« Home: Key questions for SLC implementation
How we make curriculum and instruction more authentic, coherent and challenging?
Rigorous, relevant curriculum and instruction are at the heart of SLC practice. With large blocks of the instructional day, interdisciplinary teams can organize fieldwork and involve community partners to create a coherent and authentic program of study.
Continuous Improvement Tools
- Small Learning Communities Self-Assessment Tool (PDF 4.39M)
Forms
- Identify Gaps Between Existing and Desired Practice: Rigorous, Relevant Curriculum and Instruction (PDF 120K)
Writing to Learn, Learning to Write: Revisiting Writing Across the Curriculum in Northwest Secondary Schools
The goal of this issue of By Request (December 2004), a Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory publication, offers educators, parents and policymakers a brief introduction to writing across the curriculum (WAC) and the two approaches most commonly associated with it: writing in the discipline (WID) and writing to learn (WTL). The booklet provides a brief overview of the theories and research of how writing affects learning, describes common WAC strategies, and takes a look at how middle and high schools in the United States are implementing them today.
Organizing SLCs around student interest
National Academy Foundation (NAF)
NAF focuses on small, career-themed learning communities supported by professional development and partnerships between schools and business. A summary of research entitled "Why Start an Academy?" is helpful. Also offers examples of curriculum in career academies focused on finance, hospitality and tourism, and information technology.
Career Academy Support Network
The Career Academy Support Network is a comprehensive resource for the growing number of SLCs and Career Academies in high schools across the United States. These programs organize instruction in academic subjects around a theme that enables students to fulfill requirements for college entrance while learning how their academics relate to something outside the high school.
Five Workplace Competencies (PDF 20K) US Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
The US Secretary of Labor appointed a commission to determine the skills our young people need to succeed in the world of work. These five workplace competencies (or SCANS: the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) can be used to assess how programs prepare students for the world of work.
Teaching Workplace Competencies
"South Grand Prairie: Where Rigor and Relationships Are Key" from Edutopia magazine, November 2004.
This article profiles all-to-wall career academies and a transition program for ninth graders at a Texas high school in which personal relationships are valued and where rigorous, relevant education, inside and outside of the classroom, is the norm for all students.
Mapping Curriculum to Standards
"Using Standards to Integrate the Curriculum" This chapter from Meeting Standards through Integrated Curriculum from ASCD and writen by Susan M. Drake and Rebecca C. Burns shows you how to map and align interdisciplinary curriculum. Alignment means that the curriculum is coherent: a common framework aligns curriculum, instruction, and assessment. This chapter shows you how to cluster standards from different disciplines together to create rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum.
Instructional Blocks
Scheduling Guide for Career Academies, Career Academy Support Network
This guide is intended for anyone involved in the scheduling process where a Career Academy exists: Academy teachers, high school counselors, site administrators, and district schedulers. In each category, there may need to be adaptations of this information to fit local situations.
Community Partners
15 Steps To Building And Maintaining A Large Business Partner Base For A Career Academy
Questions to help schools identify and maintain relationships with business partners for internships, mentorships, and other kinds of professional relationships.
Active, Authentic Inquiry
"Six A's of Project Based Learning" from Horace Vol. 15, No. 2. Nov. 1998. Coalition of Essential Schools. How to Analyze a Curriculum Unit or Project and Provide the Scaffolding Students Need to Succeed. Adria Steinberg, program director for the Quality Work-Based Learning Network at Jobs for the Future (www.jff.org) in Boston, created this quick project analysis tool that works equally well for a project, a unit, or a year-long course.
