Iowa Civic Educators Institute
Offered through the UNI Center for Civic Education
The Iowa Civic Educators Institute (ICEI) supports Iowa’s pre-service and in-service teachers with professional development opportunities dedicated to improving knowledge of the American political tradition and the ideas, traditions, institutions, and texts essential to American Constitutional Government and our American history and heritage.
All program costs are covered, and participants will receive a stipend upon completing the seminar.
Find the program that fits you:
In-Service Teacher Seminars
A 60-hour program for high school social studies teachers, combining reading groups, workshops and a summer institute focused on civic education and American political thought.
Pre-Service Teacher Seminars
An intensive four-week sessions for UNI social science and history teaching majors designed to strengthen civic content knowledge and classroom application.
Elementary Educators Literacy Seminars
Daylong workshops for pre-service and in-service elementary teachers, focused on incorporating civic content into literacy instruction.
Registration will be available in February 2026
All ICEI programming incorporates three priorities:
Connections to Iowa State Standards
We will collaborate with the Iowa Department of Education as well as faculty in the UNI College of Education to ensure the programming from content-experts connects to updated social studies standards.
Connections to Primary Documents
We will incorporate a collection of theme-specific primary and secondary readings, with primary readings drawn largely but not exclusively from the founding period, into the programming.
Connections to Politics but not Politicized
We will offer seminars on themes such as civic virtues and Iowa as a constitutional subject which both reveal something important about the American founding and find grounding in the best practices for non-partisan civics education.
Each year, the ICEI will focus on a different theme:
Civic Virtues
This seminar emphasizes the values, traits and dispositions that underlie the founders’ ability to create the institutions and processes laid out in — and our ability to continue — America’s Constitutional tradition. Leveraging a range of primary and secondary sources, participants will explore concepts such as civic friendship, personal liberty, and human dignity. After participating in this seminar, educators will be able to clearly articulate how founding documents — including the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights — invoke and reinforce these concepts.
Iowa as Constitutional Subject
The founders viewed states as a primary unit of government and states looked to the first principles enshrined at the founding as part of establishing their own institutions and processes. States are key political actors capable of recognizing and addressing citizens’ needs while also pushing back against encroachment by the federal government into the lives of its citizens. After participating in this seminar, educators will be able to articulate how the founders conceived of the role of the states in relation to citizens and the national government as well as how Iowa’s state constitution builds on and diverges from the U.S. Constitution.
Balancing Individual Rights and Community Membership
America’s founding documents highlight a commitment to recognizing the dignity of each citizen and balancing that recognition with the realities of life in a political community. After participating in this seminar, educators will be able to articulate how our founding documents recognize both civil rights and liberties, the structures created by the founders to balance these two competing but necessary protections of individual dignity, and our work to live up to their promise.
The Civic Experience
This seminar will explore evidence-based pedagogical approaches that capture students’ attention with debates animating the founders, difficult challenges foundered faced to make decisions, as well as the need to preserve this history and better understand it within its historical context. This seminar introduces a range of evidence-based strategies including the National Center for Civic Education’s congressional hearings simulation, working with digitized primary source materials through the National Archive, online games through iCivics and Iowa-based field trips. After participating in this seminar, educators will be able to place historical and civic knowledge and primary texts at the heart of applied pedagogy.