Our work takes many forms. Some know us best for our conference keynotes and presentations, our customized multi-day institutes and workshops. Participants, we estimate, exceed 75,000 globally. Recent topics have included:
- Meaningful Conversations
- Key Strategies that Activate Service Learning
- Developing a Culture of Service
- Transforming Community Service into Service Learning
- Approaches to Curriculum Design
- A Pause for Reflection that Matters
- Youth Leadership through a Justice and Equity Lens
- The Danger of a Single Narrative: A Lens for Authentic Connections
- Practicing Social Justice
- Strategies for Success through Everyday Teaching
- From Personal to Community Welllbeing
- In Youth We Trust: Growing Students as Community Leaders
- Documentar: A Time Capsule of Now
- How to Run a Dynamic Advisory Program
Others know us for our consulting collaborations. Our partners include individual schools and school districts, state departments of education, international schools, universities, and organizations. For a full discussion, see How We Consult.
Finally, many know us as curriculum developers, bringing learning to life through research-based, innovative approaches that engage students in 21st century skills: literacy and science competencies, social and emotional growth, service learning and positive civic dispositions. Our approach is inherently interdisciplinary—even when literacy or science is the core context—and lends itself to academic classes during school, an advisory, or an after school setting.
What sets our curriculum apart?
Rather than lesson plans, our building blocks are “learning experiences” in which teachers serve as facilitators, inviting students to explore their own experiences in relation to the prompts, activities, and questions posed. Teachers appreciate the clear and thorough articulation of each learning experience presented. Students welcome the specificity of the skills they develop through varied dynamic approaches that include discussion, role play, action research, creative inquiry, artistic expression, and physical movement. Students, we have learned, transfer ideas and abilities from class to class from summarizing, active listening, and asking questions to time management and note-taking.
Our curriculum also integrate change-theory strategies for strengthening school climate, nurturing a respectful school environment that supports all students. Students gain leadership skills and apply their ideas through purposeful action that benefits students, faculty, the school and community alike.
Once distinct, CBK Associates increasingly blends these programs as we push for connected learning in the fullest sense. We give them a good shake each year, aiming to make them simpler, yet engaging, for teachers and students alike.
We have also put new muscle into a longstanding priority: building diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice into all of our learning experiences for students. We see these values as mindsets, not units of study.
Below is the curriculum portfolio from which we draw—mixing, matching, and adapting as needed. No two “implementations” are alike.
We recently created a 12-lesson social-emotional learning curriculum that focuses on the the recovery and rebuilding required for students (and faculty) as schools resume in these pandemic times. Called Rebuilding, Together, please download below.
Advisory: A Dynamic Approach for High Schools
Commissioned in 2017 by The International School of Kuala Lumpur, as part of an effort to position the school’s daily advisory program as a locus for social and emotional learning, this program includes 24 learning experiences for each grade level 9-11 built around four themes: Identity, Learning to Learn, Relationships, and Well-Being.
The grade-level learning experiences introduce students to topics that are deep and wide: from “Where Do I Belong?” to “Exploring Change,” from “A Growth Mindset” to “The Teenage Brain,” from “Single Stories and Stereotypes” to “Nourishing Friendships,” from “Digital Diets” to “Mindfulness.” For grade 12, a Senior Seminar model has been designed to meet the specific needs of students in this seminal year.
While initially designed for an intensive advisory program, schools in 19 schools in 13 countries have adapted the high school program to their own circumstances.
Middle School and Primary: Advisory and Social Emotional Dynamics
As more schools integrate advisory into the middle school years, there is a need for well-planned, adaptable resources that provide a reliable framework. For grades 6-8, the Advisory: A Dynamic Approach materials follow a design of Building Foundations, Strengthening Relationships, and Meeting Challenges based on the Strategies for Success program noted below. Additional modules are included on Service Learning/Growing Community and Community News to keep engaged conversations about key local and global issues. Currently 24 schools have the middle school program.
The Social and Emotional Dynamics curriculum for K-5 provide a clear scaffolded program to bring essential topics into the classroom in an age-appropriate, developmental manner. Children’s books are referenced as a way to supplement concepts from “Exploring Feelings” to develop emotional literacy, to “Active Listening” with your whole body, to “The ABCs of Being a Good Friend.” A total of 57 learning experiences make up this extensive and adaptable resource.
Strategies for Success: A Learning Curriculum that Serves
Developed in 2006, this program has two versions. The middle/high school version includes 60 learning experiences divided into themes: Building Foundations, Strengthening Relationships, Meeting Challenges, and Growing Community. The elementary version is adapted for children in grades K-5.
Between 2006 and 2009, 45,000 students in the Los Angeles Unified School District participated in the middle/high school program, showing significant results in two research studies. Students in Florida, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Singapore have participated too.
CBK Associates has created multiple adaptations of the curriculum in collaboration with schools and organizations. For The Brooklyn Friends School (NYC), for example, a version created for tenth graders prepared them for the global understandings they will need in the school’s IBO Diplomma Programme in grade 11. For the Cherokee Nation (Tahlequah Oklahoma), 24 learning experiences were designed for a summer immersion program for numerous middle schools which included professional development for advisors. For The After-School All-Stars program in seven states, CBK Associates created a version aimed at engaging middle school youth in developing skills transferable to classroom settings.
Dynamics for Success: A Learning Curriculum that Serves
Originally commissioned by Nansha College Preparatory Academy, in southern China, this program began as a two-week intensive focus on interdisciplinary learning, academic content, social-emotional wellbeing, and development of transferable skills. Specific content has been developed for each of six grade levels (middle through high school). Each level has a specific theme, essential questions, and a series of learning experiences that encourage students to take purposeful action in the school, community, or globally.
The themes for each grade include: Identity (gr. 7), Community (gr. 8), Contributing to Community (gr. 9), Global Connections (gr. 10), Leadership (gr. 11), Transitions (gr. 12).
Growing Community Leaders: An ACES Curriculum That Serves
Growing Community Leaders was commissioned by the Guilford County Schools, Greensboro, North Carolina in 2013 to address a need for a more comprehensive approach to strengthen self-awareness, academic readiness, and civic engagement. It was piloted with 3,500 children in 56 elementary after-school programs. Two versions are currently in place: a program for grades K-2 and a program for grades 3-5. Both encourage listening, group work, homework success, self-awareness, and pro-social traits. Both engage students in service learning as well.
Schools in Santa Monica, California and Hawaii recently adapted the curriculum.
21st Century Skills and Science
This multidisciplinary program has a scaffolded curriculum for grades 6-8. It encourages classroom participation and high level skills while integrating Common Core Standards and meeting science benchmarks. It also incorporates EarthEcho International’s Water Planet Challenge Action Guides by Cathryn Berger Kaye. It has been used by schools in Hawaii and Massachusetts.
Documentar
Started in response to the global pandemic in 2020, Documentar (using the Instagram platform @documentar_) offers a safe space for youth to speak up and out, tell their stories, share their opinions, and show actions taken. It has drawn submissions from young people in China, Angola, France, Azerbaijan, Korea, Argentina, Singapore, and across the United States. Students have used mediums of their choosing: photography, visual arts, words, collage, audio, and video. They have tackled subjects from the pandemic to systemic racism and climate change—whatever is in their hearts and minds. They learn from and with their peers, and adults learn from them.