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Innovations in
Curriculum & Instruction
Improving student achievement and ensuring that every student graduates means paying careful attention to the relationships among students, teachers, and content that lie at the core of the learning process. Students drop out of school because they are bored or frustrated. What they experienced in the classroom was either too easy, too hard, or disconnected from anything they care about. Instructional approaches must engage students in learning and offer opportunities to learn and demonstrate mastery in different ways. Curriculum must support those instructional approaches, meet students at their level and provide adequate scaffolding to support them to the next level. The following are promising curricular and instructional interventions being developed and studied in the Everyone Graduates Center. They represent a growing movement in the right direction to equip educators with not only theories but also training and tools they need to revolutionize classroom practice and support success for all students.
High School Curriculum
to Accelerate Learning and Close Skill Gaps
Struggling students can advance more rapidly and graduate prepared for college with additional instruction in literacy and mathematics, and curriculum specifically designed to identify, address and close their skill gaps. Talent Development High Schools has developed courses that provide 9th, 10th, and 11th graders who need it with a double-dose in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics. The ELA courses (Strategic Reading, Reading and Writing in Your Career, College Prep Reading and Writing) are offered in 90-minute blocks the first term of each year to prepare students for the standards-based English course they take during a 90-minute block during the second term. The mathematics courses (Transition to Advanced Mathematics, Geometry Foundations, Algebra II Foundations) follow a similar pattern, preparing students for success in a college preparatory mathematics sequence. Each research-based curriculum combines high interest materials with active learning to engage adolescents, close skill gaps, and build the confidence and higher order thinking necessary for success in high school and postsecondary pursuits.
For more about Curriculum available through
Talent Development High Schools, please visit their site, here.
Middle Grades Curriculum
to Accelerate Learning and Close Skill Gaps
Talent Development Middle Grades (TDMG) has developed Student Team Literature and Talent Development Writing to promote literacy of middle school students by teaching effective reading strategies, extending comprehension skills, and developing fluency in reading and writing. These research- and standards-based curricula pair TDMG Discussion Guides with high-quality, high-interest, culturally relevant trade books. Discussion Guides are available for nearly 200 works (link to catalog here), including fiction and nonfiction, biographies, and collections of short stories or poems. Talent Development Writing integrates with Student Team Literature and includes modeling, conferring, teaching mini-lessons, and cooperative team learning.
For more about Curriculum available through
Talent Development Middle Grades, please visit their site, here.
Extra Help Labs with Computer Assisted Instruction
The ALFA Lab at the high school level and the Savvy Readers Lab and Computer and Team-Assisted Math Acceleration (CATAMA) lab in the middle grades relieve the pressure on teachers to slow down teaching in heterogeneous classes because they know that students who need intensive extra help will receive it in the labs. Each lab provides computer-assisted instruction within a structured cooperative learning setting that students receive in addition to their regular English and math courses.
ALFA Lab
(Accelerating Literacy for Adolescents)
For more information about the ALFA Lab, click here.
Savvy Readers Lab
For more information about the Savvy Readers Lab, click here.
CATAMA Lab
(Computer and Team Assisted Math Acceleration)
For more information about the CATAMA Lab, click here.
Hands-On, Minds-On History and Science
United States History
The Talent Development Middle Grades (TDMG) United States history curriculum brings together the award-winning, ten-volume series A History of US by Joy Hakim and ten teaching guides, resource books, and web-based lessons developed by TDMG at Johns Hopkins University. The curriculum includes the use of primary sources, simulations, writing assignments, extension activities, and assessments. This curriculum is aligned with National Standards for United States History.
Hands-On Science
The Talent Development Middle Grades (TDMG) has developed curriculum to accompany Joy Hakim’s The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way and Newton at the Center. These volumes cover the history of scientific development from the ancient Greeks to the dawn of the 20th century. Lesson plans include hands-on activities, integrated reading strategies, review lessons, assessments, and multidisciplinary connections to extend each lesson. The TDMG-produced curriculum was published by Smithsonian Books in 2006. TDMG also helps teachers implement science modules developed by the Full Option Science System (FOSS) at Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California at Berkeley,and Science and Technology for Children (STC) from the National Science Resources Center. Schools choose the order in which the modular units are taught, both over the school year and among grades. TDMG has created supplementary reading activities and lesson plans for many of these modules.
For more information about the TDMG History and Science curricula, click here.
New Study of Algebra Success Curriculum Underway
Randomized Trial of Strategies for Helping Underprepared Freshmen Master Algebra 1.
Many states and school districts now require that Algebra 1 be taken during the ninth grade, if not before. But not every student has adequate mathematics skills to succeed in a traditional Algebra 1 course. In response, schools with many students who are underprepared for algebra have been doubling the amount of class time devoted to mathematics in ninth grade.
This study assesses student learning in mathematics under two experimental conditions, both of which involve providing extra class time for mathematics. Each of these conditions has some non-experimental evidence in support of the approach.
- In Condition #1, students take a traditional Algebra 1 course at a slower pace, giving teachers time to introduce new concepts thoroughly and review middle-level math skills as needed.
- In Condition #2, students take a first semester course that systematically reviews and expands on middle-level math skills and builds math reasoning abilities, followed by Algebra 1 during the second semester.
Eight school districts (a total of 28 high schools) will participate in the study during the 2008-2009 school year. Additional districts are being recruited for 2009-2010.
Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences
For more information about the Algebra 1 study, click here.
Strategic Reading course closes skill gaps;
effects are strengthened by in-class coaching.
Independent study finds impact of Talent Development High Schools on attendance, achievement, grade promotion, and graduation.
Talent Development High School students significantly outperform students in control schools in math and reading.
High school students taking Talent Development High School courses are closing skill gaps and achieving more.
Learn More.
Talent Development Middle Grades (TDMG) curriculum posts positive impact on students’ reading and math gains.
TDMG students in Philadelphia are 55% more likely to graduate on time than control students.