High schools and/or school districts wishing to offer the decathlon curriculum in an academic elective course can do so through courses approved by the Georgia Board of Education. These courses are listed in Rule 160-4-2-.03. A review of this rule and the courses listed for grades 9-12 yields some of the following as options (certain options are specific to certain years and certain curricula; others are general and could be used any year):
35.05100 – Study Skills I
35.05200 – Study Skills II
35.05300 – Study Skills III
35.05400 – Study Skills IV
45.01100 – Comparative Religions
45.01200 – Current Issues
45.01300 – Technology and Society
45.01400 – The Humanities/Social Studies
70.03100 – Directed Study I
70.03200 – Directed Study II
70.03300 – Directed Study III
70.03400 – Directed Study IV
44.00100 – Humanities
23.32110 – Mythology
23.32300 – Comparative Literature
40.32110 – Astronomy: Stars and the Cosmos
40.37110 – Oceans: Living Space for the Future
45.07200 – Asian Studies
Schools/Districts should attempt to match the Academic Decathlon curriculum with potential courses annually to achieve the best correlation of standards for the selected content for that year. Courses should not be randomly selected. Matching the Academic Decathlon curriculum to a different course each year enables interested students to receive elective credit in four different elective courses should a student choose to be a part of this curriculum each of his/her four years in high school.
The rationale for offering the decathlon curriculum through an academic elective course is to:
provide opportunity for a whole class (20+) of students to engage in this rich and rigorous curriculum,
motivate underachieving students through a rich and rigorous course content,
broaden student research, study, and communication skills through a thematically planned curriculum, and
provide an opportunity to bridge the achievement gap for participating students.
The nine students who may make up the Georgia Academic Decathlon team may come from those who participate in the course, but there may also be other students who would like to be a part of the team but who are not able to work the elective course into their schedule. To meet the requirements of Rule 160-4-2-.03, students who are members of the GAD team should not be required to take this course.
Coaches shoulld see positive benefit for students who engage in this challenging curriculum. Spillover effect is to be expected. Some coaches have reported that students’ grades went up significantly as a result of studying the Decathlon curriculum.
Please visit the GAD Coaches Manual page for more in-depth information regarding Academic Decathlon as an academic elective course. Additionally you may visit http://www.gadoe.org/Curriculum-Instruction-and-Assessment/Curriculum-and-Instruction/Pages/default.aspx then scroll down to the link “Course Numbers and Descriptions” located toward the bottom of the page under the “Frequently Requested Information” section.
The PAGE GAD office requests that any school offering an academic elective course share with us which course you are using.