Curriculum & Instruction

Developers of equity programs offer the following tips for success: You need it first—Equity PD gets the best results when leaders—from superintendents to school board members to principals—are trained before their staff. Dialogue, collaboration and role-play—Kids don’t love PowerPoints or lectures, and neither do educators. PD that gets teachers talking, collaborating and even role-playing seems […]

North Clackamas School District Superintendent Matthew Utterback minds the gap. That is, the gap between white students and everyone else. That’s why the 2017 National School Superintendent of the Year takes special pride in the details of his Oregon district’s 18 percent graduation rate increase. “There’s now no gap between graduation rates for students of […]

Effective professional development helps educators better address the rapidly evolving needs of students. But with limited budgets and teacher time, how can PD be served up effectively, and integrated and tracked? Education leaders share their best practices for ensuring that professional learning time is well-spent, focused, shared and rewarded. 1. Offer various formats. Just as […]

Pizitz Middle School, located in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama, committed to raise enough money to build a well in Uganda. Working with a local nonprofit, school leaders kicked off the project during the first week of school in 2017 and spent the year connecting classroom instruction to this service goal. “We needed to raise […]

Project-based learning is an inquiry-based and applied learning approach incorporating authenticity, student ownership, reflection, revision and public work. It is one of the leading instructional pedagogies to address today’s learning. In recent years, thousands of teachers have participated in PBL professional development. It is pervasive in today’s professional learning. However, little has been done to […]

A look at some of the STEM projects rural students participate in: Graham Local Schools (Ohio) Trout in the classroom: Fourth- and fifth-graders hatch and release trout, learn how to protect fish, run a sustainable food business and operate an environmentally friendly fishery. Falcon Farms: Middle and high school students grow corn and soybeans on […]