State Board of Education Adopts TransformSC’s Profile of the Graduate

South Carolina’s policy-making body responsible for public elementary and secondary education voted to adopt TransformSC’s Profile of the Graduate during their meeting on February 11th.  The State Board of Education (SBE) joins the SC Chamber of Commerce and the SC Association of School Administrators in approving the Profile as a shared vision of the knowledge, skills and characteristics needed for students to be successful in higher learning and careers.

Profile of the South Carolina Graduate-page-001

It is important that efforts to transform South Carolina’s public education system are aligned to a common goal,”  said Dr. Traci Cooper, Chairperson of the SBE.  “We rally around this new Profile as a framework all South Carolinians can embrace.  It allows all of us – across all sectors – to speak a common language, around a common goal, towards unifying expectations of our students’ future.”

The coalition of education and business leaders that originally developed the profile organized as “TransformSC” under the SC Council on Competitiveness in 2012.   The coalition of business and education leaders continues to grow and has expanded to include students, parents and policymakers.

A network of 37 schools adopted the Profile as a shared mission in 2013.  TransformSC schools are voluntarily piloting innovative practices for the delivery and measurement of learning by implementing all, or some combination of the following practices:

  1. Real-world learning.  Project-based learning integrates traditional subjects (math, English/language arts, science, social studies, etc.) in the form of real-world problems for students to solve.   Students are engaged in content relevant to them while also learning skills and characteristics like problem solving, critical thinking and teamwork.
  2. Anytime, anywhere instruction.  Blended learning, a hybrid of face-to-face and digital instruction, gives teachers the capability to instruct students anytime, anywhere.  Digital content adapts to students where they are in their learning, allowing teachers the flexibility to design instruction for individual students.
  3. Real-time information. With full integration of technology in the classroom, teachers, parents and students have the ability to continuously assess student progress.  Parents no longer have to wait on report cards or parent-teacher conferences to understand how their child is progressing and teachers can use frequent feedback to continually monitor and personalize instruction.
  4. Students advance when ready.  The combination of real-time information and the flexibility of digital content means that students can progress based on competency. If students struggle, they are given more time and support. If students learn quickly, they are allowed to advance. Students in the same classroom may move at different paces based on their level of learning.

For more information, visit https://sccompetes.org/transformsc/.