Lessons To Center: High-Quality Instructional Materials
Written by Sarah Johnson
Photo by Julia M Cameron from Pexels
My six-year-old son was in remote kindergarten every day this past year. During that time, he no longer had one teacher, he had a teaching team consisting of me, daddy, grandma, and other trusted family members and friends. We all learned more than we ever thought we would about kindergarten math and ELA curriculum as well as how to troubleshoot numerous digital tools.
Increased Student Learning
So, it’s no surprise to me that the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) at Columbia University is releasing research today that shows: digitally accessible high-quality instructional materials designed to bring families and educators together increased student learning and engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research reveals possibilities for sustained partnership between schools and families moving forward for both remote and in-person instruction.
The findings are spelled out in a new report, “Fundamental 4: Pandemic Learning Reveals the Value of High-Quality Instructional Materials to Educator-Family-Student Partnerships.”
Four Important Lessons from the Report
Teaching Lab is proud to have been a contributor to this study through our partnership with NYC’s District 11 in the Bronx. As we support school systems to welcome students back in the fall and navigate the continued consequences of the pandemic, we think its important to center the four lessons from the report:
Expand the required dimensions of “high-quality” instructional materials to be educative for families, tech-enabled, and culturally responsive
Leverage high-quality instructional materials to coordinate academic co-production among the four anchors of the expanded core
Sustain curriculum-based professional learning focused on the expanded core, with an explicit focus on implementing high-quality instructional materials in ways that respond to student, family, and community needs
Create systems and structures for families, teachers, and students to design, monitor, and improve upon learning experiences
As our team shares in the report:
“The pandemic made it easier to see disparities. Kids are home. We are fully in their cultural space and familial space. Teachers need to take that into account. Part of what’s challenging is how teachers are perceiving those spaces,” one professional learning provider from Teaching Lab said. “We want teachers to seek to learn and understand the cultures that students are coming from. In the past, [students] were adapting to [teachers’] space. Now [teachers] need to adapt what [they’re] doing to fit [students’] space. The pandemic is opening up conversations about students’ realities, preferences, and what’s possible … There have been shifts in teacher mindset about how much student preference and culture and identity matter.”
This to us -- at Teaching Lab -- is one way to advance educational equity. And if you’re in this fight with us, leading the movement, we thank you and we applaud you.
