The Rowland Foundation Fellowship will enable Adam to work closely with a core team of dedicated Rutland High School educators in researching, designing, and implementing a program to improve learning by offering students a cohesive, interdisciplinary curriculum through a more personalized conduit of student and adult relationships. As they pilot this program, they will design a template for a ‘Collaborative Community Network’–a network of core teams, each comprised of two to six teachers with a common group of students–and begin training teachers to work together creating theme-focused, interdisciplinary curricula and implementing best practices of instruction and assessment. Ideally, each community will cultivate its own identity, allowing students to gain a sense of ownership and belonging, and the teachers in each community will work together to provide support for their students and facilitate their success.
In the fall of 2010, Rutland High School piloted a freshman program in which an English, Math, and Science teacher provided an integrated and personalized approach to learning for a common group of sixty students. The program was built upon core standards that teachers reinforced in each of their content areas, and a collaborative approach to curriculum development, implementation, and intervention.
In the fall of 2011, building off of the success of the Freshman pilot, we expanded the program to include the entire Freshman class. Our Freshman Interdisciplinary Team—comprised of two English, two Social Studies, two Science, and four math teachers—offers students a cohesive, integrated curriculum in which they are given opportunities to demonstrate what they learn within real-life contexts through project-based units. As the program evolves, two sets of competencies—Global Studies and STEM—will be emphasized.
Plans for the future, coordinated by our 2012 Rowland Foundation Fellow Jen Kravitz, include building this integrated approach to curriculum vertically through senior year. Students will have the opportunity to concentrate in Global Studies or STEM and receive the respective designation upon graduating.
