A new course has been created this year entitled, “Communicating School Redesign through the Youth-Adult Partnership Lens” (see attached syllabus below). Creating a common language to assure that students can take a meaningful role in both learning and school transformation efforts is the goal of this course. Our capacity as change agents is compromised if we cannot effectively explain why and how youth-adult partnership lies at the heart of school redesign, and if the lack of a common language for desired changes remains a barrier for key stakeholders.
Teachers-student teams from a number of YATST schools will undertake this year long action research course, to 1) research the youth perspective on proposed transformative practices (i.e. personalized learning plans, flexible pathways, proficiency-based graduation requirements, performance-based assessment), and 2) design materials and methods to share these practices with students, teachers and the community at large. They will also be creating a video and a traveling display that captures the fundamental rightness of youth-adult partnership – the paradigm shift which grounds all our work. Teachers engaged in this course will receive graduate credit from St. Michael’s College, while students will take it as a dual enrollment course, receiving both high school and Burlington College credit. We will walk the talk of youth-adult partnership in the very design of our efforts. The course curriculum will be documented for potential replication.
We look forward to sharing the tools we develop!
Link to Curriculum Syllabus
For more information: