When Cohort 6, 7, and 8 schools begin the 2015-16 school- year, AP US History and AP US Government and Politics teachers and students will find that they will have program support, including materials and resources, similar to what A+ College Ready currently provides for AP math, science, and English courses.
A+ College Ready is committed to the Alabama State Department of Education’s 2020 Plan by developing social studies teacher professional development and support that will address the Plan’s major objectives including “developing a sense of personal and civic responsibility in every student.” This Initiative has 4 major goals:
- Design and scale a foundational skills- based teacher training program for grades 6-12 that will utilize researched- based “best teaching practices” resulting in high expectations, rigor, and academic success in the social studies classroom. The training will center on content acquisition, application, and exposition strategies that can be integrated into any social studies curriculum. A key focus of the training will be reinforcing the required goals of civic literacy and participation found in the Alabama Social Studies Course of Study (COS) and College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS)
- Increase participation and achievement in Advanced Placement United States History and Government courses by replicating the A+ College Ready program of success in math, science, and English.
- Vertically align social studies teacher training with ACT Aspire to enable a standards-based system of assessments to monitor progress towards college and career readiness from grades 6 through high school and the ACT College Readiness Benchmarks.
- Partner with existing public and private partners to promote citizenship literacy and participation, as well as coordination, coherence, and integration of resources and materials currently available in the state of Alabama.
A+ College Ready, along with the support of the Alabama State Department of Education, has created two social studies development and implementation committees, consisting of highly qualified and recommended Alabama social studies teachers from grades 6 through 12. The first committee of 8 middle and high school teachers is developing, writing, and piloting a two-year social studies foundational skills- based teacher training program, consisting of 4 days of training per year. Year 1 of training will begin in the summer of 2016 at TBD regional locations. The second committee consists of 4 AP US History and 3 AP US Government teachers who will serve as Lead Teachers in supporting the Advanced Placement United States History and Government courses replicating the A+ College Ready program of success in math, science, and English.
In social studies classes students learn skills ranging from reading a map to framing an argument, how to assess the validity of evidence, evaluate conflicting points of view and apply facts to making decisions and articulating compelling arguments. Just as preparing all students for the 21st century workplace is critical to our economic competitiveness, equipping all young people to be productive citizens in a complex, interdependent, digital world is crucial to the sustainability of our democracy.
