North Cook News

Kelly Lynn, assistant superintendent for Learning and Teaching at Roselle Schools, recently voiced a request for a six-year implementation timeline for new middle school social studies curriculum in the district.

"We will continue to meet each trimester during implementation to see how it's going, what more professional development to what our teachers need and how our students are performing based off of their assessments," she said in a May Board of Education meeting. "And then continue to do that the next year as well, just to continue to check the status of everything and then the sustainability. We are asking for a six year implementation. It saves us a lot of money down the road and it really gives us a chance to have a little bit of time to really do it and do it well and then make sure that we're using it with fidelity and everything to see that was working with students without having to try to review a curriculum cycle again."

The middle school social studies curriculum was evaluated by Jonathon Logli, Dan Nowak, Assistant Superintendent Joel Simburger and instructional coach Lisa Steiner. Changes were made to better serve the teachers and students.

In order to engage students in the classroom, the committee presented their ideas to the board and got approval to purchase the History Alive curriculum resource from TCI (Teacher Curriculum Institute). The curriculum combines print and online resources and supports English language learners. It also offers primary sources, hands-on activities and develops critical-thinking skills.

To help students dig deeper into the lessons, the course also includes a number of lessons based on individual and personal experiences. Children can take on historical roles such as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson to recreate the American Revolutionary War debate in order to better understand all the arguments and reasons involved. The goal is to help students gain a deeper understanding of historical topics.