LeLycia Henderson Exemplar 4 Exemplar 4: Core Classroom Curriculum Project 9th Grade School XYZ Curriculum 624: Learning,

Achievement and Instruction for School Counselors, Fall 2013 Standards Addressed: 20, 21, 22, 27 & 29 Introduction Research indicates that 9th grade is a pivotal year in building a foundation of skills necessary for high school graduation as well as college and postsecondary entrance (McCallumore & Sparapani, 2010). During the 9th grade year, students are encountering a new level of educational rigor while simultaneously juggling new social environments that can trigger new emotions (U.S. Department of Education, 2012). As school counselors, it is imperative that we guide ninth grade students through this transitional period. During Fall 2013, I co-developed a 6 week, 9th grade curriculum to assist freshman in developing the attitude, knowledge and skills necessary for academic and social growth. Some of the topics covered within the curriculum include college and career exploration, 4 year planning, goal setting, teamwork characteristics, as well as mind and body wellness. I selected this particular project because it contributed to my growth in a variety of areas as a school counseling intern. Through my experience co-developing this curriculum, I collaborated with the school counseling department and took the lead in gathering resources for the curriculum development. Furthermore, I gained a great deal of knowledge on career development resources as well as personal and social growth activities.

Standard 20: Career Development One of the main ASCA Model student standards incorporated into the curriculum was C: A1.1 Develop skills to locate, evaluate and interpret career information. During my development of this project, I completed research on a variety of career development programs in order to gather resources for the college and career portion of the curriculum. Within the presentation, I incorporated information on user friendly career surfing websites and a step by step guide of how to navigate through the database. For example, the website whodouwant2b.com was highlighted within the presentation. Students were shown screen shots from the website of how to complete career searches. I also became aware of a variety of aptitude tests available for students of all ages during the researching phase of the curriculum development. After much collaboration with

LeLycia Henderson Exemplar 4 fellow school counselors, we decided on incorporating a brief career aptitude test developed by DeVry University because it was concise and provided basic information about possible career paths without requiring additional steps to reach the career information. We wanted to make sure that the aptitude test was not long enough to lose the engagement of the students yet in depth enough to provide valuable information about possible career interests. The selected DeVry University aptitude test met these requirements.

Standard 21: Personal and Social Development Personal and social skills were main focal points within the 9th grade curriculum. For example, one of the lessons was on character development and school rules. Within this presentation there was a lot of emphasis on respecting peers, school staff, and campus facilities. Various team player characteristics were presented and discussed to students during the presentation such as cooperation, respect, self-control, compassion, etc. During the last activity of the presentation, students were asked to collaboratively decorate a poster board that represents one of the team player characteristics. Decision making and goal setting was addressed during the goal setting presentation. Students learned about differences between short-term and long-term goals as well as what the characteristics of a S.M.A.R.T. goal is. With this knowledge, students constructed a S.M.A.R.T. goal for themselves based academic aspirations.

Standard 22: Leadership During this project, I was very involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the 9th grade curriculum. For example, my fieldwork partner and I developed each presentation based on school counseling department recommendations. Since my fieldwork partner and I were developing this curriculum for the use of the entire school counseling department to present to all 9th grade students, we made a box for each counselor that included all materials needed to present the lessons. In addition, we provided a document of step by step directions for what to emphasize within each slide of the presentation. I also participated in evaluating the curriculum through my data collection and analysis of 9th grade student achievement. I analyzed the GPAs of 9th grade students prior to the

LeLycia Henderson Exemplar 4 core curriculum and compared it to 9th grade GPAs after the presentations. Based on this analysis, it was clear that 9th graders benefitted from the presentations as a whole. . In addition, I incorporating the data results into a flashlight presentation that will be used to advocate for the school counseling department at my site. This presentation will be shown to the Administration Department at my school site and possibly presented during a district meeting.

Standard 27: Collaboration, Coordination & Team Building While constructing the curriculum, I effectively collaborated with school counseling staff members, teachers and administration. After co-developing each presentation draft, my site partner and I presented it to the school counseling department and received input on ways to improve the lesson. During these collaborative meetings, we asked for any suggestions for additional content needed within the presentation as well as insight on how to most effectively engage the students through icebreaker activities. After every school counseling staff member was satisfied with the presentation content, we moved on to develop the next lesson. I utilized a variety of collaboration techniques while designing the 9th grade curriculum. For example, I used many interpersonal communication skills such as active listening, paraphrasing and clarifying to developed positive relationships with the entire staff so everyone felt comfortable contributing to the project. Standard 29: Prevention Education & Training This curriculum was developed as a preventative measure for helping to decrease possible barriers to 9th grade student achievement. Since research suggests that 9th grade year is a difficult transitional period for students because they are leaning a new school system, the curriculum was developed to increase student knowledge of the school expectations. For example, the curriculum introduced students to school rules and ways that team work characteristics such as cooperation, respect and responsibility can be helpful in their academic and social success. The completion of this core curriculum demonstrated my ability to plan and organize a school counseling program component that supports academic achievement. This was shown through my collaboration with various school staff members in developing the curriculum and deciding what topics would be beneficial to cover. In addition, the topics

LeLycia Henderson Exemplar 4 covered all involved promotion of high academic achievement. For example, there were lessons on college and career readiness, goal setting, 4 year planning, study skills, etc. All of these topics were selected in order to eliminate barriers to learning achievement by helping students to determine what strategies are effective in taking notes and studying as well as how using these strategies contribute to the achievement of their goals.

Conclusion As a future school counselor, it is imperative that I have the ability to support students through pivotal transitional periods throughout their educational journey. Through my participation in this project, I have gained knowledge on how to assist 9th graders in their transition into high school. I am now aware of ways that I can introduce students to career development resources that can help guide them to a career they can be passionate about in the future. Within the school system, school counselors are crucial to school wide collaborative efforts for helping students overcome barriers. Therefore, I am grateful for the experience I have gained in collaborating with fellow school counselors and being a part of curriculum implementation from the development to evaluation. Although I was only able to participate in the implementation of two out of the six curriculum lessons because of scheduling conflicts, I contributed to the entire development and evaluation of the curriculum. Often times, academic achievement is a major focal point of every interaction that school counselors have with students at the secondary level. However, social development is an area that school counselors should discuss with students as well. This experience showed me ways in which I can provide social and personal developmental resources to students at the high school level. For instance, being able to introduce 9th grade students to school rules and productive interpersonal skills was a valuable element within this curriculum. If given the opportunity to complete this project again, I would have distributed the pre-survey prior to the final development of the curriculum so that I could focus more on areas of need reflected in the survey results.