Designing Your Technical Assistance Program

The following is an example of a comprehensive technical assistance effort on the part of a school/district as they redesign their school. What follows would be considered an exemplary effort and is not required to be successful with the instruction of the Career Choices curriculum. But if Career Choices is part of a school wide redesign effort, this type of support can be very valuable.

A Case Study
of a comprehensive plan for High School Redesign

XYZ high school has an implementation grant that requires ongoing professional development. This mandate is built into to most large grants today because study show that the effort required to “change” the way school operate, required ongoing support.

The school has decided to adopt the Career Choices curriculum for all ninth graders and has chosen a year-long technical assistance contract with a independent certified trainer to help them launch their 9th grade academy for their Smaller Learning Community.

Academic Innovation’s recommendation could include the following:

Total number of onsite in-service days devoted to Career Choices: 6

A two day in-service for the major stake holders of the 9th grade academy to help their team develop their strategies and plans for the academy and their Career Choices course work. This in-service could include district level administrators, principal, department heads, teachers, parents, funders and advisory committee members.

First day of in-service:

Morning:

1. Freshman Transition module: what is it and why is it necessary
2. Module: An Overview of Smaller Learning Communities structural options and the Freshman Transition component
3. Module 6: The Quick tour of Career Choices in 30 minutes

Afternoon:

1. Module : Overview of the variety of ways Career Choices can be structured
2. Module: Developing a school-wide initiative – using the www.My10yearplan.com to
   implement a school wide initiative. For details of what this entails see the NASSP article.

Second day: Consultant acting as facilitator:
Group brainstorming, planning and reporting out of plans
The day finishes with the group on board with a plan that includes quantitative goals and
objectives for their efforts.

The next two day visit

Once the instructors have been assigned to the Career Choices course, the consultant will return to conduct a 2-day implementation workshop, to orient the classroom teachers to the resources and strategies for teaching Career Choices. The following is an example of the modules that could be chosen to provide active hands on learning so the teachers can experience the curriculum.

Day one:

Morning: Module 5 A: Experiencing the Career Choices curriculum in depth. Using Chapter 2 to present strategies for creating the motivated learner. Or Module 5 B: Integrating English/Language arts and literacy strategies into the Career Choices classroom using Possibilities and guided writing assignments.
Afternoon : Module 3B – Promoting financial literacy and math skills, using the Career Choices curriculum. The budget exercise, along with strategies for integrating Lifestyle Math.

Because this school has chosen to use the optional internet enhancements, their morning
session will be in the computer lab.
Day two:

Morning: Module 3B (in the computer lab) - Integrating technology into the Career Choices classroom, a computer lab-based workshop, to learn how to integrate www.careerchoices.com, www.lifestylemath.com and www.my10yearplan.com in their Career Choices classroom.
Afternoon: Working on the school’s customized lesson plan, using an EXCEL model provided by Academic Innovations, the team creates their day-by-day lesson plans to meet that particular schools goals and objectives.

2 Follow-up onsite/in-service days:

During the school year the Technical Assistance Consultant (Career Choices certified trainer) will return to campus for two additional days, once in the Fall and once in the Spring, to meet with, support and evaluate the progress of the teachers and the course.

Built into a technical assistance contract could be such services as:

• A presentation to the PTA during the Fall visit
• A one hour consultation by phone with the principal monthly for six months.
• Up to 20 hours of phone consultation with individuals or teams of teachers during the school year.
• A customized newsletter each month to the stakeholders.
• Helping the school get the attention of the media, to report their efforts and successes.
• Strategies to get buy-in from all stakeholders to the school-wide initiative.

Academic Innovations’ educational consultants will continue to also maintain contact with the school during the term of a Technical Assistance contract and provide the professional development resources of our company as well.

For an example of a district that has a technical assistance contract, click here.