Standards and Practice

1
Standards and Practice

• Dr. Tony Cook
• National 4-H SET Leadership Team
• Project Leader for eXtension Youth SET for Life
  Community of Practice
• Extension Specialist, 4-H Youth Development
• Auburn University, Alabama

2
Educational Standards

• What are educational standards?
• In general, educational standards are guidelines,
  best practices,
• outcomes, competencies, benchmarks, expectations,
  or indicators
• of some measure of learning success that an
  organization may wish
• to establish for itself, its member
  practitioners, and learners
• What do standards do?
• Provides for an organized and logical means of
• identifying and establishing learning
  objectives
• Provides guidance and direction for practitioners
  
• in the development of learning content
• Indicates successful learning for the learner

3
Educational Standards

• Is having standards a good idea?
• Strengthens our organization with consistency and
  improves credibility with other organizations
  such as NSF, NASA, Dept. of Ed., foundations,
  etc.
• Increases the value of our programs to other
  education providers when we align with formal
  standards
• Provides for a means of assuring quality across
  the 4-H community from the county to state and
  national levels
• Standards keep us grounded in content integrity
  and give us the opportunity to publicly state
  that we are intentional about adhering to
  researched-based content.

4
Practice

• How do standards relate to practice?
• As practitioners in youth development we strive
  to create learning environments for youth to
  affect a gain or improvement in knowledge,
  skills, and competencies or abilities.
• Standards keep practice honest, valid, reliable
• Provides for a common language among developers
• Progress indicator for the learner
• While learning can be made fun, standards help
  assure
• that learning occurs

5
Experiences

• 4-H Missions in Space (inspiration, motivation)
• 4-H Aerospace Curriculum
• NASA Education (standards based materials)
• eXtension Youth SET for Life Community of
  Practice
• BioPlex 2029 (NSF project, standards based)
• Rocketry