REL Pacific is working with national and state education leaders in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) to improve systemwide teacher planning and instruction by developing state-specific instructional models that can build a shared understanding of how learning works in their educational context and identify effective strategies teachers can use to support student learning. The goal of the project is to create instructional models for each state that elevate and sustain cultural practices and ways of knowing while achieving academic standards and dual-language policies that are currently in development across FSM. Pohnpei State DOE participated in this project from October 2022 and June 2023, and Kosrae State DOE began their participation in this project in October 2023.

This project supports efforts of the Yap Department of Education (YDOE) in the Federated States of Micronesia in improving the quality of Indigenous Yapese culture education in K–12 schools across Yap. The REL Pacific team is supporting YDOE as they update their Indigenous culture curricula and plan to train YDOE culture teachers about the new curricula.

REL Pacific supported the Yap State Department of Education’s efforts during SY2022/23 as they started to create a unified Yap State Indigenous culture curriculum that combines elements of their existing curriculums, incorporating best practices of curriculum shared by other Indigenous communities, and planning for standards and appropriate means of assessment. REL Pacific supported the YDOE central office development of their first state-wide culture curriculum by facilitating a week-long session with Yap Indigenous culture teachers to help YDOE identify content and measurable student learning outcomes for new curriculum in the summer of 2023.

This project supports the FSM partnership and FSM state DOEs in their efforts to develop and implement culturally sustaining instructional models by reviewing research on systems change. In this week-long session, participants will learn the components of education systems, organizational change theory, stakeholder engagement, designing effective professional learning, and monitoring implementation, while developing initial implementation plans based on their local initiatives and contexts. Kosrae State DOE participated in this training in June 2023, and Pohnpei State DOE participated in this training in July 2023.

REL Pacific is supporting FSM state DOEs’ to plan and pilot their implementation of the culturally sustaining instructional models that were developed in a preceding project. The project sessions will focus on using the Team Initiated Problem Solving (TIPS) process to better understand and adapt the DOEs’ pilot implementations of the instructional models with their identified pilot schools. Pohnpei DOE began their participation in this project in September 2023.