Curriculum

The Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands (REL-NEI) is one of ten regional laboratories and has a mission to help pre-K–16 educators use the best available evidence to make decisions leading to improved student achievement and reduced performance gaps. REL-NEI places a special emphasis on helping states, districts, and schools build capacity to use their data effectively; forming and conducting high-quality research and evaluation through new “research alliances”; and helping regional education stakeholders incorporate data-based inquiry practices into their decision-making.

The Pre-Service Teacher Education (PreSTEP) program has the primary objective of helping the Government of Pakistan develop, introduce, and implement effective curricula for a new four-year bachelor’s degree in education and a two-year associate degree in education. To achieve this goal, PreSTEP helps provincial governments create systems, policies and standards that ensure the effective execution of these degree programs.

The smart grid uses the most advanced digital technology to upgrade the aging, century old electrical grid in the United States, in ways that are radically transforming the ways energy is used and consumed. EDC has developed two three-lesson curriculum units that introduce high school students to the smart grid. In the first unit students learn about the smart grid and develop materials that will educate others in their community about the smart grid concept and its potential benefits.

This project addresses a critical need to develop quality early childhood mathematics curriculum, particularly for low-income students.

Shaped with substantial input from high school educators, postsecondary faculty, and law enforcement professionals, the EDC-developed Law and Justice curriculum meets national academic standards as well as career technical education standards. The curriculum emphasizes the teaching of key skills essential to the fields of law and justice, such as critical thinking, teamwork, and communication.

More than a Dream Teen Pregnancy Prevention for Latino Youth is a collaboration between Education Development Center, the University of Michigan School of Nursing, and the League of United Latin American Citizens’ National Educational Service Centers (LNESC), to find developmentally appropriate and culturally and linguistically relevant youth and parent interventions that address sexual health and pregnancy prevention among Latino youth.

EDC is helping Paraguay’s Ministry of Education and Culture to promote interest in math among young children and support their instructors to teach early numeracy more effectively. The Paraguay Early Childhood IRI Math Program nurtures positive attitudes toward mathematics and develops a solid foundation in basic math among children four to six years old.

EDC is conducting a research study of The Writers’ Express (WEX) to learn whether the program—including its curriculum, materials, instructional practices, and embedded professional development—is effective for students in elementary schools. WEX is a year-long writing program for students in third through twelfth grade, supported through professional development for teachers and school administrators. In this study, 70 Massachusetts schools will be randomly assigned to implement the WEX program or to continue with the usual writing instruction in fourth grade.

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