Curriculum and Instruction: Best Practices Resource Hub by Kendal Farren

Universal Design for Learning

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:29:15 UTC

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework teachers can use to improve and optimize teaching and learning based on how the brain learns. This framework offers strategies to differentiate learning across three categories. By using this framework, teachers can make learning accessible to all students despite their diverse backgrounds.

The UDL framework offers:

Multiple means of engagement
Multiple means of representation
Multiple means of expression.

Newsela

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:30:40 UTC

Newsela is an online platform that provides teachers and students with research-based and engaging reading, social studies, and STEM-based literacy instruction and materials. This platform allows for all reading materials to be differentiated to different reading levels. This allows all students to engage with the same content, but is modified so they can access the text at their instructional level. This can be used to provide differentiated texts to students in all subject areas so all students can be successful.

Khan Academy

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:30:47 UTC

Khan Academy is an online resource that is free for teachers to use. It provides additional instruction, lessons, and activities that can be leveled below, at, or above the level of students. The lesson are self-guided which allows for the students to work at their own pace. This can be used in addition to the curriculum provided allowing students extended practice or an introduction to skills they may learn in the future.

Breakout EDU

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:30:58 UTC

Breakout EDU is a game-based learning platform that transforms classroom content into escape-room style learning activities. These activities are designed to reinforce academic content while encouraging collaboration, teamwork, and most importantly, critical thinking. This can be used to supplement the content matter being learned within the curriculum to enrich students with real-world problem solving skills and gamify learning to increase engagement.

Cornell University

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:31:05 UTC

Cornell University's Center for Teaching Innovation offers a variety of collaborative learning resources. These recommendations were created from educational research, instructor experiences, and observations. It offers suggestions for group work, peer discussions, and team projects. This resource can be used by teachers to provide ideas and guidance for how collaborative learning can used within their curriculum.

Lumio

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:31:11 UTC

Lumio is an online learning tool that was created to help transform lessons into collaborative and engaging learning experiences. The software allows for existing content to be modified to include interactive elements such as text, video, audio, and games. It also allows for students to join lessons from their personal devices to interact with the lesson individually or within a group. Lumio allows for modes to be switched between teacher-paced and student-paced based on what they are trying to teach and accomplish. This tool can be used to take their existing lessons from their curriculum and transfrom them into more engaging and interactive expiriences.

Brown University

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:31:16 UTC

Brown University holds a collection of materials created by their Education Alliance. This website offers 94 different materials that are intended to enhance learning for culturally and linguistically diverse students. These materials include action research projects, publications, articles, and more to help teachers work more effectively and equitably with diverse learners. It offers practical teaching strategies, ideas to engage ELLs, and tips for communicating with families. This resource can be used by educators to receive strategies and ideas they can use to promote cultural diversity within their curriculum and how to meet the needs of diverse students.

EdChange

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:31:23 UTC

The EdChange Multicultural Pavilion is a collection of resources for educators to help them incorporate and celebrate diversity in the classroom. It includes lessons, activities, books, articles, websites, and more designed to provide teacher's with practical application strategies. For example, they include a list of "Awareness Activities" that offer teachers engaging ideas and activities to introduce diversity at the start of the school year. Teachers can use this resource to supplement and modify their current curriculum to support diversity as well as learn more ways they can support diverse learners. They can also find information on workshops and seminars to engage in professional learning on this topic.

Deeper Learning: Why Cross-Curricular Teaching is Essential

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:31:34 UTC

Edutopia offers an article on the process behind cross-curricular teaching. This article not only explains the benefits of cross-curricular learning and how it supports the deeper learning of students, but it also provides the three modes of collaboration teachers need to be successful with this concept. Cross-curricular teams must be

Aligned
Cooperative
Conceptual

Teachers can use this article to give them the components of a successful cross-curricular team to help them begin planning within their curriculum. This article serves as a starting point in the creation or modification of curricular education in their school/district.

Cross-Curricular Connections in Instruction

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:31:43 UTC

This ThoughtCo article provides readers with a definition of cross-curricular instruction, examples of cross-curricular teaching, and strategies for implementing this skill into instruction. This article offers various integration strategies which can be used based on the needs of the team, school, or district. Teachers can use this article to identify what style of integration would suit the needs of their students best as well as research behind the important of cross-curricular education. This article can serve as the foundation of what strategies must be implemented to be successful in this kind of planning with their curriculum.

Panorama Education

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:31:48 UTC

Panorama offers a variety of resources that teachers can use to teach SEL skills in their classroom as well as how they can use student data to promote and enhance social-emotional learning in their classroom. Panorama offers a student self-assessment survey that can identify students feelings and emotional regulation skills. This survey data can be used to guide decision making as well as identify areas of need. Panorama also offers SEL lessons as well as tools and resources to promote these skills in the classroom. This can be used by teachers to help incorporate social-emotional learning within their curriculum as well as helping students develop the necessary skills to be successful within their learning.

RethinkEd

kendalfarren — 2025-10-05 17:31:53 UTC

RethinkEd is an online platform that provides teachers and students with multi-tiered social-emotional learning lessons and activities. These activities are based on developmentally appropriate skills and can be used for whole group, small group, or one on one instruction. RethinkEd can be used by teachers to add explicit instruction of social-emotional skills within their curriculum as well as a tiered intervention support based on student need.