eLearning Summit 2014: Minnesota Partnership for Collaborative Curriculum

With the cost of textbooks and classroom resources soaring, and school budgets unable to keep pace, it’s no surprise that school districts are looking for opportunities to build course content in-house. What is surprising is the scale of a new initiative in Minnesota responding to this trend. A growing collaborative called the MN Partnership for Collaborative Curriculum aims to modify existing curriculum and build new curriculum aligned to Minnesota standards and to share that curriculum with school districts statewide. 151 Minnesota school districts have committed to being a part of the collaborative, forming a pool of teacher curriculum writers and peer evaluators. The goal is to create 40 courses covering social studies, science, math, and English language arts in grades 3-12. Twenty of those courses are scheduled for completion this September. Jessica Wiley of the MN Partnership for Collaborative Curriculum presented the project at the eLearning Summit. The audience was a mix of current partners, interested teachers and administrators, and curious librarians. As the curriculum is “some assembly required,” participants were encouraged to think about how it might benefit them, and how they might contribute. If you’d like more information on the Partnership, visit http://mncollaborativecurriculum.org/.