Imagine having your whole year planned out before stepping foot in
your classroom. Cindy Stofferahn, third grade teacher at Sturgis
Elementary School in South Dakota, already knows what she is teaching
today, tomorrow and for the rest of the year.
Stofferahn, with the assistance of another teacher, created a binder
filled with Illuminations lessons from which she will teach throughout
the school year. “I am confident the lessons I am teaching from are
beneficial to student learning, because the lessons are inquiry-based
and follow the standards I need to teach,” said Stofferahn.
Stofferahn has applied the lessons to promote student learning
across grade levels, as first and third graders worked to complete the
lesson As People Get Older, They Get Taller. Stofferahn and a fellow teacher brought their classes together in order to gather data and chart their results.
The teachers observed that student pairs helped one another
throughout the lesson, and coming together allowed older students to
actively engage younger students and deepen their learning. “Students
were working in groups and supporting each other in their learning,”
said Stofferahn. “They were openly discussing the lesson. ”
Moving forward, Stofferahn plans to continue to use Illuminations
lessons that align with the South Dakota third‑grade standards. She
encourages her colleagues to use Illuminations as well, because it can
often times support the textbook material and—simply put—because it’s
free.