Teaching Democracy with interactive learning methods: An innovative didactic approach in Greece

Civic education plays a vital role in shaping responsible and active citizens in a healthy functioning democracy. It is important that the subject of civic education is reinforced with interactive methods, which cultivate participation, critical thinking and group learning or teamwork in specific projects. The proposed didactic methodology, which is presented in this work, has been developed in the Department of Political Science of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, at the initiative of the Laboratory of Applied Political Research and was applied in schools of Thessaloniki for the first time in 2017 and since then continues to be implemented in every academic semester. The didactic approach presented is applied, in frames of the course “Teaching Civic Education” offered to the students of the department of political sciences. The university students study how to teach civic education and then they practice what they have learned in practice by teaching civic education in secondary schools of Thessaloniki. Pupils in high school are taught a course of civic education by the political science students through workshops and get familiarized with basic concepts and processes of democracy such as representation, the role of the representative, the electoral processes, the criteria. of the electorate and consultation. The five workshops offered students an experience of simulating their future role as citizens, making them understand the importance of being active and responsible citizens in a sustainable democracy. This new approach incorporates new interactive teaching methods in addition to lecturing / presenting key concepts. The method uses tools such as workshops, consultation, coordination, group learning, project assignment, posters, a scenario-based questionnaire and a questionnaire to evaluate the method. Students are actively involved in the workshops and are therefore able to apply what they learn, but also to develop a range of important skills, such as critical thinking, teamwork, discussion, initiative and collaboration. In addition, this didactic approach gives students the opportunity to emulate real democratic processes, in order to have an in-depth understanding of the role, rights and obligations of the citizen with a view to exercising this role responsibly and actively in the future. The workshops cover key issues for the functioning of democracy, such as the concept of representation, the role of representatives, the criteria by which the electorate votes, electoral processes and consultation. During 2021, the content of the course focused on issues of individual and collective responsibility of the citizens, with reference to the response to Covid-19 pandemic situation. The course was offered through distance learning platforms due to the situation and the urgent measures against Covid-19. As a result, through the analysis of the evaluation questionnaires of the pupils, the paper will also provide insights regarding how the pupils adjusted to distance learning civic education comparing the evaluation before Covid and amid Covid and their response on the measures against Covid-19.