Effective September 2004, students entering grade seven will be required to take at least three PAA survey courses before completing grade nine.  Each course must be a minimum of 50 hours.  The modules for these three PAA survey courses should be chosen using criteria recommended in the Guidelines to Survey Courses section of this document.  Students in grades 7-9 may use Christian Ethics courses to fulfill two of the three PAA survey course requirements.  Middle Level survey courses designed for students in grades 7-9 use the PAA curriculum guides.

Because various combinations of modules can be chosen, the courses will have variable occupational or career pathways to post-secondary education and training or workplace opportunities.  The courses will provide opportunities for career development utilizing the career development continuum of awareness, exploration, and experience.  School Boards, directors, principals, and teachers will define the PAA offerings for their jurisdictions.  Students and teachers, working together, have flexibility to choose the modules the student wishes to study.  Along with this flexibility comes the necessity of efficient recordkeeping to insure that a student does not study a module more than once, unless the student did not receive credit for the course using that module the first time.  Some modules are core (unless prior learning assessment has been completed) and others are prerequisites for more advanced study.  Each module specifies a range of hours necessary to complete the instruction.  Selection of modules should total a minimum of 100 hours of modules for 1.0 credit at the Secondary Level. 

The modular design provides for flexibility and for community involvement.  The design allows teachers and schools to fashion unique PAA offerings that reflect student interest and community resources.  Partnerships with community businesses and service providers enhance learning opportunities in a community context.  Students will be able to plot pathways to employment and to post-secondary education or training.  The modules have clearly defined expectations and standards developed with the assistance of professional educators and industry representatives.  Students will receive transfer credit (receive high school and post-secondary credit/recognition) or advanced placement, where these articulation agreements have been established by the Department and its partner agencies.

Practical and Applied Arts courses can be offered in two ways within schools:  as a pure or a survey course offering.

A pure course at the Secondary Level is a course where core (compulsory) modules are taught, and optional modules are selected from a PAA curriculum at one grade level to total 100 hours.  Pure PAA curriculum guidelines vary from one to five credits (100-500 hours). Each 100 hours represents 1.0 credit.

A survey course is a configuration of recommended modules from a minimum of three pure PAA curricula to create a Middle Level course of a minimum of 50 hours or a Secondary Level course to total 100 instructional hours (1 credit).  There are six credits available at the Secondary Level for PAA survey courses – A10, B10, A20, B20, A30, B30.  Details of recommended modules for survey courses are included at the end of this section.

Core modules are the compulsory modules that must be covered in a pure course of study for developmental or safety reasons or for purposes of articulation with post-secondary programs.

Prerequisite modules contain content that must be covered before more complex content in successive modules is explored.

Modules have been designated in three levels:  Introductory, Intermediate, and Advanced.

Introductory modules are for students with little or no previous experience in the course of study.  The modules provide the basic skills needed for further learning and have a personal use emphasis.  They provide experiences and information that will assist students to explore and identify interests and aptitudes.  Many of the skills are transferable to many career choices.

Intermediate modules are more skills specific, but they are still broad in perspective.  These modules provide experiences and information that emphasize the career development opportunities available and develop personal interest skills.

Advanced modules may be oriented towards workplace, post-secondary programs, or for personal skills acquisition.  Skills may provide students with workplace entry level competencies and advanced standing with post-secondary education and/or training institutions or programs.  Students taking modules for personal interest will develop skills that may provide a sense of achievement and satisfaction and be useful in everyday life.

Work Study Modules

The teacher can configure a work study for each course in each grade.  These optional modules will provide students with the opportunity to use equipment, materials, procedures, and processes that are not available in school settings.  Students will experience a workplace and practise, improve and acquire skills.  Work study may provide students with experiences that will be useful when they are considering post-secondary options.  Further information is in the Work Study Guidelines section.

Extended Study Modules

The extended study module is designed to provide schools with an opportunity to meet current and future demands that are not addressed by current modules in the renewed PAA curriculum.

The flexibility of this module allows a school/school division to design one new module per credit to complement or extend the study of existing pure core modules and optional modules.  This new module can be configured to meet the specific needs of students or the community.  The extended study module is designed to extend the content of the pure courses and to offer survey course modules beyond the scope of the selection of existing PAA modules.

Teachers have the flexibility to determine the degree of emphasis per module within each course.  Teachers may alter the emphasis within a module depending on the nature of the module being taught and the length of the school's reporting periods. 

Student evaluation should reflect the variety of teaching and learning strategies used throughout a course.  It is important that a teacher discuss with students the evaluation strategies to be used in a course, when evaluation will occur, and the weighting of each part of the total evaluation.  The weighting should be determined in relation to the amount of time spent and emphasis placed on each area of a course.

TThere are many factors that must be considered when embarking on the implementation or expansion of a Practical and Applied Arts (PAA) program. The following list outlines some of the considerations that schools must address when implementing a PAA program and gives some suggestions on how to do so.

• The needs of the students and the community.
• This consideration should be key when determining how the implementation of a PAA program will look in any particular school.  While all the PAA courses have merit and value, some will be more appropriate than others in each situation.  The strength of the PAA system is that it allows flexibility for configurations that will meet the needs of many students.  By incorporating the Transition to Work Dimensions and, the Common Essential Learnings, and keeping in mind the goals of Practical and Applied Arts, teachers should be able to offer rich and rewarding learning experiences.  
• The strengths of the teachers.
  • Many teachers have areas of expertise that will enable them to contribute to the program in some way.
  • There are often teachers on staff with an interest in developing or expanding expertise in an area.
  • All teachers should be encouraged to become aware of the opportunities and curriculum that are available in PAA.  Many teachers have found they have strengths in areas for which they did not even know curricula existed.
  • Teachers should be encouraged to consider courses or modules outside of the traditional PAA courses.   In some cases the traditional courses will be the most appropriate to offer, but in others there will be exciting and valuable experiences available to students through non-traditional courses and modules.
  • Opportunities to utilize expertise in the community to supplement the teacher's skills and knowledge should be explored.  There are often community members with special skills that are willing to volunteer their time in the school to share their expertise with students.
• The facilities that are available.
• Clearly some programs will require more utilization of dedicated facility space than others.  Many programs can be offered in shared space, space in the community, and classroom space as well as dedicated facility space.
• The equipment that is available or accessible.
• Schools may already have equipment that will allow them to offer certain courses or modules.
• Purchase, rental or lease of required equipment can be explored, and may have significant budget implications.
• Borrowing or using equipment that is already in the community will be possible in some situations. Schools should consider and pursue this when practical. Having strong community relationships in place will make this easier to accomplish.
• Sharing equipment among schools is an efficient use of resources when the equipment is not required at all times. Coordination between schools that share equipment will be necessary and may have scheduling and timetabling implications.
• School composition
• Situations that involve Middle Level schools feeding into a Secondary Level school require communication and cooperation between the schools in order to facilitate a smooth alignment of modules offered at the Middle Level with those being offered at the Secondary Level. This is particularly true when there are a number of feeder schools for a single secondary school. Communication between these schools should be an on-going process but dialogue should be initiated early enough in the school year so that consideration can be given for any staff or program changes that might take place for the next school year.
• A number of approaches to this coordination are possible:
• The schools can determine if there are modules that all the feeder schools can offer that will complement the secondary school program.
• The schools can determine if there are modules the feeder schools can offer that will not have any impact on the secondary school program. For example, if the secondary school does not offer Drafting and CAD or Design Studies, some of the feeder schools could incorporate modules from those in their survey courses.
• Teachers may need to offer different modules to some students for a while, perhaps an intermediate module that corresponds to an introductory module that other students are doing. Some may choose to offer a work study module to those students that have already completed some modules, some may choose to offer modules as independent study modules using resources developed by the teacher or by utilizing the resources from the Web Based Learning Resource projects.
• Pure or Survey
• There are a number of good reasons to offer either configuration of PAA course. Addressing student needs should be a high priority when making those decisions. Factors such as facility, equipment, interests, community needs, budget and teacher availability will also contribute to the decision.
• Timetabling
• In some cases the timetabling of PAA courses, particularly pure courses, will offer no more challenges than other courses. Depending on the course, some consideration may be given to blocking time in the timetable, such as having double periods, or even entire mornings or afternoons. If work study modules will be offered, scheduling the class in the last period of the day may prove to be beneficial.
• Survey courses offer unique opportunities that may need to be considered when creating the timetable. Having more than one teacher involved in the delivery of a survey course allows schools to utilize expertise that would not otherwise be utilized. If this will be the case, then scheduling will be affected. Some possibilities include:

• Another configuration would be to have one teacher that teaches most of the course, but switches classes with another teacher for a shorter period of time. An example like this could see the Grade 4 teacher (who has experience or an interest in interior design) teach a few Interior Design modules to a PAA Survey A30 class. During that time, the main PAA teacher could teach the Electricity and Magnetism science unit to the Grade 4 class. This arrangement will require the periods to coincide in the timetable; this may be pre-planned when the timetable is created, or in some cases a teacher may have enough flexibility to make those arrangements when required.
• Recordkeeping
• PAA teachers should be aware of the requirement of careful recordkeeping of modules that have been completed as part of a PAA course, including Middle Level Survey courses.
• Keeping records electronically in the Saskatchewan Learning Student Data System is required.  Schools should be consistent and diligent in their recordkeeping.

• Work Based Learning
• Considerations should be given to offering work study modules, or other work based learning opportunities for as many students as possible. These experiences can be extremely valuable for students and their communities.
• Teachers and schools planning to offer work based learning should become very familiar with the work study guidelines in this handbook.
• The monitoring policy requires that students involved in work-based learning must be monitored at least twice within the first 25 hours of work, and once during each subsequent 25 hour period. School need to be prepared to make arrangements for this supervision.