From Challenge Report to the Real World: How The Elements Can Spell Success for Educators

Curriculum matters, but how teachers use curriculum matters even more, says the Corporation’s Jim Short

By Carnegie Corporation of New York March 11, 2021
Professional Learning for Educators
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At the beginning of a webinar exploring his report, The Elements: Transforming Teaching through Curriculum-Based Professional Learning), Jim Short, program director for Leadership and Teaching to Advance Learning at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, sums up his findings this way: “Curriculum matters, but how teachers use curriculum matters even more.”

Short and his coauthor Stephanie Hirsh presented their report, which highlights the importance of student-focused professional learning for teachers, during a webinar sponsored by Corporation grantee Learning Forward. Intended to help viewers assess the next steps their own districts might take to increase the impact of professional development for teachers, the webinar also provided support for the implementation of high-quality instructional materials.

Two additional panelists, both of whom are working to bring the curriculum of OpenSciEd, another Corporation grantee, to more classrooms, also weighed in. Kalonda Colson McDonald, a K–8 science training and support coordinator with the Detroit Public Schools Community District, who field-tested OpenSciEd’s free curriculum, and Katherine L. McNeill, a professor of science education at Boston College, who helped develop the OpenSciEd professional learning model, shared their personal successes with guiding teachers through OpenSciEd’s student-focused professional learning sessions — exactly the kind of professional learning Short and Hirsh highlight. McDonald and McNeil explained how those workshops allowed teachers to transform their instructional practices and create better student outcomes — even if they were initially skeptical.

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