The curriculum strands represent the industry’s occupations: greenhouse technician; journeyperson landscape gardener; landscape constructor; interior plantscaper and urban forester. Wherever possible, students in Horticulture 10 should have the opportunity to focus their work placement choices within one of the five occupations. Exploration of and exposure to the remaining occupations could be provided in Horticulture 20 and 30. Horticulture is one of the most recently designated trades in Saskatchewan.
Work Study provides students with an opportunity to enhance personal skills and to develop skills using industry equipment and standards not available in a school setting. The work study module is available in each of the Horticulture 10, 20, 30 courses. Refer to the Work Study Guidelines, a section of the Practical and Applied Arts Handbook and to the Career and Work Exploration 10, 20, A30, B30 Curriculum Guide for information on required and best practices for student preparation, employer partnerships, and teacher responsibilities.
A portfolio is a valuable organizer of student projects and assignments. It encourages students to collect examples of their work as they progress through the various activities, labs, and projects. Selecting particular items to include in a portfolio encourages students to reflect on what they have learned or accomplished and what they have yet to learn. Portfolio items may include: journal notes, drafts, photographs, audio or videotapes, computer discs, sketches and drawings, etc. Portfolios may be used for peer, teacher and self-assessment, and as a format to present selected works to parents, post-secondary institutions, or potential employers. In addition, the portfolio can demonstrate the link between home, school and community in the students’ education. Each student should have a portfolio representing his or her work during the course.
The portfolio can help students:
The portfolio can help teachers:
The portfolio can help post-secondary institutions:
The portfolio can help community:
The portfolio can help potential employers:
For purposes of Practical and Applied Arts courses, two kinds of portfolios may be valuable: a "working portfolio" to collect ideas observations, notes and critiques, and a "presentation portfolio" to maintain completed work. By keeping track of this material, students are able to monitor their level of achievement. Additions to and revisions of the portfolio should be done at the end of each module.
Working Portfolio
Students collect work over time in a working folder. Each student should also keep a journal of observations, critiques, ideas, and reflections as part of his or her working portfolio. Items in this portfolio may be used for the purpose of reflection, ongoing and summative evaluation, peer, teacher and self-evaluations.
Working portfolios may be used for purposes of conferencing between student and teacher, teacher and parent, teacher and teacher, or student and student. When a teacher examines a student’s portfolio in order to make a decision regarding student progress, the information it contains may become documented evidence for the evaluation.
A daily journal may also become a part of a working portfolio as a means of tracking the student’s use of time and to record progress on ideas that are being developed. This will provide the student with a focus for self-directed or independent learning as well as an anecdotal record for part of the course evaluation.
Presentation Portfolio
To compile a presentation portfolio, students should select items from their working portfolio. The presentation portfolio should cover the range of students’ experiences and should display their best efforts. The preparation of a presentation portfolio can be an assessment strategy. It is strongly suggested that students at the 30 level prepare a presentation portfolio suitable for submission to potential employers or post-secondary institutions. Through collecting, selecting and reflecting, students are able to compile presentation portfolios that display their best collection of work.
The extended study module is designed to provide schools with an opportunity to meet current and future demands that are not provided by current modules in the renewed PAA curriculum.
The flexibility of this module allows a school or school division to design one new module per credit to complement or extend the study of existing pure core modules and optional modules. 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 PAA modules.
The list of possibilities for topics of study or projects for the extended study module approach is as varied as the imagination of those involved in using the module. The optional extended study modules should be used to strengthen the knowledge, skills, and processes of horticulture in this document.
It is recommended that a summary of any extended study module be sent to the Regional Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction to establish a resource bank of module topics.
Guidelines for the use of the extended study module, are in the Practical and Applied Arts Handbook.
To support the principle of Resource-based Learning, a variety of instructional resources have been evaluated and recommended for the teaching and learning of Horticulture 10, 20, 30. See the initial list of implementation materials for Horticulture 10, 20, 30 or the Practical and Applied Arts Bibliography.
Teachers should also check the department’s Learning Resources Distribution Centre (LRDC) catalogue. An on-line ordering service is available.