The Samara Centre for Democracy partnered with the Social Studies Educators Network of Canada/Réseau pour l’enseignment des sciences sociales du Canada (SSENC/RESCC) to create free curriculum-connected resources based on our podcast Group Chat. We offer engaging teaching material related to each of our Group Chat episodes, which are designed to help educators illuminate Canadian civics in their classrooms in an accessible and personal way. 

If you are a high school educator, click here to see where our teaching resources fit into your province or territory’s social studies curriculum, as well as the diverse civics and social studies topics they cover. Then explore all of the extensive lessons we have available, including vocabulary worksheets, listening activities, pre and post-listening assignments and various teacher supports.

Have you used our teaching resources? Please let us know, and share your thoughts about how they support learning in your classroom. Click here to fill out a short feedback survey!

Group Chat can also be a valuable resource for university educators - the podcast connects to a wide variety of disciplines and departments that incorporate Canadian content. The five-episode series covers a wide range of themes, including society and technology, diasporic identity and politics, democratic innovation, law and history, and policy, power and governance. Educational research has shown that course-integrated podcasts support student collaboration, motivation and content retention, and are an effective way to support learning variability. You can access the full transcripts of each episode on our website for accessibility purposes.  Below are some sample assignments - click on the link to access the different assignments, and feel free to take and adapt any of this content to best suit your syllabus and course.

‍Episode One - This Group Chat Will Surprise You

• Letter to Annamie Paul
• Group Chat Guidelines

Episode Two - Live from Montreal: Innovations in Democracy

• Democratic Innovation Mock Panel
• Democratic Innovation Deepdive

Episode Three - The Notwithstanding Clause: Hero or Villain?

• Notwithstanding Clause Case Study
• Notwithstanding Clause Reflective Essay

Episode Four - Is Technology Democracy’s Saviour or Downfall?

• Tech and democracy meme assignment
• Design your own pro-democratic tech

Episode Five - The Politics of (Back) Home

• Listening exercise
• Local news podcast episode outline

Below are just a few examples of departments and courses which have strong curriculum connections to the content of Group Chat, and whose syllabi could be enriched by some of the sample assignments we offer below:

Political Science

• Canadian Democracy
• Government, Politics and Power
• Gender and Politics
• Politics, Power and Influence in Canada
• Canadian Elections Policy and Law
• Technology and Democracy

Sociology

• Canadian Society: Social Problems, Social Policy and the Law
• Introduction to Indigenous Settler Relations in Canada
• Creating Social Change
• Political Sociology
• Foundations of Ethical Leadership
• Multicultural Canada and Diasporic Identity

Canadian Studies

• Introduction to the Study of Canada
• Controversies and Social Change in Canada Today
• Power, Places and Stories in/of Odawang/Ottawa
• Imagining Canada
• Women and Gender in 21st Century Canada
• The Canadian Experience
• Democratization and Human Rights in Canada
• Perspectives on Canadian Feminism

History

• Canada:  A History of the Present
• Introduction to Canadian History
• Canadian Political History
• Survey of Canadian History, 1885 to the present
• Political History since WWI
• Women and Gender in Canadian History

Communications and Media Studies

• Digital Storytelling
• Documentary, Politics and Social Change
• Foundations in Communication Theory and Method
• Curation as Rhetoric / Argument

Law

• Constitutional Law
• Law and Human Rights
• Law and Society