About The Project
Overview
The Relevance Project is a collaborative effort led by Imperial Valley Regional Occupational Program (IVROP) and supported by all high school districts in the Imperial Valley, the Imperial County Office of Education, and the P-16 Council. It also has the support of major business/industry interests, as evidenced by our sponsors section.
The Relevance Project proposes to draw on real-world business/industry knowledge to strengthen the application of California content standards in 7th through 12th grade subject areas (Mathematics, Science, History, English). The project involves the development of this website (a Web 2.0/wiki style site) which will facilitate a process for obtaining relevant industry expertise as it relates to the application (real-world examples) of California Content standards for education. Developing a database of examples that demonstrate the real-world application of content standards, this project will further facilitate the use of such information by developing lesson plans (and accompanying assessments) that suggest the best teaching strategies for these standards thus ensuring the connection of what is being learned to the world of work/career pathways.
The educational challenge addressed:
The educational challenge being addressed is, as the website title suggests, making a connection between what is being taught/learned in the classroom to the real-world of business/industry; helping make the application of the standards relevant to our students is the goal. Every educator, and business person, is well aware of this challenge, and of how difficult it usually is. "Where am I ever going to use this?" or "Why do I need to learn this?" are questions that every instructor has heard and, while there are sometimes answers provided, "Because there is a test on it next Friday" is not an acceptable one. In the world that we live in, where information sharing is possible and even popular at this point, there is no reason for not having a whole lot of examples out there.
Posting a standard and telling a student that we are learning it because the state of California, or any other state, says it is important is not enough. The standard is important but it is our job as educators to help our students understand its relevance in the real-world; developing lesson plans and supporting materials that show the application of standards in the real-world of business/industry will go a long way toward meeting this challenge.
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