Personal Development Program - Book II

As we ended the last book, our heroine had discovered that not all was lost. A new beginning was visible just beyond the horizon…

A little dramatic? Maybe. But, that is how I felt when the fund development team expressed their concern over moving forward based on a comment from a leadership member who felt the market was too saturated with soft skill curricula. The grant coordinator tried to make me feel better by indicating that every grant she has looked at in the last two years has required information on how soft skills will be addressed. Her grace gave me a moment to pull myself together as I remembered why my work was so important. The other curricula on the market all exist to help people UNDERSTAND soft skills. My work took this a step further to give learners a chance to develop the ability to DEMONSTRATE the skills. The good news is that my conviction won over the team and the saga over funding will continue - probably long after this practicum!

On the other side of this story, the subplot if you will, the internal staff of my organization really liked the curriculum. The director brought out great questions relative to overlap in the curriculum with other coursework and making sure the additional activities would fit into our tight classroom schedule. (GPS teaches the core four subjects plus electives in personal finance and manufacturing all in only two to three hours of class per day). She was also concerned about the cost of the curriculum, but the budget was already a piece I had managed and could address.

The rest of her questions resulted in my final piece of evidence for this practicum. The document at this link is the result of my curriculum review and time assessment. What isn’t plainly obvious from this document is that I had to ensure that students who enter our program as juniors in the fall, as juniors in the spring, as seniors in the fall could all manage the extra coursework. Magically, it all came together.

Next week I will clean up the contract language and curriculum plan. From there, I have to begin to author placeholders in our LMS for the PAIRIN content and rubrics. The weeks following will include updating course guides, planning teacher training, and beta testing the process with a small group of “test students” before the course changes go live in September.

The only folks involved in education who actually get a summer break: the students!