Expanded Curriculum Enrichment Program
Since 2010, generous grants from The Lerner Foundation, the Maine Humanities Council and Camden National Bank have provided the funding to develop study guides based on the Camden Conference topic to be used by teachers in high school settings. Known as the “Curriculum Enrichment Program” or CEP, it created a structure and orientation for teachers to develop curriculum to study international relations topics.
Russia Resurgent is the focus of the 2015 Camden Conference, which guides the content of the CEP this year. An Expanded Curriculum Enrichment Program (XCEP) pilot, funded by the Lerner Foundation, has been developed to provide additional resources to teachers and their students. The purpose of the XCEP pilot is to learn how the Camden Conference can become a vital support system for high school teachers as they promote school learning around global issues, challenges, and opportunities.
In September 2014, the XCEP pilot began with a workshop on the historical features and existing dynamics of Russia on the global stage, along with a wide range of Camden Conference resources to include in their course. The second pilot feature is for teachers to design and offer a credit course on Russia that will be suite conditions in their local high school. The third feature engages at least four students from the course, plus the teacher, in the complete Camden Conference experience in February 2015. Following the conference, video recordings (CamCasts) of speaker presentations that include the question and answer session, can be shown in local classrooms to support continued student learning, the fourth feature. In May, students will participate in one of three student contests to demonstrate what they have learned about Russia, the fifth feature: student research project, student essay contest, and video contest (Meridian Stories). The sixth pilot feature will be an evaluation of the CEP Pilot Project in May, to identify its effects on teachers and their students, and to reshape the teacher support system for the following year.