Teaching Authentically in the 21st Century

Implementation Ideas for Smaller Schools

Some smaller schools may have concerns about how the courses can be implemented when there may only be one or two teachers in a study group for a subject-specific course version. There are a number of ways this can be handled.

1. Involve other teachers in the same high school - Encourage participation by more teachers in your school. For example, a given high school's CFF grant may only cover 9th grade teachers, of which there may only be one in each subject area. Other high school teachers would not be required to take the course because of the grant, but the school/district could include it as the professional development for the school year. Remember that teachers covered by the CFF grant MUST take the courses, but other PA certified teachers can take them as well (at no extra cost to the district). A small school could have four or five teachers per study group by involving all the core subject teachers in the course. This could help keep the sync point discussions subject-specific. They could be completed online or face-to-face. When completed face-to-face, any learners taking the course for graduate credit could also be involved.
2. Involve appropriate middle/junior high school teachers - Involve other appropriate teachers from your district from the middle/junior level and encourage library media specialists to participate. The eMBEDDED LEARNING ACADEMY's 21st Century Teaching and Learning Series is appropriate for all secondary teachers (grades 7-12). Therefore, your district may decide to have combined study groups involving both high school and middle school teachers. This would allow each subject area's study group to be larger. Sync point discussions could be accomplished online or face-to-face. When completed face-to-face, any learners taking the course for graduate credit could be also be involved. The blended study group coursework would still be free for all middle school teachers.
3. Face-to-face cross-curricular sync point discussions - If mixed high school/middle school groups or extending to other (non-CFF) high school teachers are not possible or feasible for your district, consider running separate study groups for the four course versions (subject areas). In this case, some teachers may be in an online study group alone or with one or two other people. For each course unit, you could have a single face-to-face sync point discussion that includes teachers from all four of the course versions. (Note: Teachers in different course versions would NOT be able to have online sync point discussions.) These discussions will be consistent from subject version to subject version. To adjust for the small study groups, it is recommended that the same person act as the facilitator for all four course versions. This would allow him/her to try to keep the four study groups close in terms of progress in course completion. Keep in mind that any learners taking the course for graduate credit could also be included in the face-to-face discussions.

• The same facilitator should facilitate all versions (for the four core subject areas) of course 2.
• The facilitator should try to schedule coursework for all study groups so that the sync point discussions will occur at the same time.
• Set a date and place for the face-to-face meeting and send out an announcement, via a "Message of the Day" or by system email.
• Conduct the meeting as you would for a single subject area. All learners, if they follow instructions in their Learning Guide, will come prepared to discuss the same sync point discussion topic. During the meeting you would definitely want to be sure to get ideas from all subject areas (science, social studies, mathematics, and language arts) to be represented. Although they are different areas, teachers can learn a lot from each other in this cross-curricular approach.
• As teachers express their thoughts related to their subject areas, ask teachers of other subject areas how the comments relate to their subject area.