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WJCC Will Use New CW Curriculum in High SchoolsBy Amber Lester Kennedy Wednesday, May 25, 2011
WJCC will be the first to use CW's "Idea of America" curriculum.
Colonial Williamsburg President Colin Campbell announced the division’s adoption of the program at his annual breakfast for community leaders Tuesday morning. He called “The Idea of America” the most ambitious educational outreach initiative Colonial Williamsburg has undertaken. WJCC will pay $30,000 for the curriculum materials, said WJCC spokesman Greg Davy. WJCC School Board Chair Jim Nickols said the division is lucky to have an educational institution like Colonial Williamsburg as a neighbor. “The product is really very good. It makes use of the technology of where kids are, and it’s interactive,” he said. “It’s greater than a textbook, because they can engage in discussion and think in different ways.” The curriculum is entirely digital-based, and will teach students lessons from history and the principles of American citizenship through 65 individual case studies of the United States’ most important historical events. Teachers will be able to select from the program’s resources and interactive tools to support lessons, choosing from options like dramatic readings of key texts, documentaries and interviews with contemporary figures. In addition, the program allows students to examine newspapers, works of art, diaries, journal entries, speeches and wills. The discussion of each case study will be framed by four pairs of contrasting American values: unity and diversity, private wealth and common wealth, law and ethics and freedom and equality. Each case study will link to a current event website where students can consider the issues as they relate to current political and social debate. For example, students might learn about how some American laws have not been ethical, such as Jim Crow laws. Students would consider the actions of Rosa Parks, who technically broke the law, but sparked the Civil Rights movement that led to new laws. Other case studies will include the debate over what it means to be a citizen, Jacksonian America and Reagan and the end of the Cold War. Campbell noted that the students will learn through the program that many of the same issues keep coming up. “As students examine the case studies created by our staff of educators and teachers across the country, they will discover that Americans have been debating fundamental principles since the Revolutionary era,” he said. Colonial Williamsburg’s interactive program, “Virtual Republic,” also can be integrated into “The Idea of America,” allowing students in one region of the country to share their findings and conclusions with students from another part of the country. The students can use social networking tools to exchange ideas. As Colonial Williamsburg worked to created "The Idea of America," they used the Virginia Standards of Learning requirements to inform content development, said Thomas Shrout, director of communications for the foundation. Colonial Williamsburg staff will begin working with WJCC to implement the program at the beginning of the 2011-12 school year. “It seems only fitting that our school division, which serves the residents of the area that is such an instrumental part of what this excellent curriculum teaches, is the first public school district to participate in the program,” said WJCC Superintendent Steven Constantino. “This is another significant step toward our goal of becoming a premier school division as we bring learning further into the 21st century.” Colonial Williamsburg has partnered with Pearson, an education technology company, as exclusive distributor. To learn more about the program, click here. |
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Comments
There was a large team of teachers, curriculum writers, historians and reviewers from inside and outside CW who worked on this program for about 5 years. History education is our mission and not something we take lightly. This project has been our baby and you can be rest assured that every care has been taken to provide the best program possible for students and teachers.
Thing is, EVERY company that creates curriculum products to sell to schools will claim they are "standards based" and will "tie in to your state standards." This is simply because it is a selling point. Who would buy a curriculum that says it isn't standards-based ?
Very worrisome is the fact that the new CW curriculum claims support the standards in lots of states.
But different states have vastly differing history standards. So whose were used, and to what degree? Where exactly is the CW curriculum aligned with the Virginia SOL curriculum? Where is it not aligned?
This is a big, big question. And it is an important one since we're talking about large amounts of public money being spent. Has due diligence been done by WJCC on this product? If so, how?
Unfortunately, over the past year, we've learned that WJCC hasn't always done due diligence when shopping for textbooks and curricula. And the "Our Virginia" textbooks which caused such an $80,000+ debacle were said to be highly standards-based by the publisher.
Good consumers of curriculum products have to do a thorough screening themselves, to see if, in fact, the product actually aligns tightly with the learning goals they are required to teach and help students master. Did WJCC do this? Did CW truly use the SOLs to a strong degree, so their product can truly be a help to Virginia teachers? Or is the CW curriculum cool because its tech-based, but woefully short on addressing the actual topics that Virginia schools are required to teach and evaluated on.
These are explosive and essential questions that a good news organization could investigate further. Lots of public money is at stake here. The WY Daily has a track record of excellent reporting on the local schools, and should strongly consider taking up this investigation.
For future consideration, it would be really cool if CW teamed up with AVAdventure (www.theavadventure.com) and created an interactive adventure series for students and tourists.
Can you imagine how much could be learned from that sort of collaboration?
I can see spring-break students going home and telling their parents about it and once the parents learned it is something they can experience themselves, they would come to town and DING! Increased tourism for CW, hotels, restaurants, etc.
The story has been edited to add information from Thomas Shrout, director of communications for CW, who noted that the foundation used the Virginia Standards of Learning requirements to inform content development of the program.