Curriculum & Instruction

Brent Fruhwirth has taught social studies at Little Miami High School in Morrow, Ohio, for two decades. He was surprised last year when he was asked to pilot McGraw-Hill Education’s LearnSmart, an online study tool, in his American history classes. “At first, I thought they had chosen the wrong person to pilot a technology tool” […]

Rockford Public Schools is the third-largest school district in Illinois, educating more than 28,500 students. Last year, Cory Nilsen and David Allen, the respective deans of social studies and science curricula for Rockford PS, learned that a local organization that had provided dictionaries to every third-grade student was disbanding, and it wanted to give Rockford […]

Mold growth at California’s Klamath-Trinity Joint USD three years ago was an asset in disguise. Mold growth at California’s Klamath-Trinity Joint USD three years ago was an asset in disguise. It required the district to reconstruct six of its seven schools, a $65 million endeavor that superintendent Jon Ray saw as an opportunity. His classrooms […]

Not long ago, I was visiting with a highly capable, senior-level district administrator when he said to me, “There are so many STEM initiatives, resources and vendors out there. I am a little embarrassed to admit this, but I am not even sure of the right questions to ask.” As I considered this administrator’s confusion—and […]

For many youths growing up in the age of Kendrick Lamar, Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, the choice between taking orchestra, band or choir often misses the point. Building a school’s music instruction around more recent artists and hits offers an alternative to a curriculum that’s often based on classical, jazz and marching bands. “For […]

Teachers today have more control over how and when they receive professional development. Whether the learning is self-paced, online or partially in-person, more districts measure PD based on the new skills teachers can display in their classrooms rather than on how long they spend listening to an instructor. For example, veteran social studies teacher Kurt […]