When introducing new resources with faculty and staff, a question often heard is "Where do we begin?" This CTE Technical Bulletin will assist participants in locating sample Gold Seal Lessons and reviewing their development on the CTE TAC Website. Included in this bulletin is a WebQuest Tutorial on connecting with the Gold Seal Lessons on the CTE TAC Website and a GSL Activity Sheet to help clarify what makes a Gold Seal Lesson and how it reflects on student learning. This bulletin was dev...Read more

Gold Seal Lessons are tasks or activities that are strategically designed to teach to specific academic standards/performance indicators/objectives/benchmarks. It is these standards that are assessed by high-stakes state and national tests, which are then used to evaluate individual student, school and district educational effectiveness.
Each Gold Seal Lesson is centered about a highly motivating theme, activity or project. The lessons are almost always multidisciplinary and deal with real-w...Read more

As we move forward with the Common Core State Standards being implemented in our schools, the Next Generation Assessments (NGAs) are not far behind. These NGAs will be taking the place of state-wide assessments, in New York it is the English language arts and mathematics Regents Assessments. Included in this bulletin is a NGA Webquest Tutorial on connecting to the NGAs. Also you will find an Activities Sheet to help clarify what parts make up the NGA. This bulletin was developed with mate...Read more

NYS CTE Next Navigator is built with a database of more than 600 Next Generation Assessments (NGAs) aligned to the Common Core State Standards, NYS English language arts and NYS mathematics standards and performance indicators. Additional sample NGAs will continue to be added to the database as they are completed. One of the best ways to fully understand what a NGA is and to use it is to create a NGA yourself. The task of developing a new assessment can be daunting for new and veteran teac...Read more

When discussing the transition to the Common Core State Standards with member schools, a question often heard is “Where do we begin?” Included in this bulletin is a sample planning and transition guide developed by our partners at the International Center for Leadership in Education. The guide and strategies included below are currently being implemented across the country to prepare schools and districts to be ready for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by 2014.

The International Center for Leadership in Education believes that a curriculum needs to prepare students for the world beyond high school, not just for the next level of education. To accomplish this objective, the curriculum must reflect what the community as a whole – administrators, teachers, parents, the business community, and other stakeholders – believes students should know and be able to do when they graduate from high school.

In 1998, the International Center for Leadership...Read more

Over the past three years, Van Meter High School in Iowa has worked to develop an adapted version of the International Center’s Rigor/Relevance FrameworkTM as its personalized method of school reform.

“The model has become an integral part of the culture at Van Meter,” says Principal John C. Carver. “Teachers challenge students with increased rigor, are benefited from real-world application of lessons developed as a result of the staff’s analysis of the model, and thanks to an ...Read more

One easy method of showing a video to students is from a Web browser or media player. Another more seamless option is through a PowerPoint presentation, as you describe a particular concept or idea.

The most important thing to remember is to save the PowerPoint file and movie file in the same folder. When you move one of the files, be sure to take both of them so that the video is linked appropriately.

Videos can be powerful teaching and learning tools, and educators have easy access, with millions of videos available online (see Bulletin #114 for a teaching strategy). Still, not everyone is familiar with how to download or integrate the videos for use in the classroom.

There are at least 23 downloadable software tools available on the Web to convert typical .flv video files found on YouTube and TeacherTube into files that you can download onto your computer and integrate into a PowerPo...Read more

Business and education leaders have tended to look at each other with suspicion across a chasm of seemingly different leadership styles, purposes, regulations, etc. However, there are more similarities than differences between business and education and, without question, we need each other. What would business be without the highly educated employees, and what would public education be without the advocacy of business? It is necessary to develop better ways and means for these two forces in ...Read more