessions taught online via Zoom by the course instructor. You must be able to participate in these live sessions to complete the course. (Note: All times noted below on course schedules are in US Eastern Time.)

  2. Two asynchronous, self-paced sessions of approximately 3 hours of expected learning time each, during which you will review material, engage in a learning design activity, and receive coach feedback.

Courses are taught by leading experts and coached by experienced educators. All participants will receive a certificate of their learning hours for course completion.

Course Pricing

  • Full Course Participation (including all four sessions, coaching, and certificate): $180 per course

  • Live Session Only Attendance: $85 per course

2025-26 Upcoming Courses

Our Declaration: “We the People” and the Declaration of Independence

  • Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is also the Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and the Director of the Democratic Knowledge Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She was a lead author on the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, a framework for securing excellence in history and civic education for all learners, K-12, released in 2021. In her book Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality (Liveright, 2015), she reflects on personal teaching experience, history, and political philosophy to draw lessons for today about citizenship, freedom, equality, and constitutional democracy. She holds a Ph.D. and MA in government from Harvard University and Ph.D. and MA in classics from King’s College, University of Cambridge.

  • Session 1 (Live Zoom session) Tuesday, September 30, 7-9pm ET

  • Session 2 (asynchronous) opens Wednesday, October 1

  • Session 3 (asynchronous) opens Wednesday, October 15

  • Session 4 (Live Zoom session) Wednesday, October 29. 7-9pm ET

  • “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and the right of the People to “alter or abolish” their government — the famous words of the Declaration of Independence — lay the foundations of our constitutional democracy. In this course, Danielle Allen helps us explore how the document took shape and what guiding principles we can find in it for our own lives today. Drawing on the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap, participants will work together to interpret the Declaration’s arguments for freedom and equality, its religious appeals, and later efforts to bring the United States closer to the ideals of the Declaration and to realize its vision of equality and liberty. You will develop ways to help your students reflect on both the importance of the Declaration in their current lives and also its significance for their ongoing engagement as civic participants.

The Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy: Making K-12 History and Civic Learning Meaningful

  • Liz brings over 20 years of civic education experience in Arizona as the Program Director for Civic Education and Outreach at Arizona State University. In this role, she spearheads efforts to enhance civic education within the state and expand outreach nationwide. Liz holds distinction as a National Board Certified Teacher and a Project Management Professional.

  • Session 1 (live Zoom session) Tuesday, October 28, 7-9pm ET

  • Session 2 (asynchronous) opens Wednesday, October 29

  • Session 3 (asynchronous) opens Friday, November 14

  • Session 4 (live Zoom session) Monday, December 1, 7-9pm ET

  • What do you get when you ask 300 educators and academic experts, all across the political spectrum, what “excellence in teaching history and civics” really looks like? You get the Roadmap to Educating for American Democracy, a set of key themes, questions, challenges, and pedagogical principles that guide us on our way to best practices K-12 in history and civics. 

    The Roadmap helps us to think about how to make history and civic learning and dialogue rigorous and accessible for all students in the United States, how to cultivate students’ civic identity and sense of responsibility, and how to support students as they learn to act in a responsible and informed manner as citizens. In this course, participants will engage deeply with the Roadmap, drawing on its guidance as they (re)design lesson plans and teaching materials.

Integrating Project-Based Learning in K-12 Classrooms to Develop Civic Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions

  • Kathryn Gabriele worked as a project manager at the Democratic Knowledge Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). She taught high school social studies and Spanish in Ohio for six years before serving from 2019 - 2021 as an instructional designer for Facing History and Ourselves, an organization supporting a global network of educators to prepare students to participate in civic life—using intellect, empathy, ethics, and choice to stand up to bigotry and hate in their own lives, communities, and schools. From 2021 to 2024, she was a History and Social Science Content Support Specialist for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). At DESE, she has collaborated with Project Zero and the Democratic Knowledge Project, both research efforts at HGSE, to train teachers and prepare them to implement student-led civics projects. She holds an MA in educational leadership and policy from the University of Michigan and a MPA from Suffolk University.

  • Session 1 (live Zoom session) Wednesday, October 8, 7-9pm ET

  • Session 2 (asynchronous) opens Thursday, October 9

  • Session 3 (asynchronous) opens Wednesday, October 22

  • Session 4 (live Zoom session) Wednesday, November 5, 7-9pm ET

  • For middle and high school teachers, this course will support you in helping students strengthen the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed for civic participation and to understand their roles and responsibilities in sustaining a constitutional democracy. For teachers of younger students, this course will allow you to cultivate foundations to help young people become engaged and connected community members guided by core civic values and abilities.

    We’ll draw from examples of student work to support you in planning and carrying out project-based learning to support the development of students’ civic knowledge, skills, and dispositions in your local context. If you are new to project-based learning or are seeking guidance about how to further embed it into your classroom, this course is designed to support you in applying the project-based learning processes and principles to support students in exploring and taking action on local issues.

Difficult Conversations in the Classroom

  • Meira Levinson is the Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). She is a normative political philosopher who works at the intersection of civic education, youth empowerment, racial justice, and educational ethics. In doing so, she draws upon scholarship from multiple disciplines as well as her eight years of experience teaching in the Atlanta and Boston Public Schools. She is the founder and faculty director of the EdEthics/Justice in Schools initiative at HGSE. Levinson’s most recent books include Democratic Discord in Schools: Cases and Commentaries in Educational Ethics (2019, with Jacob Fay), Dilemmas of Educational Ethics: Cases and Commentaries (2016, with Jacob Fay), and Making Civics Count (2012, with David Campbell and Frederick Hess). She holds a Ph.D. in politics from Nuffield College, Oxford University.

  • Session 1 (asynchronous) opens Thursday, January 29

  • Session 2 (Live Zoom session) Wednesday, February 11, 7-9pm ET

  • Session 3 (asynchronous) opens Thursday, February 12

  • Session 4 (Live Zoom session) Wednesday, February 25, 7-9pm ET

  • Creating a classroom environment that allows for open, honest, respectful conversations about difficult and potentially sensitive topics can be challenging. And yet providing time and space to teach and model for students how to engage respectfully with one another’s ideas and opinions is more important than ever. Dialogue, including disagreement, is an essential part of a healthy democracy. In this course, we’ll examine a case study that illustrates how teaching a topic like Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas or the connections between the civil rights movement and Black Lives Matter can lead to difficult conversations with students, families, community members, school board members, and other stakeholders. We’ll share and model a variety of pedagogical strategies for facilitating civil discourse and supporting students in developing their capacity for reflective patriotism, a sense of voice and agency, and civic friendship.

HarvardX: We the People: Civic Engagement in a Constitutional Democracy

Ongoing Enrollment | Learn more and register here

Gain a foundational knowledge of American constitutional democracy and understand how to encourage others to explore their own civic paths, while in parallel crafting your own civic voice and identity.

Future Courses (Dates and Details To Be Announced)

Securing the "Blessings of Liberty": The U.S. Constitution

  • The United States Constitution has been in use longer than any other written constitution in the world, but when the framers wrote and revised its original text, they worried about whether it would be strong enough to survive the conflicts of their day. Could a country as large as the United States really function as a constitutional democracy? Could the Founders create a government strong enough to hold the union together? Ultimately, they created an enduring framework of checks and balances that enables our pluralistic society to come together, debate issues, and find consensus. In this course, we’ll think about the fundamental principles of the Constitution, and how it continues to structure our civic life today.

A New Birth of Freedom: The Gettysburg Address

  • Abraham Lincoln is often credited with having saved or re-founded the American Union by giving it a “new birth of freedom.” In this course, we will seek to understand Lincoln’s statecraft in conjunction with his literary craft. We will concentrate on Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, examining it alongside the Declaration of Independence which it famously quotes. We will explore the character of American constitutional democracy, with a focus on the concepts of liberty and equality. We will inquire into the nature of self-government and the threats it faces. Why did we have a civil war? What was the status of slavery in the American constitutional order? Why was secession illegitimate? What does Lincoln suggest is needed to forge a new Union capable of achieving both racial and sectional reconciliation? What guidance can the Gettysburg Address offer to later generations? Is there still a “great task remaining before us”?

Superpower: The U.S. and the Vietnam War

  • Understanding the history of the Vietnam War is critical to understanding the influence and power of the United States as an international presence in the world today. From civil disobedience and protests, especially on college campuses, to the major and rapidly evolving role of television and media in the civic arena, the history of the Vietnam era holds many lessons and resonances to help us better make sense of the intense debate over how the U.S. defines and pursues its national interests. In this course, we’ll think about how best to support students in learning a full and accurate history of this period, and in thinking critically about the role that America and Americans play in a global context.

A More Complete American Story: The History of Jim Crow

  • Understanding our historical and political context in a full and accurate way, by engaging with hard histories and multiple perspectives, makes us better-informed civic participants. This course offers participants the opportunity to engage with the historiographical debates surrounding the history of Black lived experiences, race (not just Black and White), and immigration (from South America, Central America, and Asia) as they relate to Jim Crow, civil rights, pluralism, and fights against continued oppression. This course also supports participants in identifying the continuities and discontinuities between the Jim Crow era and our current historical moment.

Digital Competency in the Age of AI

  • AI tools such as ChatGPT are already transforming education and the public sphere. How should we engage with such technology to improve student learning outcomes and our society? As it stands, such AI tools are treated as expert, even though they are not expert in any field and are vulnerable to abuse, falsehoods and adversarial attacks. The lack of effective oversight and accountability for this technology exacerbates these problems. This course provides the basic digital competency on how state-of-the-art AI tools work (no prior knowledge necessary) and how we should prepare students to engage with them.