SERP has many projects under way that will produce new resources for educators. Here’s what to expect in the year ahead:

Digital version of MathByExample

At the request of teachers, we are developing a web-based platform that will allow students to complete the assignments electronically from a tablet or computer. The platform will allow teachers to select assignments for students in any order, to monitor student progress, and to respond with individual feedback. It will allow teachers to easily review similarities and differences in students’ responses to particular items and to easily review an individual student’s work over time. Teachers will even be able to use the platform to author their own assignments for students. There will be a modest charge for the electronic version so that SERP can maintain the platform, but the printer-friendly PDF assignments will still be free to download. Once the MathByExample platform has been successfully launched, we anticipate being able to provide an electronic version of AlgebraByExample, as well. 

Online professional learning series for WordGen 

Because Word Generation is SERP’s most widely-used program, there is a strong demand for professional learning support. In-person, comprehensive PD can be prohibitively expensive, however. To respond to requests by schools and districts, we will release a self-paced online professional learning series this year that will prepare teachers to successfully launch and use WordGen Weekly and WordGen Elementary. The series will provide opportunities for teachers and coaches to explore WordGen practices and skills, such as discussion, argumentation, academic language, perspective taking. The series is designed with collaborative teacher teams in mind, but it can be used by individual teachers, as well. Faculty for the course include Harvard Professor Catherine Snow, Boston University Professor Cathy O’Connor, and senior WordGen Coach Cara Cassell. SERP will work with districts and teachers to provide information and distribute completion certificates to support professional advancement. There will be a fee associated with the course to cover maintenance and support costs.

Updates to WordGen Weekly materials

WordGen Weekly introduces a controversial issue each week, providing students with the opportunity to build academic language, engage in discussion and debate in which they use evidence to defend their positions, and engage in argumentative writing. Our WordGen Weekly users can look forward to updates to these materials in 2020. While many units will have only minor edits, others will look quite different. Several units will receive major revisions, such as the unit on teen curfews at malls, which is not as relevant when fewer and fewer students meet at the mall. Other units will only receive corrections or changes to statistics, such as updating the amount of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. and China in recent years. If you order or download WordGen Weekly materials for use in the 2020-2021 school year, you will see these updates.

STARI program extending over three years

The Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention, or STARI, is designed for students in grades 6-9 who are reading at about a third or fourth grade level. Although initially designed as a year-long intervention, two “series” of materials were created to provide the option for students of enrolling in the program for more than one year. The two series cover similar skills but vary in the sophistication of topics to address the age range of the targeted students. However, teachers and administrators frequently asked why there weren’t three “series” to cover all three middle grades, since having students from different grades in the same course can cause logistical challenges. We also observed that classes were not able to complete the four units provided in each series within a single school year. Work is now underway to provide three years of STARI materials, each with three units, to better fit the needs of schools adopting STARI. We anticipate this work will be completed during 2020.

SERP support for a major shift in education policy

Standards and accountability measures target changes in teaching and learning in the classroom. A myriad of factors affect what goes on in the classroom in ways that diminish the effectiveness of these policy measures. Factors include, but are not limited to, teacher turnover, pre-service training and professional development, educator beliefs, curriculum materials and other resources, classroom and school culture, and stressors from outside the school that affect the classroom. Any combination of these factors can impede the improved outcomes that policy makers are targeting.

SERP proposes an alternative strategy that calls for investments in a cluster of schools within a school district where research and development partners work on addressing the many barriers to sustained, scalable improvement. As with teaching hospitals in medicine, these schools would also serve as the sites for more intensive support for new teachers and for creating a professional culture of collaboration and improvement during the period of professional identity formation. SERP will be working with district partners, foundations, and policy makers in the year ahead to advance this strategy. Read more here.