Using Knowledge on the Go™ During the Pandemic “Having a high-quality curriculum means they can focus on mastering the craft of instruction, not creating or searching for curriculum,” Stearns says. That feature is especially important for IDEA, given that the vast majority of their teachers are novices, with an average of only two years’ experience.
Julia alvarez aha moment how to#
“ Eureka Math is an educative curriculum that teaches teachers how to do math,” Alvarez says. Stearns and Alvarez both stress that the curricula materials are not just helping students master the content they’re teaching teachers too. But the curriculum directors point to other, more compelling evidence than standardized test scores: the improved quality of the student conversations in both math and English, the level of engagement, and dramatic improvements in student writing. IDEA student results on the Texas state achievement test have been mixed students have shown record gains between Grade 2 and Grade 3 in math and flatter performance in the other grades and in ELA. Wit & Wisdom’s texts and the art help fill their cultural capital gaps.” Many haven’t had the same cultural experiences. “One hundred percent of our students go to college. Students who can think, write, and talk about ideas do better.” She adds that Wit & Wisdom’s emphasis on building students’ cultural literacy is a major added benefit. “ Wit & Wisdom totally addresses my theory of curriculum design: knowledge building,” Stearns says. For example, after visiting a Grade 1 class that uses Eureka Math in Skokie, Illinois, as part of their adoption process, Alvarez recalls one of her colleagues exclaiming, “These first graders will give some of my Advanced Placement statistics students a run for their money!” Alvarez and Colleen Stearns, director of ELA, both appreciate the rigor of these curricula and their focus on building students’ content knowledge. Wit & Wisdom and Eureka Math have changed that. In English, teachers were on their own, basically planning their own lessons, with little coherence or equity across schools or classrooms.Īdopted Eureka Math (K–Grade 5) and Wit & Wisdom (Grades 2–8) in 2018–2019 school year “When I was a sixth grade teacher, it seemed like we had four different math curricula in four or five years,” recalls Julia Alvarez, director of mathematics. The schools previously used a hodge-podge of instructional resources, including Everyday Mathematics and enVision Mathematics.
Wit & Wisdom® and Eureka Math® fit the bill. Not surprisingly, when IDEA leaders were seeking new English language arts and math curricula in 2018, they had very high standards. For the past 13 years in a row, 100 percent of its graduating seniors have been accepted to college, many the first in their families to attend. Started in 2000 in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, IDEA now teaches over 45,000 mostly low-income students in 96 schools in Texas and southern Louisiana. IDEA Public Schools is one of the largest and most successful public charter networks in the country.
0 kommentar(er)
