By William Zhou
This past spring, schools across the United States faced a shared shock but came away with very different results. When Covid-19 forced building closures in March, districts discovered where they stood on a spectrum that ranged from “fully prepared for remote learning” to “this closure is effectively a school shutdown.” Many teachers rightly prioritized students’ social-emotional needs, conducting regular check-ins with students and families to understand how they were coping with trauma before shifting their attention back to academics.
Districts’ readiness for distance learning largely hinged on their technology infrastructure and prior investments in educational technology. Systems that had already embraced online learning and equipped teachers with robust EdTech tools managed the transition more smoothly. Schools that hurriedly adopted new platforms struggled. Even well-prepared districts faced obstacles from the digital divide: some families lacked devices or reliable home internet. Communities and school leaders, however, stepped in with creative solutions to close these access gaps.
As we enter another semester — and likely much of the coming school year — remote learning has moved from emergency response to a long-term reality. That shift raises two urgent questions: Which preventable problems should have been addressed before the pandemic and must be fixed now, and what systemic changes in K-12 education do we need to anticipate and act on?
No more snow days
Weather closures, seasonal illnesses and household emergencies are recurring disruptions every school year. If schools can keep learning going through a once-in-a-century pandemic, it’s reasonable to ask why we are still stopped by routine events. With deliberate adoption of technology and the growing acceptance that learning can occur anywhere, those disruptions are likely to become less disruptive. The technology to teach and learn remotely is increasingly available and supports continuity when buildings are closed.
Technology is a vital component of remote teaching and learning, but it’s not the foundation. That foundation is curriculum. When teachers reported the biggest struggles this past semester — or when educators found themselves overwhelmed — the core issues were usually the combination of moving out of the physical classroom, setting up remote teaching tools, and simultaneously redesigning lesson plans. Districts that recognized closure would last beyond a few weeks and that lacked a durable, clearly articulated curriculum found themselves facing lost instructional time and the false choice between education and public health.
Mapping out your success
A strong, well-planned curriculum has always been central to district success; the pandemic has only made that more obvious. Effective curriculum mapping begins with the end goals — the learning outcomes students need to achieve — and works backward to create a clear instructional pathway. When a school or district adopts a coherent curriculum map, teachers know which standards to teach and when. That clarity enables efficient lesson planning, helps teachers focus on delivering standards-aligned instruction, and provides administrators with a reliable view of student progress throughout the year.
Jennifer Mitchell, coordinator of curriculum and professional development in Pennsylvania’s Mifflin County School District, notes that curriculum mapping “can also save teachers huge amounts of time. Once they have the curriculum, lessons and resources they need at their fingertips, they can focus on delivering effective, standards-aligned lessons to their students to drive achievement and ensure students across all subgroups meet or exceed grade-level expectations.” Those benefits apply equally to in-person and remote learning environments.
High-quality, standards-aligned instruction can be delivered synchronously or asynchronously, with advanced technology or minimal online access. When leaders are confident that teachers know exactly what to teach, adapting the mode of delivery becomes far less daunting. Curriculum mapping reduces the pressure of high-stakes, one-off assessments by enabling continuous monitoring of student progress, helping teachers and administrators understand achievement without relying solely on end-of-year tests.
One Ohio administrator shared that the district’s focus this year is “curriculum and unit planning. We know it’s what we need to do to help our students gain the knowledge and skills they missed last year. It’s about building the right curriculum map where everything is aligned: which essential standards need to be taught and which lessons address those standards.”
Back at the beginning
Some districts anticipated the need for transparent curriculum plans. Mitchell described plans to publish curriculum map information so families could access it easily. While creating and maintaining curriculum maps is a significant undertaking, districts that complete the work gain major advantages: increased teacher confidence, clear family communication, and continuity of instruction whether students learn in a classroom or at home.
As businesses have adopted remote work more broadly and schools adapted during the pandemic, education is likely to include more remote, asynchronous and flexible learning options going forward. But flexibility only matters if what is taught is meaningful and aligned to clear learning goals. That means curriculum must be central to conversations about the future of K-12 education. By embracing curriculum mapping and integrating curriculum, instruction and assessment, districts can build systems that sustain learning through disruptions and prepare students for long-term success.
About the author
William Zhou is the CEO of Chalk, an education technology company that uses data to help K-12 schools integrate curriculum, instruction and assessment. Chalk was founded to enhance the value of meaningful data on teaching and learning. Zhou has been passionate about entrepreneurship from a young age and was previously named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
This article was originally published by The Learning Counsel, a research institute and news media organization focused on the shift in education toward digital curriculum and the changing role of technology in schools.