Both teachers said Curriculum Pathways is a great way to help students pace themselves, because each student can choose how many times to review an activity and decide when to move on.
This kind of self-guided learning is ideal for preparing students for a digital future in a digital workforce, Higgins said.
“Students can pace themselves when researching, understanding, and learning—I think in the future they may not have a boss telling them exactly what they need to do,” Higgins said. “Inquiries teach students to research and evaluate their own research, rather than just having someone tell them what they need to know.”
Higgins and Elliott both said they have one-to-one laptop programs at their schools. But Higgins said that before she had the “luxury of one-to-one,” she used Curriculum Pathways in a variety of other ways: with a single computer and a projector; in a computer lab; or with a few computers set up as a station as students rotated activities.
Elliott praised SAS Curriculum Pathways as “as good as or better than” tools the school system has paid money to use.
“So what’s the catch?” asked Curriculum Pathways Director Bruce Friend with a laugh, acknowledging that many people ask how such an extensive resource can be free. “To answer that question is to know who SAS is as a company.”
Friend said “the short answer to a long history” is that SAS considers it a “corporate responsibility” to help teachers by “helping make learning fun, making kids interested in learning, and keeping kids in school.”
He noted that many of the educational tools available online are static PDFs, adding: “We need to transition into being more interactive, more engaging—and I think that’s where SAS is really successful.”
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