education4500

Recently, I was talking to some adult education folks about needed revisions to their High School Equivalency courses. It quickly became an opportunity to discuss the importance of ensuring the Instructional Shifts lived in all of our instructional materials and classroom practices... High School Equivalency (HSE) courses are mostly test-prep, designed to helps students take and pass various HSE exams (such as the GED, HiSET, or TASC). Until the recent past, these tests were built around skills assessment. With the adoption of the CCR Standards for Adult Education by most programs throughout the US, this has markedly changed. These HSE exams are now largely knowledge-based tests. GED’s website states the exam has four subjects and tests in the following areas: “ Math - Quantitative & algebraic problem solving; Science - Life science, physical science, earth and space science; Social Studies - Civics and government, U.S. history, economics, geography and the world; Reasoning Th

For many of us, summer is nearly over. Le sigh. As the school year approaches, many educators are putting the final pieces of this year's professional learning into place. My early August is no different. For much of this summer, I have worked  RISE Academy  to help them draft course curriculum maps and plain their roll-out this Fall. (These maps are a collaborative, multi-year, responsive effort to better support teachers to use instructional materials and strategies aligned to both the CCRS and the needs of their adult students.) Though this work could be a series of posts all on its own, I want to pivot away from the importance of high-quality curriculum  and talk a little about the implementation of high-quality curriculum. If a central purpose of using high-quality curriculum is to help students better meet the expectations in college and career readiness standards, then using teachers should have a working knowledge of those standards and the shift in instruction they