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Distance Learning & Instructional Materials Guidance in Response to COVID-19

In partnership with the California Department of Education (CDE), CalCurriculum has launched guidelines and resources focused on helping districts ensure they have high-quality instructional materials during distance learning.

Williams FAQ Resource

Learn more about Williams Legislation, check out our FAQ on all things regarding sufficient materials for your students.

Going "Off List"

Guidance for selecting instructional materials not on the CDE Adoption List.

Adoption Guidance Resource Pack

Check out our adoption resources to take you through the work necessary for a successful adoption.

Math Implementation Guide

CalCurriculum: This guide provides specific, actionable tools to support your implementation of high-quality math instructional materials. By using our guide, you will: develop a collaborative, data driven plan, learn about the main areas of implementation support, and align your work with continuous improvement strategies.

Review EL Supports in Instructional Materials

This resources helps prescreen materials for EL Supports.

OER 101

Get the 101 on Open Education Resources. Learn about open licensing, how you can use materials, and the 5Rs of OER.

OER Benefits & Adoption Tips

Learn the benefits to adopting OER materials and what you should keep in mind when considering OER during a materials adoption.

OER Adoption Tips

To better understand how open educational resources (OER) are being used in California, we interviewed over a dozen teachers, district administrators, and OER content developers and distributors about why they adopted, created and use OER. Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District shared these tips from their OER adoption process.

Do Classroom Assignments Reflect Today's Higher Standards

Research by EdTrust on if classroom assignments reflect today's higher standards.

Know Your Starting Point Inventory

CalCurriculum: This guide will help you to reflect on past adoptions, identify key stakeholders, determine communications plans, and set criteria for choosing materials.

Piloting Guidelines

CalCurriculum: CA State Board of Education policy and guidelines for piloting textbook and instructional materials.

Process for Using the IMET to Evaluate Materials

Student Achievement Partners: Student Achievement Partners provides templates for a communications plan and timeline (Pg 13 - 15)

The Hidden Value of Curriculum Reform

Center for American Progress: Report providing new insight on curricula selection, cost and getting a better return on investment with materials.

CA School Dashboard

CDE: Description of the CA Dashboard and associated resources

CA Statewide System of Support

California Department of Education: Assistance and support for local educational agencies (LEAs) with Title I schools, including those identified as Program Improvement (PI), under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965.

Text Complexity Tools

Achieve the Core: Helps set expectations for the complexity of texts students need to be able to read. This collection includes tools to help with each step and research to support teachers' understanding of text complexity.

ELA/ELD Adoption Toolkit

Produced by the CCSESA Curriculum and Instruction Steering Committee, the English Language Arts/Literacy and English Language Development (ELA/Literacy and ELD) Adoption Toolkit is designed to facilitate the selection of publisher programs for instruction in English language arts, English language development, biliteracy language arts, intensive intervention, and specialized English language development.

Foundational Reading Skills (Grades K-3)

US Department of Education: Review your materials for these components in the K-3 Grades

Foundational Skills Observation Tool

Achieve the Core: Observational tool to support K-2 educators with best practices in the foundational skills.

California Department of Education: Math Instructional Materials Adoption List

Programs adopted by California Department of Education's State Board of Education on January 15, 2014.

Math Framework

California Department of Education: Guidelines for implementing the content standards adopted by the CA State Board of Education that are developed by the Instructional Quality Commission.

Educators Evaluating Quality Instructional Products (EQuIP Rubric)

Achieve: Rubric for evaluating instructional materials developed by Achieve.

Guidance on Implementing EnVision Math

Achieve the Core: These documents provide guidance for planning and implementing enVisionmath 2.0 (K-5) in ways that best align to college- and career-ready standards.

Math Evidence Guide (Grades 9-12)

EdReports: These evidence guides support educators throughout the review process and provide looks-fors, references to key documents, and scoring details for each indicator.

Math Evidence Guide (Grades K-8)

EdReports: These evidence guides support educators throughout the review process and provide looks-fors, references to key documents, and scoring details for each indicator.

Math Guidance on Major Work of the Grade

Achieve the Core: Investigate the Major Work of the Grade documents for K-8. Use this document to help your staff understand which clusters and standards should have more emphasis than others, which would then inform your pacing conversations.

Math Instructional Materials Tool (Grades 9-12)

EdReports: Download the HS Math Quality Instructional Materials Tool to learn more about the criteria that EdReports.org's educator reviewers use to evaluate instructional materials for alignment and usabilty and create the detailed reports.

Math Instructional Materials Tool (Grades K-8)

EdReports: Download the K-8 Quality Instructional Materials Tool to learn more about the criteria that EdReports.org's educator reviewers use to evaluate instructional materials for alignment and usabilty and create the detailed reports.

Math Growth Mindset

Youcubed: When educators know how to build students’ growth mindset, they set them on a path to lifelong math learning.

Math Formative Assessment Tips

Math Assessment Project: Tips for effectively using Formative assessments in your math instruction.

Math Guidance on Major Work of the Grade

Achieve the Core: Investigate the Major Work of the Grade documents for K-8. Use this document to help your staff understand which clusters and standards should have more emphasis than others, which would then inform your pacing conversations.

Choosing Blindly: Instructional Materials, Teacher Effectiveness and the Common Core

Brookings Institute: What recent research shows about the connection between instructional materials and student outcomes

CA CCSS and CCSS Crosswalk

CalCurriculum: This resource highlights CA's additions to the CCSS ELA and where educators can look within the EdReports reviews for more information about the additional standards.

Supports for English Learners: Meaning-Making

CalCurriculum: Using EdReports Reviews to Support an Investigation of the ELD Standards and Shifts in Materials

Math Publishers' Criteria (Grades 9-12)

Developed by the National Governor’s Association, Achieve, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Council of Great City Schools, and the National Association of State Boards of Education, this is a key source of guidance for selecting, developing, or revising curricular materials, textbooks, and other resources in mathematics.

Math Publishers' Criteria (Grades K-8)

Developed by the National Governor’s Association, Achieve, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Council of Great City Schools, and the National Association of State Boards of Education, this is a key source of guidance for selecting, developing, or revising curricular materials, textbooks, and other resources in mathematics.

ELA Publishers' Criteria (Grades 3-12)

Developed by the National Governor’s Association, Achieve, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Council of Great City Schools, and the National Association of State Boards of Education, this is a key source of guidance for selecting, developing, or revising curricular materials, textbooks, and other resources in English Language Arts.

Instructional Materials Evaluation Toolkit (IMET)

Achieve the Core: The Math IMET is designed to help educators determine whether instructional materials are aligned to the Shifts and major features of the Math standards

Defining 'Focus' in Math

Council of the Great City Schools: Quick video to get a clearer idea of Focus in math instruction.

Common Core Research

Achieve the Core: Research to support educators who are seeking research on the background of the standards.

Math Shifts

Achieve the Core: This document provides a deeper look at the shifts in math practice. These shifts comprise key elements of the EdReports.org and CA state reviews.

Principles for the Design of ELD in Mathematics Curricula

Stanford University: Framework for mathematics teachers to recognize and support students' language development through mathematics sensemaking.

Understanding Language, Learning and Equity in Mathematics

Stanford University: Landing page for teaching resources that exemplify high-quality instruction for ELLs across Science, Math and ELA.

Guidance on Implementing Go Math

Achieve the Core: These documents provide guidance for implementing GO Math! K-5 in ways that best align to college- and career-ready standards.

Math Coherence Map

Achieve the Core: Find the connections between the K–8 Common Core State Standards for Mathematics

Guidances on Open Educational Resources (OER)

Eastern Michigan University: Open Educational Resources (OER) can be a high quality, cost efficient solution for this issue as long as you evaluate for standards alignment.

Math Progression Documents

Achieve the Core: The mathematics progressions help explain why standards are sequenced the way they are, point out cognitive difficulties and pedagogical solutions, and give more detail on particularly knotty areas of mathematics.

Supports for English Learners: Complex Text

CalCurriculum: Do your materials build scaffolds around close reading of the complex, grade-level anchor texts that allow all students to have meaningful, intellectually challenging interactions? Review our guidance on how to check for EL supports and complex text.

Refining ELA Materials Implementation

CalCurriculum: The Refining Implementation: A Guide to Implementing Instructional Materials in the Field offers guidance and tools to support high-quality ELA implementation that will lead to greater success for teachers and students.