Learning List’s editorial reviews reflect feedback from multiple Learning List reviewers. Our reviewers are highly qualified, experienced educators who are certified to teach the courses and have experience teaching the standards of the products they review. Each editorial review aggregates feedback from multiple reviewers, as well as from Learning List’s Director of Editorial Review, who verifies the reviewers’ observations and adds additional information from her own reviews of the material.
Our editorial reviews contain evidence that addresses many of the criterion in your district’s rubric(s). The “Compare Product Info.” tool on our site makes it easy to extract from our reviews and compare key features of multiple materials you are considering for an adoption. This article explains three ways to use these two resources to facilitate your adoption.
(1) Narrow the Materials You Want to Review: Use our “Compare Product Info.” tool to create a side-by-side comparison of the strengths and key features of up to three materials at a time. This makes it easy to learn enough about the available products to determine which are most likely to meet your students’ needs and thus, should be reviewed by your district’s selection committee.
(2) Find Evidence to Complete the District’s Rubrics: Once you have narrowed the number of materials the district’s selection committee will review, the committee members can use Learning List’s editorial reviews to help them find the necessary evidence to complete the district’s rubrics. The image below diagrams where typical district rubric criteria are likely to be addressed in Learning List’s alignment report, spec sheet, and editorial reviews. Learning List’s editorial reviews will not contain all the evidence needed to complete a district’s rubric, but it will certainly help expedite the committee members’ reviews.
(3) Provide Documentation for the School Board: Once the committee has decided which materials to recommend for adoption, use the “Compare Product Info.” tool again to create a side-by-side comparison of the final three materials the selection committee considered for each course. The comparison will include key features of each material, including its strengths and alignment percentage. The page is customizable. So, for example, you can type in the committee’s rationale for selecting the product being recommended for adoption. The customized comparison can be printed as a PDF and distributed to the school Board.
Districts that have used Learning List to support an adoption report that our reviews and tools:
- Saved the selection committee hours of work;
- Made it easy to do apples-to-apples comparisons of the materials’ instructional features, even if the materials are formatted differently;
- Focused the committee’s discussions on the quality of material’s instruction, rather than on extraneous product features; and
- Helped them avoid making an expensive mistake.