• Join our community for free!
• Register and get 10 hours of free lesson download.
• Consistently use our lessons and we'll ask you to contribute your own lessons, credited at a 10:1 time ratio.
• You may of course buy lessons retail or buy a site license.
• We are K-12 teachers sharing lessons that focus on HIGHER ORDER THINKING and problem solving.
• As a not-for-profit coop we also share research, curriculum writing, and on-line mentoring. We help each other implement standards, plan and document course curricula, and assemble coherent lessons, while focusing on teaching critical thinking.

In order to find a lesson, begin with the SEARCH button to the left.  Then specify the type of lesson you want from the options organized in the tree view. You are only required to specify the Concept that the lesson would focus on, but may stipulate criteria from any of the other six major categories to whatever depth you wish.  You may choose options from any level within the tree view.  Nodes that do not constitute an option will only expand or collapse if clicked.  Chosen options will appear in the header bar for each of the seven major categories.

The Curriculum Cooperative (“CCo-op”) is a not-for-profit community of K-12 teachers focused on teaching higher-order thinking. We share classroom-ready lessons and curricula that are designed, cataloged and accessed according to learning theory. 

You become a CCo-op member when you submit a lesson that you have created and it is approved by a mentor.  You will be assigned a mentor based on the lesson you submit.

Your mentor will help you with using the Curriculum Cooperative Library to maximum effect in your classroom.  Mentors can also help you design standards-based units and courses focused on higher-order thinking.

Why become a member of the Curriculum Cooperative?
Here are six good reasons why joining The Curriculum Cooperative will help you teach your students critical thinking, flexible problem solving and reasoned decision-making.  We are a not-for-profit teachers’ cooperative where each new member increases every member’s effectiveness.

Forums on Lessons, Concepts, Skills, Topics and Coop Function
Use the forums to meet your peers for professional discussion and input on growing the Cooperative: Give suggestions and comment on changing the Library cataloging and searching functions, on the operation and features of the CCo-op Library, and on CCo-op governance.

Terms of Service - "The Legal Deal"
As teachers who author and share lessons with each other as well as sell them collectively, we are organized as a not-for-profit worker’s cooperative.  Here are the arrangements among all the stakeholders: visitors, Co-op members, authors, down-loaders and the Curriculum Cooperative.

The History of the Cooperative
Click here for an overview of The Curriculum Cooperative’s origin and connection to the larger picture of K-12 education.

Job Descriptions for Mentors and Domain Supervisors
Members are encouraged to become mentors, who may then become domain supervisors, responsible for a concept, topic and/or skill domain.  Here are the details of the tasks and percentage commissions for each.

Author Resources and Marketplace
Still being developed, this option will provide a marketplace where teachers can find colleagues with particular skills or knowledge as well as offer their services to other educators.

Coop Member Agreement
The agreement between the Curriculum Cooperative and its members is described in eight paragraphs.

By-Laws of The Curriculum Cooperative
These are the by-laws that govern the operations of the cooperative, including how profits are shared with members and how members control the Cooperative’s governance.

The Curriculum Cooperative Library was designed as a tool for teaching higher-order thinking and resources are offered here on using this tool.  Some of the resources are designed to help you understand the Library's underlying cognitive model of learning, which should help you use this tool to maximum effect. Some of these professional development resources are focused on designing unit and course curriculums that are focused on higher-order thinking.

NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) Analysis of Underlying Structure of Transferable Concepts
The NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards) Performance Expectations are each analyzed for its underlying transferable concept or skill using a master structure of transferable concepts and skills (available under the Research & Resources tab). One of the two documents for each of the three levels (elementary, middle and high school) show the allocation of each Expectation, translated into a concept or skill-based generalization, to a concept. The second is a one-page summary of the concept and skill load for each level intended to facilitate vertical curriculum planning that corresponds with developmental and cognitive learning principles.

Operator's Manual for The Curriculum Library
Here are instructions on using the Library to search for lessons as well as submit lessons of your own to share with your colleagues.

What Does Higher-Order Thinking Look Like?
This is a detailed description of higher-order thinking, how such a goal relates to other educational goals, and how higher-order thinking can be defined in a way useful for classroom teaching and learning.

Introduction to 3-D Professional Development – PowerPoint
The Curriculum Library's underlying cognitive model is developed over about 50 PowerPoint slides intended to be reasonably self-explanatory.

How The Curriculum Library Is A Tool For Teaching Higher-Order Thinking
This short essay describes how the structure and design of the Curriculum Library are focused on teaching and learning higher order thinking.   Also explained is how the Library's structure can be used as a tool to enhance any on-going effort or program focused on increasing students' higher-order thinking.  It ends by describing how the Library can be used in place of a textbook as the backbone of a rigorous course of study, regardless of the particular subject area or topic. 

An Overview of The Curriculum Library
Here is a short description of the history and development of the Curriculum Library and of the two keystone innovations that dictated its structure and function.

Benefits Of A 3-D Professional Development Strategy For Coordinating Classroom-Based Initiatives To Improve Student Learning
Originally developed for parents of students in a school implementing a 3-D template for organizing their programs and professional development to focus on higher order thinking, this list of benefits focuses on the impact on their students' learning.

Curriculum Planning for Units and Courses
A template for designing unit and course curricula focused on higher-order thinking is developed in a series of graphic pages focused on implementation, from gaining consensus to documentation.

What are Generalizations or Enduring Understandings?
Here is a practical yet detailed description of what generalizations are, how they are the foundation for defining transferable knowledge, and how they are the connection to objective assessment of higher-order thinking.

Professional Development Program for Mentor Teachers
This is the binder of hand-outs and activities for a 3-day, on-site professional development program that is also to be the basis of an 8-part, on-line professional development program.  Potential mentors are asked to commit to completing such a PD program.

Classroom Observation Form
This form is intended for a 10-15 minute drop-in observation of a classroom. It provides for reliable and objective scoring of classroom practice as curriculum, instruction and assessment along three objective scales. It also provides three numerical scales for characterizing student learning of concepts, content and skills.

The structure and features of the Curriculum Cooperative and its Curriculum Library are derived from educational research and the psychology, neurology, and philosophy associated with the teaching and learning of higher-order thinking.  Such resources as well as action research in classrooms by Cooperative members are made available here.

What Does Higher-Order Thinking Look Like?
This is a detailed description of higher-order thinking, how such a goal relates to other educational goals, and how higher-order thinking can be defined in a way useful for classroom teaching and learning.

Achieving Higher-Order Thinking – A 3-D classroom model
This five page summary of a 3-D model of classroom practice focused on higher-order thinking begins with the need for such learning.  It proposes an operational definition and a corresponding model for classroom practice focused on such learning.  It ends with the rationale for the Curriculum Cooperative Library as a tool for implementing such teaching and learning in the reality of today’s public classrooms.

How The Curriculum Library Is A Tool For Teaching Higher-Order Thinking
This short essay describes how the structure and design of the Curriculum Library are focused on teaching and learning higher order thinking.   Also explained is how the Library’s structure can be used as a tool to enhance any on-going effort or program focused on increasing students’ higher-order thinking.  It ends by describing how the Library can be used in place of a textbook as the backbone of a rigorous course of study, regardless of the particular subject area or topic.

What are Generalizations or Enduring Understandings?
Here is a practical yet detailed description of what generalizations are, how they are the foundation for defining transferable knowledge, and how they are the connection to objective assessment of higher-order thinking.

Inquiry Learning at the High School Level:  A Possible Answer to the Depth-Coverage Trade-Off
This 11-page paper describes how inquiry learning at the high school level could be focused on higher-order thinking.  Such an alignment would also make it possible to have both increased depth and increased breadth of learning, one reinforcing rather than fighting the other for classroom time.

Structure of Transferable Concepts – Science
This summary chart is a working document of about 200 transferable scientific concepts organized according to the three parameters derived from cognitive and developmental psychology:  Generality, Complexity, and Abstractness.  Enduring understandings for each concept are available under the Help icon for each concept in the Curriculum Library  tree of options.

Structure of Transferable Concepts – Math
This summary chart is a working document of about 70 transferable mathematical concepts organized according to the three parameters derived from cognitive and developmental psychology:  Generality, Complexity, and Abstractness.

Structure of Transferable Concepts – History and Social Studies
This summary chart is a working document of about 80 transferable scientific concepts organized according to the three parameters derived from cognitive and developmental psychology:  Generality, Complexity, and Abstractness.

Summary of Doctoral Dissertation: An Investigation Of Children's Ideas About Conservation Of Energy within A Concept-Based Model.
(1994, University of Massachusetts Amherst)
A six year doctoral study, encompassing both academic and classroom research, initially mapped out what was to become The Curriculum Cooperative as a practical model for public classrooms to teach and learn higher-order thinking.

Annotated Bibliography for Concept-Based Education focused on Higher Order Thinking
These brief descriptions emphasize what some of the seminal publications in the theory of intellectual learning say about higher-order thinking.

Glossary of Terms
Definitions of some terms commonly found in the programs and literature of many school-based programs focused on student learning, higher-order thinking and concept-based education.