Bethpage Union Free School District in New York is a high-performing district by almost any current accountability measure. Yet administrators and teachers worried that they were not doing enough to prepare their students as critical thinkers for the 21st century. Inspired by the curriculum framework of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the…

For six weeks, 25 Connecticut seventh graders interviewed senior citizens from a nearby assisted-independent-living facility. By celebrating their senior partners' life experiences, students formulated a better understanding of major events in 20th century American history. During the fifth and sixth weeks, students shared something from their own…

Describes the Jefferson County Primary Integrated Curriculum program. Developed as an interdisciplinary curriculum, the program allows primary students to work holistically. The article includes Learning Units. (MD)

Since 1990, when a Fort Meyers (Florida) school became the nation's first core-knowledge site, over 50 other schools have taken pioneering steps to teach this curriculum. Core-knowledge guidelines include school-community understanding, acceptance, and involvement; alignment of curriculum with local and state guidelines; and collaboration and…

Although arts programs have been cut from many school budgets, an innovative program in Pasadena, California, is keeping art and artists in classrooms. Project FLARE (Fun with Language, Arts, and Reading) pairs classroom teachers with local artists, who together develop an integrated language and visual arts curriculum. Students also take field…

Eugene (Oregon) Public Schools want to replace the traditional content-driven curriculum with a general concepts-based curriculum stressing the relationships among ideas. To help district educators understand the new model, a coin metaphor describing the two interlocking areas of curriculum (learning core conceptual knowledge and strategic…

In a recent project involving two midwestern high schools, vocational and academic teachers participated in a project promoting interaction and mutual reinforcement. Innovative matches were found in agriculture and biology exchange classes, a technology outreach program, a study of world protein distribution, and a furniture marketing project. The…

Inspired by study of British teacher centres, an active learning center was developed based on the belief that emphasis on needs of individual teachers and voluntary teacher involvement in designing programs would lead to progress and classroom changes by providing practical group studies in a nonevaluative supportive atmosphere. (JD)

A group of 30 Nevada teachers participated in a summer institute to explore reservoirs and tributaries of the Truckee River. These river studies increased teachers' awareness of water as the life source supporting numerous living creatures and social, cultural, and political issues. Using their newfound cultural and ecological perspectives to…

Describes one district's struggle to implement Maine's Common Core of Learning, model of education that blurred subject area lines and moved toward integrated framework for curriculum and instruction. Common Core presented a set of outcomes divided into four interdisciplinary categories: human record, reasoning and problem solving, communication,…

Students and teachers in the Virtual Classroom Program at an Ottawa, Ontario, high school connect in real time with peers and experts from around the world. Students collaboratively select interdisciplinary topics, conduct research using online databases and experts, and create oral and multimedia presentations. (MLH)

Both the Civic Achievement Award Program (CAAP) established by Congress in 1987 and CAAP in Action are now funded entirely by Burger King Corporation. The two programs, involving about 1 million students yearly, are interdisciplinary, link academic learning and research activities with civic participation, and foster closer school-community…

During the past three years, staff at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy have developed a partial reconstruction of Whitehead's "one subject matter," a course reconnecting biology, chemistry, earth and space sciences, and physics into an integrated science program. Staff successfully overcame dilemmas regarding thematic…

In the Discover Lab, a science education center at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, students learn to investigate, critique, and test big scientific questions and devise their own answers. Students are guided through cyclical processes of inquiry, logic and reasoning, testing and experimentation, and communication. (MLH)

Liberty High School is a one-year transitional school in New York City dedicated to helping immigrant students feel welcome, adjust to their new environment, learn to read and write in English, and become self-assured. Led by a "hands-on" principal, the school specializes in life skills and free clinic referrals. (MLH)