College- and career-readiness skills can easily get lost if you don't have a clear school-wide plan for teaching them. While curriculum in schools is primarily meant to ready students for college and career skills, ensuring those skills actually transfer is another story. Andrew Miller lays out a system for teaching and assessing key…

School leaders could see all their students ascend to new heights of academic achievement and find their jobs de-stressed and joyful--if they focused on only the one or two most urgently needed instructional initiatives. Schmoker makes the "case for less" and notes that if school leaders applied strict criteria to select the initiative…

A teacher describes how a team of educators from two elementary schools in Massachusetts used the Next Generation Science Standards to create a social history curriculum focused on depth--and story--instead of isolated facts.

The authors, pioneers in detracking and in shrinking achievement gaps, pose a question: Is it possible to have all students in a large high school successfully complete a challenging curriculum that gives them practice in the habits and skills necessary for success in college? The answer, they say, "is a resounding yes." This article…

The Systematic Monitoring Process for Learning (SMPL) monitors changes in teacher and student activities that occur between the introduction of a new program and the final evaluation of student achievement. (Author/MLF)

Curriculum mapping breaks with traditional curriculum practices by revealing what is actually being taught, how long it is being taught, and the match between what is being taught and the district's testing program. (Author/MLF)

Lesson study requires teachers to discuss the essential concepts that the students need to learn, compare the concepts with curriculums and consider the present knowledge of students. The various examples and experiences of teachers performing lesson study are presented.

Presents a procedure for curriculum change and textbook adoption using a step-by-step decision-making process. (MD)

The educational needs of the curriculum specialist are discussed. (CK)

Robertson discusses the "perceived dichotomy" that permeates science teaching: teachers can either stress inquiry learning with lots of hands-on experiences or stress content knowledge and swap hands-on inquiry for direct instruction. Although a curriculum of unstructured hands-on science activities leads to shallow content knowledge, it is…

An attempt is made here to summarize briefly some of the challenges facing curriculum evaluation and evaluators. Further, suggestions are made for policy decisions and directions that research and applications might take. (Author/CB)

Presents some ideas about concept learning and teaching strategies through which the learner can be guided. Characteristics of curriculum materials that promote concept development are discussed. (Author/MLF)

Statistics reveal that students spend more time on electronic games than on any other recreational activity and 32% admit to playing them during class. The gaming revolution contains lessons for teachers, and understanding the pedagogical potential of computer and video games and developing curriculum that supports the educational use of…

Walla Walla Schools (Washington) designed a demonstration project using the Marzano thinking skills model, which emphasizes learning preparation, content thinking, and basic reasoning skills. Placing selected thinking skills within specific curriculum areas and grade levels proved so successful that teachers then collaborated on a content-free…