Curriculum Materials
We know that effective teachers consistently give students the opportunity to work on high quality, cognitively demanding tasks and projects. They allow students to wrestle with challenging problems. They scaffold students' work on challenging problems but resist watering them down when students struggle.
We know that effective school and district leaders make sure teachers have the resources they need to do a good job including curricula, professional development, and tools for teachers and students.
Teachers need rich instructional tools. To fill this need, the IFL has developed a set of model units K-12 in the four core content areas that illustrate how research-based content and pedagogical routines can transform instruction and raise student achievement. These units suggest teaching progressions and routines that assure a focus on what specific content needs to be taught and how it should be learned. Model units include suggested texts, tasks, and teaching routines and guidance, as well as supports for English language learners and students with disabilities.
The IFL also provides training and support to curriculum experts, instructional coaches, school leaders and teachers to adapt existing curriculum and instructional resources with these evidence-based strategies. IFL model units can be used as templates to guide the revision of local curriculum and can also be used as an alternative curriculum where desired. Either way, students benefit from the best available evidence about what works.