PSA Fourm

Description

The Public Square Academy (PSA) Forum is a modern civics education and service club for today’s fast-paced, tech-enabled world. We are a community of citizens, working in groups, dedicated to self-improvement and the common good. Clubs meet weekly by video conference or in person.

The PSA Forum explores a different major ethical or political theme each month and asks one or two “Big Questions,” which help us gear our discussion towards real-world solutions.

Each monthly edition has four parts broken down by week:

1. Foundational knowledge, background material, and skill development related to the monthly theme. This is short, concise content with links to resources for those who wish to dig deeper.
2. Skill-building using a challenge or game.  You will practice the knowledge and skills learned in part one. These activities may include some friendly team-based competition.
3. You will participate in a mini-book club, discussing a relevant short story as it progresses, then concocting the end of a short story in competition with other groups. The winning ending will be used to complete the story.
4. Stories, games, content, and discussions all conclude in week four, where our key focus is on sustainable solutions for the problems we’ve explored in weeks 1-3.

Group leaders will consolidate and summarize the results of their groups and submit their reports to the Editor-in-Chief, who will publish the findings. If you are interested in being a group leader (free subscription, training, support, plus more) please contact us.

Once you register, you will receive an invitation to the Canvas Learning Management System. You will read and accept the user terms and code of conduct. Then, proceed to the Coffee Shop (No Instructions on How to Access Coffee Shop?) to get set-up, oriented to the program, join the discussions, and form a group.

Practical Academics programs are designed for engagement. We are not just teaching an online course, we are building an online community of citizens. This will take some effort, but the more give to it, the more you’ll get from it. Expect to commit four or five hours per week total. Our take is that this is what is needed in our fractious, turbulent world.