Creating a coherent, high-quality curriculum--one that all teachers in a school or department use--can narrow gaps and raise overall achievement. Mike Schmoker makes the case for the primacy of curriculum and describes a process teacher teams can use to create a common, high-quality curriculum.

Across North America, the open education movement has blossomed in the past 10 years, with a majority of institutions of higher education employing open textbooks in at least one course. Unfortunately, social work lags behind other disciplines in the adoption, adaptation, and creation of open educational resources. This teaching note offers…

Most district, school, and classroom leaders know commercial publishers don't comprehensively meet educators' curricular needs--particularly when it comes to culturally relevant learning materials. Curriculum expert Evan Gutierrez proposes an alternative: an expert-mediated design process where teacher teams create curricula, aided by a mediator…

For the purposes of this study, teachers received collaborative and applied digital competence training in creating interactive e-books. After the training, the changes in these teachers' perceptions of digital competencies and how teachers plan to use their experiences while performing their profession were examined. Case studies provided data…

In this conceptual article the authors advocate for a "fluid curriculum," one that empowers teachers to create equitable, culturally relevant curriculum that is responsive to their students, relevant to their students' lives, and adaptable to the local context in which it is enacted. Because a fluid curriculum places the teacher as…

Due to the COVID pandemic, school teachers -- like many other educators --needed to become vastly more digitally capable almost overnight. The results have ranged from the modest to the extraordinary. Teachers turned to content production at previously unseen levels. While recent years has seen increasing interest in the engagement of teachers…

Higher education faculty who teach online can face numerous challenges in providing optimal experiences for their students. Besides their potentially limited instructional design expertise and understanding of how to optimize technology to support learning, faculty may have difficulties in finding ways to make themselves be perceived as real…

Scholarly writing for academic publication follows discipline-specific constraints where alpha-numeric forms of text are common modes of communication. While figures can be integrated into scholarly publications, graphics are required to fit specific style guides depending on the established criteria for the academic journal. When preparing…

This study explores the identity formation of two postsecondary language teachers and course coordinators--one in German and one in French--as they created intermediate-level, content-based social justice curricular units for a multiyear project. Using a multiple-case-study methodology and cultural--historical activity theory, this qualitative…

Guided reading questions (GRQs) are a formative assessment activity to facilitate student learning. We conducted four experiments to test if GRQs improved student performance on evaluative assessments. Experiment 1 compared test scores between classes that received GRQs or not. Experiment 2 modeled the impact of multiple formative assessments,…

The study of the electromagnetic spectrum, how light interacts with matter, and optical instruments such as lenses, mirrors, and gratings are important concepts in the Advanced Placement (AP) physics and introductory undergraduate physics and astronomy courses. The production, control, and analysis of light helps scientists to learn about the…

The integration of computational thinking (CT) into school curriculums has become increasingly prevalent worldwide. However, the development of high-quality learning resources for effectively embedding CT concepts across the curriculum remains a significant challenge. This study focused on Teachers-Pay-Teachers, a socialized knowledge community…

In today's conditions, the needs of the labor market are changing in parallel with technological developments and the need for individuals trained in STEM is increasing. For this reason, it is a priority to increase the skills and awareness of teachers who will guide individuals trained in the field of STEM. In this study, a STEM training with…

Teacher educators drive preservice teachers' learning about teaching particularly through feedback. The learning materials produced by preservice teachers also play a crucial role in English language teacher training but may not be receiving the necessary attention in teacher education programs. Preservice teachers lack formal teaching…

English language arts teacher Erin Nerlino describes how educators can align their instructional materials with the topics and issues that most interest students today. Nerlino offers six tenets to revise curricula in ways that help capture learners' attention and fuel engagement--all of which emphasize purposeful teaching materials that encourage…