ICI Releases Second Edition of Popular Transition Curriculum for American Indian Youth

ICI's Expanding the Circle project has just released the 2017 edition of Expanding the Circle: Respecting the Past - Preparing for the Future: A Transition Curriculum for American Indian Youth.  The new edition of this curriculum for grades 9-12 includes the culturally-relevant transition skills and project-based learning presented in the first edition, which has been in use across the U.S. since 2002, and adds to them. "The revised curriculum provides updated and expanded information to prepare students for transition to postsecondary education and employment, as well as new activities about leadership, budgeting, planning, and more. We've also increased the emphasis on social-emotional learning, and added related tools to measure and support that learning," says Jean Echternacht, who co-authored the second edition with Jana Hallas.

The content of the curriculum is based on work with thousands of American Indian high school and tribal college students, paraprofessionals, teachers, and administrators. Curriculum activities, which were created with students' varying strengths and interests in mind, include family and community members in the transition process. The curriculum package includes the instructional manual for use by educators and others who work with this age group, as well as one Nigaan-Ozhiitaa System (NOS), which is a personal portfolio filing system designed to help students plan their future after high school in an organized and structured way. The NOS, whose name is derived from Ojibwe words that mean "prepare for the future," features artwork by American Indian artists on each of the 12 file dividers, and sets can be purchased for multiple students. To learn more about the research and principles behind the curriculum visit the Expanding the Circle website.