Sunday, November 01, 2009

SF Conference Focuses on Curriculum, UC Admissions

Over 120 educators attended ICG’s Re-Imagining High School conference at the Urban School of San Francisco on Saturday, October 24.  Most of the program featured discussion of new directions in advanced curriculum for students in grades 11 and 12. Approximately half of the conference was devoted to sessions focused on the “re-imagining” of teaching and learning in core academic disciplines.

Over 120 educators attended ICG’s Re-Imagining High School conference at the Urban School of San Francisco on Saturday, October 24.  Most of the program featured discussion of new directions in advanced curriculum for students in grades 11 and 12. Approximately half of the conference was devoted to sessions focused on the “re-imagining” of teaching and learning in core academic disciplines. Additional sessions included “Real World as Classroom” and “How Schools Foster Innovative Teaching.”  Ray Pecheone of Stanford’s School Redesign Network teamed up with Bob Lenz, CEO of Envision Schools, to describe “The Next Generation of Assessment for High School Graduation and College Admission.”  The lone plenary session on the program was “Admissions at the University of California: Process and Outlook,” presented by Don Daves-Rougeaux and Miya Hayes of the University of California Office of the President and the University of California at Berkeley, respectively.  Don and Miya described the process by which UC’s small staff reviews thousands of courses each year. Don described his own experience, as a history teacher at Dunn School, of submitting a course to UC that was subsequently denied approval for the A-G subject requirements. He said that many denials occur because of the format of the submission rather than a problem inherent in the course. Don and Miya also stated UC’s intent to value home-grown honors courses in an equal footing with those from programs such as AP.  As expected, discussion was lively. To see a copy of the conference program or participate in follow-up discussions, go to our conference forums.