Components and Initiatives of Core Curriculum

Adaptive Dimension

The Adaptive Dimension is an essential part of all educational programs. Like the Common Essential Learnings, the Adaptive Dimension is a component of Core Curriculum and permeates all curriculum and instruction. The Adaptive Dimension is defined as:

the concept of making adjustments in approved educational programs to accommodate diversity in student learning needs. It includes those practices the teacher undertakes to
make curriculum materials and topics, instruction, and the learning environment meaningful and appropriate for each student.

The essence of the Adaptive Dimension rests in the phrase "seeking other ways". Offering students alternative access to, and expression of, knowledge facilitates their participation in learning. Just as physical environments can be made more accessible through modifications such as ramps or wider doorways, learning environments can be made more accessible through a modification of setting, method or material.

The Adaptative Dimension is used to: maximize student learning and independence, lessen discrepancies between achievement and ability, promote a positive self-image and feeling of belonging, and promote a willingness to become involved in learning. These purposes address a primary function of the school, that of helping students to maximize their potentials as independent learners.

Students may find learning to be difficult or not to be challenging but with varying adaptation of teaching methodologies, curriculum organization, timetabling, or with the assistance of appropriate technologies they can be active participants in the core content of the curriculum. Some general guidelines for adaptation follow:

• Alter the pace of the lesson to ensure that students understand the concept being presented or are being challenged by the presentation. One of the most basic adaptations that can be made to assiststudents is to give them sufficient time to explore, create, question, and experience as they learn.
• Monitor the use of career guidance vocabulary. It is possible to use advanced and simple vocabulary in the same lesson by incorporating both the words in a sentence: "Pat was proficient or good at playing the game." This helps to satisfy the requirements of some students, expand the vocabulary of others, and make the lesson meaningful to others.
• Vary the methods of instruction to meet the needs of all students.
• Vary the manner in which students are required to respond.
• Alter the setting so that students may benefit more fully.
• Encourage as much student participation as possible in both planning and instruction.
• Vary evaluative procedures to reflect the activities of the classroom.
• Maintain flexibility. The less rigid the setting and the approach -- the easier it is to adapt.

The Adaptive Dimension includes all practices the teacher employs to make learning meaningful and appropriate for each student. Because the Adaptive Dimension permeates all teaching practice, sound professional judgement becomes the critical factor in decision making. The Career Guidance Curriculum allows for such flexibility and decision making.

Common Essential Learnings

Career guidance offers many opportunities for incorporating the Common Essential Learnings (C.E.L.s) into instruction. The purpose of this incorporation is to help students better understand the area of career guidance and to prepare students for their future learning both within and outside the K-12 educational system. The decision to focus on a particular Common Essential Learning within a lesson is guided by the needs and abilities of individual students and by the particular demands of the career guidance program. Throughout a Module, it is intendedthat each Common Essential Learning will have been developed to the extent possible.

It is important to incorporate the Common Essential Learnings in an authentic manner. For example, some activities may offer many opportunities to develop the understandings, values, skills, and processes related to a number of C.E.L.s. The development of a particular C.E.L., however, may be limited by the nature of the topic under study.

It is intended that the Common Essential Learnings be developed and evaluated within subject areas. Since the Common Essential Learnings are not necessarily separate and discrete categories, it is anticipated that working toward the achievement of one C.E.L. may contribute to the development of others. For example, many of the processes, skills, understandings and abilities required for the C.E.L.s of Communication, Numeracy and Critical and Creative Thinking are also needed for the development of Technological Literacy.

Incorporating the Common Essential Learnings into instruction has implications for the assessment of student learning. For example, a module which has focused on developing the C.E.L.s of Communication and Critical and Creative Thinking should also reflect this focus when assessing student learning. Exams or assignments should allow students to demonstrate their understanding of the important concepts in the module and how these concepts are related to each other or to previous learning. Assignments can be structured so that evidence or reasons must accompany student responses. If students are encouraged to think critically and creatively throughout a module, then the assessment at the end of the module should also require students to think critically and creatively.

The incorporation of the Common Essential Learnings into instruction can best be accomplished through teachers reflecting upon the Career Guidance objectives, their teaching practices, and their students. By listening carefully to students and attempting to understand their perspectives/viewpoints, teachers can better reflect students' interests and concerns in the classroom experiences which they provide. It is anticipated that teachers will build from the suggestions in this guide and from their personal reflections in order to better incorporate the Common Essential Learnings into the Career Guidance program.

Throughout this curriculum guide, the following symbols may be used to refer to the Common Essential Learnings:

COM	Communication
CCT	Critical and Creative Thinking
IL	Independent Learning
NUM	Numeracy
PSVS	Personal and Social Values and Skills
TL	Technological Literacy

For more information on the C.E.L.s, teachers may refer to Understanding the Common Essential Learnings: A Handbook for Teachers (1988).

Gender Equity

Saskatchewan Education, Training, and Employment is committed to providing quality education for all students in the K-12 system. Expectations based primarily on gender limit students' ability to develop to their fullest potential. While some stereotypical views and practices have disappeared, others remain. Where schools have endeavoured to provide equal opportunity for male and female students, continued efforts are required so that equality of benefit or outcome may be achieved. It is the responsibility of schools to create an educational environment free of gender bias. This can be facilitated by increased understanding and use of gender balanced material and non-sexist teaching strategies. Both girls and boys need encouragement to explore a wide variety of options based on aptitudes, abilities, and interests, rather than gender.

To reach the goal of gender equity in the K-12 system, Saskatchewan Education, Training, and Employment is committed to efforts to bring about the elimination of gender bias that restricts the participation and choices of students. It is important that the Career Guidance Program reflects the variety of roles and the wide range of experiences, behaviours and attitudes available to all members of society. The Career Guidance curriculum strives to provide gender balanced content, activities and teaching strategies described in inclusionary language. These actions are designed to assistteachers to create an environment free of stereotyping and enable both girls and boys to share in all experiences and opportunities which develop their abilities and talents to the fullest.

Saskatchewan teachers are responsible for integrating into the program resources that reflect gender balance, and practices that provide opportunities for both girls and boys. Teachers have a responsibility to evaluate all resources for bias and to teach students to recognize such bias.

Resource-based Learning

Resource-based Learning involves use of a wide array of print, non-print and human resources to assist students in learning the processes needed to find, analyze, and present information. The focus is on students' needs, interests and abilities in the context of Core Curriculum.

Teachers can assist the development of attitudes and abilities for independent, life-long learning by using a variety of resources and instructional approaches in their classrooms. When students share the responsibility of setting goals, planning learning experiences, and choosing suitable resources, motivation for learning increases.

The guidelines listed below may help teachers to implement Resource-based Learning:

• Involve students in the planning process. Discuss topics, objectives and learning experiences with students.
• Incorporate a variety of print and non-print resources in modules. These materials may include software, oral presentations, or audio-visual materials.
• With the assistance of students and the teacher-librarian (if available), gather appropriate resources. Consider community resources such as, mentors in the community or guest speakers.
• Collaborate with resource centre staff and other teachers to coordinate the distribution and sharing of resources.
• Participate in modules as a co-learner. Demonstrate genuine interest in acquiring information and ideas.
• Model the use and appreciation of learning materials as sources of enjoyment and information.
• Assist in the establishment and maintenance of resource collections that support the Career Guidance Program. On a regular basis, search for and alert resource centre staff about new resources.

For more information on Resource-based Learning, teachers may refer to Resource-based Learning: Policy, Guidelines and Responsibilities for Saskatchewan Learning Resource Centres (1987).

Career Resource Centre

In order to help satisfy the Middle Level students' career guidance needs, Career Centres can be a valuable asset to classroom instruction. They can either be a component of the school library or a separate facility. Career centres can be developed by individual boards for the use of their students or community-based, involving a collaborative effort by educators, business, labour and community groups. Effective Career Resource Centres in the 1990s and beyond will be multimedia in nature in order to accommodate the different learning styles of Middle Level students.

Career Resource Centres serve a number of purposes:

• to help students explore various occupations and postsecondary institutes;
• to provide current career and labour market information;
• to facilitate the development of life career management skills;
• to help students select appropriate work situations;
• to help students develop job search skills; and
• to assist in the development of life long career plans.

Career Resource Centres may contain a variety of resources to support the following areas: career information, educational information, job search information, career planning information, and computer information.

Schools are deluged by demands from parents, business, industry, government and thecommunity to prepare young people for the changes and uncertainties of the 21st century. A Career Resource Centre can be a productive strategy for supporting classroom instruction and school guidance services. Designing a career centre that is user-friendly, budget-conscious, time-conscious, and space-conscious is a challenge, but can be very effective in enhancing students' sense of self-esteem and control over their destiny.

Indian and Métis Curriculum Perspectives

Saskatchewan Education, Training, and Employment has established policy that provides a mandate for including material in its curricula on Indian and Métis People. This policy is intended to raise the awareness of students about these important issues.

The integration of Indian and Métis content and perspectives within the K-12 curriculum fulfils a central recommendation of Directions (1984) and the Indian and Métis Education Policy from Kindergarten to Grade XII (1989). In general, the policy states:

Saskatchewan Education, Training and Employment recognizes that the Indian and Métis peoples of the province are historically unique peoples and occupy a unique and rightful place in our society today. Saskatchewan Education, Training and Employment recognizes that education programs must meet the needs of Indian and Métis peoples, and that changes to existing programs are also necessary for the benefit of all students. (page 6)

The inclusion of Indian and Métis perspectives benefits all students in a pluralistic society. Cultural representation in all aspects of the school environment empowers students with a positive group identity. Indian and Métis resources foster a meaningful and culturally identifiable experience for Indian and Métis students, and promote the development of positive attitudes in all students towards Indian and Métis peoples. This awareness of one's own culture and the cultures of others develops self-concept, enhances learning, promotes an appreciation of Canada's pluralistic society, and supports universal human rights.

Saskatchewan Indian and Métis students come from different cultural backgrounds and social environments including northern, rural, and urban areas. Teachers must understand the diversity of the social, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds of Saskatchewan Indian and Métis students. All educators need cross-cultural education, and increased awareness of applied sociolinguistics, first and second language acquisition theory, and standard and non-standard usage of language. Teachers must utilize a variety of teaching strategies that match and build upon the knowledge, cultures, learning styles, and strengths that Indian and Métis students possess.

The Department's expectations for the appropriate inclusion of Indian and Métis content in curriculum and instruction are summarized in the following four points.

• Curricula and materials will concentrate on positive images of Indian, Métis, and Inuit peoples.
• Curricula and materials will reinforce and complement the beliefs and values of Indian, Métis, and Inuit peoples.
• Curricula and materials will include historical and contemporary issues.
• Curricula and materials will reflect the legal, political, social, economic, and regional diversity of Indian, Métis, and Inuit peoples.

Indian and Métis Education Policy from Kindergarten to Grade XII (1989, page 12)

Saskatchewan teachers are responsible for integrating into the appropriate modules of their programs resources that reflect accurate and sufficient Indian and Métis content and perspectives. Teachers have a responsibility to evaluate all resources for bias and to teach students to recognize such bias.

Relating Instructional Approaches to Middle Level Students

In order to give students a chance to develop their understandings and abilities in the area of guidance, it is necessary for teachers to use a broad range of instructional approaches. Instructional Approaches: A Framework for Professional Practice (1991) provides a framework to help teachers understand and implement a variety of methods of teaching. When varying instructional approaches are used,evaluation techniques must be matched to the approaches. If students learn by doing, assessments should involve students showing what they can do. Student assessment, then, should reflect the methods of instruction. Figure 3 outlines some of the relationships between instructional methods and assessment techniques.

Instruction must match the needs and interests of the middle years learner. To do so, middle years instruction must be:

• Interactive between student and teacher, student and student, and student and the world.
• Experiential, moving students from the concrete to the abstract while providing opportunities for students to reflect upon their own learnings.
• Flexible and malleable meeting the ever-changing ebb and flow of student needs and interests while taking advantage of the "teachable moment" (Partin, 1987).
• Developmental with respect to the processes, skills, abilities, and attitudes necessary for middle years students to become independent, life-long learners.

It should enable middle years students to become independent learners. The teacher's strategic approach to instruction will influence student achievement towards this end. The five strategic approaches set forth for teacher consideration (Instructional Approaches: A Framework for Professional Practice, 1991) include Direct Instruction, Indirect Instruction, Experiential Learning, Independent Study, and Interactive Instruction.

The Indirect Instruction, Experiential Learning, and Interactive Instruction are strategies that are highly compatible with the outcomes of the Middle Level Career Guidance Curriculum. The student-centred nature of these approaches, coupled with the decision-making opportunities they foster, fit the middle years curriculum framework.

Indirect Instruction approaches encourage students to manage their own learning; to seek out and "discover" knowledge. The teacher acts as a facilitator, guiding students as they acquire the necessary skills, abilities, aptitudes and attitudes to become independent, life-long learners. Experiential Learning approaches helpconnect the real life experiences of the early adolescent to "new" knowledge and learnings. Concrete experiences provide the "what" of learning that is necessary if students are to make the transition to abstract thinking processes and learnings. Interactive Instruction builds upon the social development characteristics of the early adolescent. Use of a variety of groups and interaction patterns provides opportunities that further meet the needs and interests of middle years students.

The value of Direct Instruction and Independent Study cannot be overlooked. Direct Instruction is valuable for acquiring information and skills. Independent Study approaches are necessary for the development of life-long learners. Through the use of Experiential, Interactive, and Indirect strategies integrated with Direct and Independent strategies, the needs and interest of middle years learners can be matched with the outcomes of the Career Guidance Curriculum.

Figure 3:

Relationships Between Instructional Strategies and Evaluation