SERP News

For teachers and students who are looking for device-friendly materials to use for remote learning, the SERP WordGen team has added new options.

SERP is very pleased to announce that a timely, new unit has been added to the program. In addition, we are developing device-friendly versions of the materials to help with remote learning. STARI curriculum materials are accessible online free of charge.

SERP’s Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI) curriculum is now organized into three series, with Series 1 intended for 6th grade, Series 2 for 7th, and Series 3 for 8th and 9th. All three series address similar reading needs, but the series 2 and 3 topics and reading materials are increasingly sophisticated.

In an EdWeek Opinion piece, SERP Executive Director Suzanne Donovan and Board Chair Bruce Alberts call out the sharp inequities in K-12 education and propose a path forward with education's equivalent of teaching hospitals. Innovation and Induction (i2) Clusters, like one launching soon in Chula Vista, California, would integrate teacher induction, evidence-based innovation and evaluation, and attention to equity into a coherent whole. The approach would channel the energy invested in many different valuable initiatives into a stable nationwide effort capable of continuous improvement.

We at the SERP Institute add our voices to the many millions demanding an end to systemic racism. In line with our mission, we are committed to redoubling our efforts to provide teachers with educational resources that encourage students to think deeply about justice, equality, and democracy, and to engage in informed discussion and debate about the issues that will be theirs to shape in the decades to come. Three civics units in particular, designed for middle school but used by high school teachers as well, may be useful to those who seek to provide meaningful, student-centered instructional opportunities that are relevant to the discussions of racial bias happening today.

Getting students to engage with school work while at home can be a challenge. So it’s more important than ever to provide materials that are interesting enough to command their attention. WordGen Elementary is designed to do just that! Plus, it supports the development of academic vocabulary, close reading, reading comprehension, perspective-taking, critical thinking, and writing.

The challenges of distance learning can lead to greater reliance on worksheets at the very same time that students are being asked to motivate their own learning. WordGen units that focus on deeper thinking about topics that engage students continue to be freely downloadable from our website, but the aspect that students find most engaging—the weekly debates—are difficult to replicate outside the classroom. We are very pleased to have discovered a platform that can serve as a companion to Word Generation by supporting interactive, written debates.

In our work with partner schools and teachers, we have received several requests for recommendations regarding how to adapt STARI for use at home during this challenging period of distance learning. In response to these requests, we have adapted several resources that we are making available to our broader STARI community.

While schools across the country have been forced to close their doors, teachers and families have been tasked with creating new ways to educate and support students. If SERP resources can be of help during this difficult period, please remember that they are available as free downloads to all—teachers, families, and anyone else who is interested. We have highlighted a few that we think may be particularly suitable for online platforms and for families working together at home. 

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

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) has awarded a partnership grant to a DCPS-SERP team to explore contributors to variation in student reading success across schools with similar demographic characteristics.

SERP is working in collaboration with school districts and university chemistry faculty to create a high school chemistry course focused on the compelling issue of climate change that is now energizing so many young people.

Based on feedback from STARI teachers and coaches, SERP has developed an assessment guide and other classroom-ready resources to supplement the STARI curriculum.

Preliminary results are in, and analyses demonstrate statistically significant results for students using the MathByExample Grade 5 materials over the course of a year.

IES has funded a new project that will support iterative development and testing of worked example assignments for high school geometry.

Additional resources and tips for teaching English learners have been updated for the new Word Generation website.

SERP’s team of instructional and graphic designers, illustrators, and videographers have moved across the bridge from San Francisco to Oakland.

If you haven’t already, please re-register to access SERP materials. The streamlined login system on the new site provides access to all of SERP’s free resources under one digital roof. SERP’s current download centers will be retired in the coming weeks.

Not only is this platform new, there’s also a lot of new content to be explored. There are three new cell units, plus new material on waves, density, and matter. This brings the total number of units to 24. The 18 units in the previous version's format will also remain available.

The Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention (STARI) is a Tier II program for students in grades 6–9 who are reading below grade level. The New York City Department of Education’s Middle School Quality Initiative (MSQI) has been using the program in many of its schools, and SERP was interested in capturing the experience to share with others. SERP partnered with video producer Jim Hoppin and MSQI network leaders, teachers, and students to produce this video.

The research team of the Internal Coherence Project has developed a set of processes and protocols to build the collective capability of the adults in a school/school system to carry out an instructional improvement strategy. With the release of the new publication, The Internal Coherence Framework: Creating the Conditions for Continuous Improvement in Schools (2017, Harvard Education Press), the team shares its clinical tools and the research base that has shaped their design or selection.