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The state of Florida has taken an unprecedented approach to teacher professional development in its Race to the Top
(RTTT) Program application by proposing to promote an international innovation that originates in Japan, “lesson study,” as
a statewide teacher professional development model. Since winning the US$700 million RTTT funding in 2010, the Florida
Department of Education and districts have been promoting lesson study as one of the statewide vehicles to implement
the state standards aligned with the Common Core State Standards. This study analyzed the state and districts’ approaches
to promote lesson study using policy documents, statewide district survey data, and interviews. We found that a majority
of districts mandated lesson study implementation without securing or spending sufficient funding. In addition, the existing organizational structures and routines for professional development pose a major challenge in capacity building of district leaders and teachers to engage in lesson study.

On July 15-17, 2012 the United States National Commission on Mathematics Instruction and Seoul National University held a joint Korea-U.S. workshop on Mathematics Teaching and Curriculum. The workshop was organized to address questions and issues related to math teaching and curriculum that were generated by each country. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions at the workshop.

An electronic teacher guide (eTG) was developed to determine whether a digital guide could better support teachers in implementing an inquiry-based curriculum and in enhancing their practice. Developed as a proof-of-concept exemplar, features of the eTG support high school teachers in planning, implementing, and modifying innovative instructional materials and in developing more ambitious teaching practices.

Educational and societal phenomena can converge to draw attention to a new focus, such as ELs and STEM, and then trigger new research interests. A funding program can play a critical role in shaping these new research interests by prioritizing specific research topics and designs or by requiring particular specializations of researchers. The study examined whether funding provided through the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Discovery Research K-12 (DR K-12) program has made a unique contribution to the research in the fields of science and mathematics education for ELs.

This brief gives an overview—and by no means a comprehensive one—of several NGSS-aligned projects in the areas of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development.

No one curriculum can meet the needs of all students and teachers. This video describes why a teacher might want to modify a curriculum and how he or she would go about it.

"Content coherence"--ideas presented in a connected, sequential way--plays a big role in effective science instruction. Watch this video to find out how it works and how students benefit!

An effective curriculum helps you support students' science learning, understanding, and achievement. But what does "effective" mean? This video gives you the inside scoop on what makes a curriculum effective and flags some common pitfalls to avoid.

To examine the value of the electronic teacher guide (eTG) as a curriculum planning and teaching tool,
it was important to study it in the contexts of teachers’ actual planning, teaching, and reflecting.
This paper described two descriptive case studies.