Common Essential Learnings ( CELs )
Return to Main
( click on each cell above for further description )
The Practical and Applied Arts offer many opportunities for incorporating the Common Essential Learnings ( CELs ) into instruction. The purpose is to help students understand the subject matter content under study and to prepare students for their future learning both within and outside the K-12 educational system. The decision to focus on one or more CELs within a lesson is guided by the needs and abilities of individual students and by the particluar demands within each unit of study presented in this program. Throughout a module or series of modules, it is the intention of the programers to incorporate, to some extent, the Common Essential Learnings.
Some topics may offer many opportunities to develop the understanding, values, skills and processes related to a number of the Common Essential Learnings. The development of a particular CEL, however, may be limited by the nature of the subject matter or topic under study. Suggestions for incorporating the Commom Essential Learnings into instruction are presented in this program based on the curriculum guidelines. These suggestions are not intended to be prescriptive but rather to serve as ideas for initiating further reflection and refinement by each course deliverer.
Incorporating the Common Essential Learnings into instruction has implications for the assessment of learning. For example, a module or part of a module that has focused on developing the CEL of Critical and Creative Thinking should also reflect this focus when assessing student learning. If students have been encouraged to think critically and creatively throughout a module then teachers, using this program, need to develop assessment strategies for the module that would require students to demonstrate their critical and creative thinking abilities. The Common Essential Learnings are integrated, accommodated and incorporated with this consideration in mind.
By listening carefully to students in the "pilot" of this program and attempting to understand their perspectives and viewpoints we have attempted to reflect their interests and concerns within the strategies of the development of this course and the CELs therein. We have found giving students opportunities to learn from each other's interpretations and understandings also validates each student's personal experience.
Teachers are encouraged to use the ideas suggested in this program for the student's development in one Common Essential Learning to strengthen student's development in other CELs. It is our hope that teachers will build from the suggestions and examples in this program and from their personal reflections in order to incorporate the Common Essential Learnings more fully into the teaching of Drafting 10.
Throughout the Drafting 10 program the following symbols may be used at time to refer to the Common Essential Learnings (CELs ).
COM Communications
CTT Critical and Creative Thinking
IL Independent Learning
NUM Numeracy
PSVS Personal and Social Values and Skills
TL Technological Literacy