George Lucas Educational Foundation

Curriculum Planning

Looking for ways to develop dynamic, compelling, and standards-based course content and activities? This is the place to start.

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  • Culturally Responsive Teaching Favors Depth Over Breadth

    A few ideas for history teachers seeking to add teaching resources that reflect the diversity of their students’ lives and backgrounds.
    David Cutler
    252
  • How to Teach Black Resistance Beyond Black History Month

    High school students can learn about Black Americans’ fight against social and political oppression throughout the school year.
  • Teaching the Writer’s Craft With Micro Mentor Texts

    Penny Kittle shares a lesson plan that uses very short mentor texts to foster students’ love of writing and confidence in their work.
    238
  • Children playing with pine cones in forest

    Why Learning at Home Should Be More Self-Directed—and Less Structured

    On March 18, 2020, Simone Kern tweeted that simply “recreating schools at home” passes up a golden opportunity to engage kids in authentic, self-directed learning.
    31.6k
  • Hard School Work and the Right Kind of Anxiety  

    Not all feelings of self-doubt and anxiety are antithetical to learning. In fact, confusion and frustration can be fruitful—and drive deeper learning.
    458
  • A young woman reads a heavily annotated book.

    6 Techniques for Building Reading Skills—in Any Subject

    Students need good reading skills not just in English but in all classes. Here are some ways you can help them develop those skills.
    38.6k
  • Getting First Graders Started With Research

    Teaching academically honest research skills helps first graders learn how to collect, organize, and interpret information.
    849
  • Rethinking How We Teach Reading in Elementary School

    To become better readers, Natalie Wexler says, students should grapple with abundant, high-caliber texts in the elementary grades—not just skills and strategies.
    3.5k
  • Creating a Weekly Sequence That Works

    New and veteran teachers can benefit from creating a predictable weekly sequence of content delivery, student application and exploration, and assessment.
    468
  • 3 Ways to Integrate SEL Into the Curriculum

    To ensure that social and emotional learning has the greatest impact on learning, embed SEL in academic instruction.
    830
  • Incorporating the College Essay Into Your Curriculum

    Writing college application essays is stressful, and this 10-day lesson can help. And the writing practice benefits those students who don’t plan to attend college as well.
    390
  • How to Plan When You Don’t Know What to Plan For

    What school will look like in the fall is still uncertain for most of the U.S., but teachers can develop flexible plans that work for distance and in-class teaching.
    12.1k
  • Connecting Black History to Joy

    Black History Month isn’t only about pain—it can be a full-fledged celebration of accomplishments that have shaped America.
    503
  • Teacher standing in front of class with students' hands raised

    5 Highly Effective Teaching Practices

    We teachers are always looking to innovate, so, yes, it's essential that we try new things to add to our pedagogical bag of tricks. But it's important to focus on purpose and intentionality -- and not on quantity. So what really matters more than "always trying something new" is the reason behind why we do what we do.
    30.2k
  • The Importance of Student Choice Across All Grade Levels

    When students get to make decisions about their learning, it can be powerfully motivating.
    4.4k

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George Lucas Educational Foundation

Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.
Edutopia® and Lucas Education Research™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of the George Lucas Educational Foundation in the U.S. and other countries.