Conforming Positive Action Lessons to States' Academic Standards

项目概述/摘要：积极行动（PA）计划旨在预防药物滥用和暴力，并提高教学技能，学校领导/管理技能，学校组织以及学生行为和学业成绩。尽管有强有力的证据证明其有效性和良好的建立，但PA面临着成为许多教育工作者选择的项目的重大挑战。今天的教师面临着教授特定学术标准的压力——科学、语言艺术、社会研究、数学——这些都是他们核心课程的一部分。虽然PA课程教授学术标准，但并没有明确说明每节课的标准。随后，由于他们面临的需求，教师可能会犹豫是否使用一个课程本质上不是明确的学术课程。事实上，整个预防领域都面临着类似的困境。为了变得完全合法，预防项目需要与学业成绩挂钩。PA项目处于一个独特的位置，可以帮助弥合预防和学术之间的差距，并为预防项目和内容学习之间的伙伴关系带来合法性。第一阶段SBIR的具体目标是使七年级和八年级的PA课程内容符合加州、德克萨斯州、伊利诺伊州、夏威夷和犹他州的科学、语言艺术和社会研究核心课程标准（CCS）。这些特殊年级的PA课程需要最具教学合法性，它们所提出的挑战为第二阶段完整的K-12课程调整提供了极好的指导。这些标准将被纳入PA网站，允许教师使用密码访问/识别七年级和八年级的PA课程与他们所在州的学术标准是否一致（反之亦然）。这项拨款的计划任务包括：(1)积极行动公司（PAI）将为我们的标准顾问弗雷德里克·巴尔弗先生和Align To Achieve公司（A2A）提供158门七年级和八年级的PA课程，用于标准识别和编目；(2) A2A将七年级和八年级的课程主题与他们的国家标准数据库进行交叉参考；(3)使用国家标准数据库，PAI工作人员将7年级和8年级的每节课记录输出到PA网站；(4)教师将参与调查和焦点小组来评估网站和标准的一致性。SBIR第一阶段项目将弥合预防与学术之间的差距，并为预防项目与内容学习之间的伙伴关系带来合法性。项目简介：“不让一个孩子掉队”法案的出台，使学术标准成为教育工作者心中最重要的问题，有时会损害其他项目，如预防。除非我们通过将预防项目与内容学习联系起来来解决这个问题，否则预防项目将被置于学术项目的次要地位，这可能会导致药物滥用、停学、逃学、欺凌、威胁、打架和其他纪律问题的增加——这对我们国家的学校和年轻人来说是一个毁灭性的结果。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Project Summary/Abstract: The Positive Action (PA) program is designed for substance abuse and violence prevention, and improves teaching skills, school leadership/administration skills, school organization, and both student behavior and academic achievement. Despite having strong evidence of effectiveness and being well established, PA faces a major challenge to become the program of choice for many educators. Teachers today are under pressure to teach the specific academic standards-science, language arts, social studies, mathematics-that are part of their core curriculum. Although PA lessons teach academic standards, they are not clearly stated for each lesson. Subsequently, because of the demands they face, teachers may be hesitant to use a program whose lessons are not explicitly academic in nature. Indeed, the entire arena of prevention faces a similar dilemma. In order to become fully legitimate, prevention programs need to link to academic achievement. The PA program is in a unique position to help bridge the gap between prevention and academics and bring legitimacy to a partnership between prevention programs and content learning. The specific goal of this Phase I SBIR is to conform 7th and 8th grade PA lesson content to science, language arts, and social studies core curriculum standards (CCS) for California, Texas, Illinois, Hawaii and Utah. The PA lessons for these particular grades need the most pedagogical legitimization, and the challenges they present offer an excellent guide for complete K-12 curriculum alignment in Phase II. The standards will be incorporated into the PA website, allowing teachers with a password to access/identify how 7th and 8th grade PA lessons align with their state's academic standards (or vice-versa).The planned tasks for this grant include: (1) Positive Action, Inc. (PAI) will provide our Standards Consultant, Mr. Frederick Balfour and Align To Achieve, Inc. (A2A), with 158 7th and 8th grade PA lessons for standards identification and cataloging; (2) A2A will cross-reference 7th and 8th grade lesson topics with their database of state standards; (3) using the resulting database of state standards, PAI staff will output the lesson-by-lesson records for 7th and 8th grade for incorporation into the PA website; and (4) teachers will participate in surveys and focus groups to evaluate the website and standards alignment. This SBIR Phase I project will bridge the gap between prevention and academics and bring legitimacy to a partnership between prevention programs and content learning. Project Narrative: The advent of the "No Child Left Behind" Act has now brought academic standards to the forefront of educator's minds, sometimes to the detriment of other programs such as prevention. Unless we seek to remedy this issue by linking prevention programs to content learning, prevention programs will be relegated to second-tier status in favor of academic programs, potentially leading to increases in substance abuse, suspensions, truancy, bullying, threats, fights and other disciplinary problems-a devastating outcome for our nation's schools and youth.