Curriculum

Malawi primary schools face issues of large classes, high repetition rates, and teachers who resort to lectures and other marginally effective rote learning techniques to teach crowded classrooms. The Malawi Tikwere! (Let’s go up!) program uses interactive radio instruction (IRI) broadcasts to address these issues and bring student-centered instruction to primary schools countrywide.

CSE, the University of Michigan, and the Center for Applied Special Technology is applying the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) so that science curricula can be customized to serve a wide range of student learning needs.

EDC is working with ConnectEd: The California Center for College and Careers, with support from The James Irvine Foundation, to develop a curriculum for career sector academies in California public high schools. This project focuses on the arts, media and entertainment (AME) sector.

CSE, along with literacy consultants from the Tufts University Center for Applied Child Development, are nearing completion of a set of professional development materials to be published by Heinemann Press in the summer of 2009. The Connecting Science and Literacy Program (CSLP) is designed to enhance the understanding of this connection and its relationship to the development of scientific reasoning skills and conceptual understanding.

The Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST) program is designed to increase opportunities for students and teachers to learn about and use information technologies within the contexts of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The program supports both youth-based projects with strong emphases on career and educational paths, and comprehensive projects for students and teachers.

In collaboration with EDC’s Education, Employment, and Community Programs, ERO promotes and supports the Ford PAS program. Ford PAS includes an interdisciplinary high school curriculum that challenges students academically and develops their problem-solving, teamwork, and communication skills. We provide ongoing technical assistance for all schools and partners implementing Ford PAS by hosting an interactive Web site and toll-free hotline, designing and conducting an annual national networking and training conference, and offering professional development activities.

In this five-year project, CSE is developing a comprehensive high school science curriculum called Foundation Science. It comprises two semesters each of chemistry, physics, biology, and earth science. Schools will be able to sequence the courses to suit the structure of their science programs. Stimulating narratives engage students with problems whose solutions lead to an understanding of major scientific concepts. Hands-on investigations supported by scientific literature help students reach those solutions.

Serving communities in the Three Areas, HEAR Sudan builds capacity of local stakeholders to plan, implement and monitor health and education services, helps translate this increased capacity into action, and builds community support for school governance and outreach. HEAR strengthens linkages between educators and health workers with the aim of increasing healthy girls’ and boys’ access to quality education.

With community colleges across the country, EDC is developing a common curricular framework for teaching basic information technology (core) applications in career and academic programs at community and technical colleges. Project resources include innovative approaches to instruction and assessment, including “Rubrics to Assess Basic IT User Skills,” lesson templates that interconnect the use of the “IT Core Applications” with program content for eight of the most commonly used IT applications, and a library of problem-based scenarios for each of the clusters/program areas.

EDC continues to expand its Teenage Health Teaching Modules (THTM), a comprehensive school health curriculum for grades 6 through 12 used in all 50 states and several countries. EDC is updating scientific content and making the modules responsive to the ethnic and cultural diversity of today’s classrooms. New materials include Getting Active and Eating Well and Voices Against Violence. THTM has been identified as a “promising” model program by the U.S. Department of Education.