For district academic and curriculum leaders
Get more achievement from the high-quality curriculum you already own.
HQIM implementation for Chief Academic Officers and curriculum leaders
Your district has invested in high-quality curriculum and support for teachers. If achievement growth is still falling short of your goals, a significant body of research says the next opportunity is shifting the instructional system from teacher-centered to student-centered around those materials.
Explore how Instructional Empowerment’s Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning® helps teachers put rigorous curriculum into students’ hands through rich discourse, critical thinking, and student-led teams. When students think and reason with HQIM, achievement increases dramatically.
Why can strong curriculum still fall short of achievement goals?
Strong curriculum provides content and rigorous tasks. Its level of impact depends greatly on whether the teacher or the students are doing the heavy reasoning during lessons. Enacting HQIM in the classroom requires students to reason, critically think, and engage in discourse with the HQIM. ,
Many educators inherited a teacher-centered approach that places most explaining and decision-making with the teacher. Additional training, tighter pacing, and supplemental programs may leave that classroom pattern largely unchanged. A student-centered instructional system is necessary to help teachers shift more of the thinking to students while providing enough explicit instruction and responsive support.
What is the Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning?
The Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning is an instructional system developed by Instructional Empowerment to help teachers enact existing high-quality curriculum through rigorous student team tasks, academic discourse, and critical thinking. It combines student learning structures with teacher professional learning, coaching, and evidence of classroom implementation.
High-quality instructional materials, or HQIM, means high-quality curriculum in this discussion. The model helps teachers and students work with the curriculum your district has already adopted.
How our model supports curriculum implementation
Students gain structures for rigorous team learning
- Defined team roles and discourse protocols that guide how students work together
- Critical thinking guides that help students use evidence to support their thinking
- Practice explaining their reasoning and building on one another’s ideas
- Growing responsibility for their own contribution to rigorous curriculum tasks
Teachers gain a supported way to enact HQIM
- Professional learning that builds skill in designing rigorous, student-led tasks
- Lesson-planning tools that fit directly into the district’s existing curriculum
- Coaching to facilitate and monitor learning as it happens in the classroom
- Continued explicit instruction and responsiveness to student needs as independence grows
Leaders gain evidence of classroom enactment
- Competency verification that examines actual teacher practice, not just completion of training
- Student evidence that shows whether implementation is reaching classrooms as intended
- Visibility into how the curriculum’s rigor is actually landing with students
- Clear signals on where additional support is needed to strengthen implementation
Picture the difference in an ELA lesson
A student team examines competing interpretations of a text. Each member brings evidence, explains why it matters, and responds to a peer's reasoning. The teacher listens for misconceptions and coaches the team toward deeper understanding. The adopted text stays central to the students' work throughout.
See this shift explained in the webinar →
Register for the WebinarWhat research supports the Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning?
In a Colorado Springs School District 11 pilot using 2025–26 data, students taught by teachers verified in the Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning scored higher on spring STAR assessments than matched comparison students in the same district and grade levels using the same curriculum.
English Language Arts (ELA)
+22.44
STAR scale-score points — adjusted difference vs. matched comparison students.
357 students in the study sample
Mathematics
+18.24
STAR scale-score points — adjusted difference vs. matched comparison students.
449 students in the study sample
Instructional Empowerment’s Applied Research Center conducted the study in partnership with District 11. The analysis accounted for prior achievement, student characteristics, and classroom clustering. These findings describe students of verified implementing teachers in one district. They concern STAR interim assessments, not percentage-point increases in state-test proficiency, and do not guarantee results elsewhere.
See this evidence explained in the webinar →
Register for the Webinar
“It's more than just making sure everyone is using the same resource—it's also ensuring that resource is getting used in a high-quality, rigorous way with all students and all populations.”
Dr. Krystal Rasmussen Chief of Curriculum, Colorado Springs School District 11, Colorado
Unlock Greater Gains From Your Existing Curriculum
Webinar for CAOs and curriculum leaders
Examine the instructional conditions that help high-quality curriculum deliver deeper learning, review the District 11 evidence, and explore how the Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning supports teachers.
You will explore:
- Why curriculum adoption and existing support may still leave an achievement gap.
- How student discourse and critical thinking help students engage with rigorous content.
- How teacher learning, coaching, and verification support the classroom shift.
- What the pilot findings mean and which questions to examine in your district.
- How a workshop can help your CAO and curriculum team consider the model together.
Bring the question your team needs to answer: What would need to change in daily instruction for our students to realize more of our curriculum’s potential?
Ready to go deeper with your team?
A complimentary solution workshop gives your CAO and curriculum team time to examine the instructional shifts, discuss the research, and consider next steps with your adopted curriculum. In-person workshops are available for large and midsize districts; a virtual version is available for smaller districts.
Questions and resources for curriculum leaders
The Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning is designed to help teachers enact the high-quality curriculum already in place. A district conversation examines your materials and implementation needs before identifying an appropriate approach.
The Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning is an instructional system. It connects student team structures, rigorous task planning, teacher competencies, coaching, and evidence of implementation within daily instruction. Implementation takes practice and support.
The model gives those supports a shared instructional focus: how students use the curriculum to reason, discuss evidence, and solve rigorous tasks. Planning, coaching, and verification connect professional learning to observable classroom practice.
A district conversation can examine how your framework guides teacher and student actions and where additional structures or support could help. The workshop gives your CAO and curriculum team a shared opportunity to assess that fit.
Teachers continue to provide explicit instruction, monitor understanding, and offer responsive support. They also teach students how to discuss ideas, use evidence, and work productively in teams so that students gradually take greater responsibility for learning.
You can contact Instructional Empowerment directly to discuss your district's goals and a team workshop. The webinar is another way to examine the model and evidence before deciding what to explore next.
Students work on tasks that require them to reason together, with roles and protocols that structure participation. Each student contributes thinking and evidence. Teachers monitor individual understanding as teams work toward a shared outcome.
Teachers establish the learning goals, design rigorous tasks, teach explicitly, and coach students as needed. Students develop the skills to lead the discussion, use evidence, and take greater responsibility for their learning within those conditions.
Research and curriculum implementation resources
The Missing Piece in HQIM Implementation: How to Get Higher Achievement from Your Existing Curriculum — Michael D. Toth and Merewyn Lyons explain the capacity, enactment, and systems gaps.
