The mission of these lessons is to help pre-college students understand the fundamental elements of an academic learning culture in preparation for post-secondary education. These lessons are a starting point for teachers and students to begin to talk about creating a learning culture on any campus.

These lessons are the result of the collaboration between Rafael Alvarez (Director of the MESA program at San Diego City College) and Emily Neidhart (High School Teacher at Garfield High School.)

As high school teachers, we are always looking for new ways to connect our students to the world of college- and as it so happened, Garfield High was working on trying to redefine the learning culture of the school when I came across Rafael’s book, Turning on the Lights. I ended up teaming up with Rafael to discuss what a college learning culture might look like in a high school setting. The result was the creation of hands-on lessons that starts the conversation and the self-reflection that students need to understand in order to become successful academic students. These lessons are not a “quick-fix” or an easy “solution” to the struggles our students face, but rather a starting point to begin that journey, and a framework around which to organize a common language at a site.

Please use these lessons as a starting point- each slide deck will ask you to make a copy for yourself. This copy you can add to, edit, and make your own. All non-pdf documents will also force you to make your own copy. It is recommended that you save all your lessons in a new folder in your Drive.