New College-Career Charter School Features Class that Centers Student Agency

This fall I had the opportunity to sit down with John Pellman, Director of Curriculum and Instruction at Capital College and Career Academy (CCCA), a new charter school that opened in August 2023 in North Sacramento.  CCCA’s mission is to ensure that all students graduate having experience taking both dual enrollment courses and internships so they have a clear understanding of their college and career options in order to make more informed choices.  Within that, John teaches a class called Innovation, Design, and Implementation, which uses Makers Education as a means to center student agency to help them take an idea and bring it to fruition.  In doing so, students practice socio-emotional skills such as wellbeing, mindfulness, as well as critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and grit while working with a partner, researching, and putting their project together.  Rather than rely on standardized tests, in John’s class, students complete self-assessments on these various skills and participate in design challenges where they operate in real world situations.  Drawing upon a diverse student population, located in a historically disenfranchised area of Sacramento, CCCA’s goal is to help nudge education in the direction toward helping students access opportunities and situations that help them realize their potential, one student at a time.  Join our conversation as we talk about CCCA, education as a business, and Makers Education specifically in this episode of Uncommon Voices, Uncommon Visions.

John, working in partnership with the Sacramento County Office of Education is offering three more classes for local educators on using Maker Education in the classroom: February 20, March 19 and April 16, 2024.

Suggested Materials:

The Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children by Alison Gopnick

Stuck in the Shallow End by Jane Margolis