4 Ways Learning List Helps Publishers Strengthen Their Products

Students are more likely to do well on state assessments if their instructional materials help them learn what the state requires them to know and be able to do after taking the course.

Publishers regularly tell us that going through our review process has helped them strengthen their materials in a variety of ways:

Trustworthy correlations help teachers quickly identify the parts of an instructional material that will help students master the knowledge and skills required in each standard. Publishers typically develop correlations for materials they intend to submit for state adoption but do not routinely correlate their non-state-adopted and supplemental materials.

A detailed correlation document must accompany any product submitted to Learning List for review. Therefore, many publishers have used Learning List’s alignment templates to correlate their materials to state standards for the first time. Learning List’s subject matter experts then verify that the citations in the publisher’s correlation are aligned to the content, context and cognitive demand of each standard.

2) Strengthening their correlations:

Learning List’s subject matter experts review the citations listed in the publisher’s correlation from an educator’s perspective. For each citation found not to be aligned to the relevant standard, Learning List’s reviewers provide a comment explaining precisely which part of the standard the citation fails to address.

Some publishers have eliminated from their correlations any citations Learning List found not to be aligned to the standards. As one publisher told us, “We don’t want to mislead our customers in any way. We’d rather remove any citations that your reviewers believed did not address the standards as deeply as educators need them to.”

3) Helping educators use products more effectively:

Learning List allows publishers to provide comments in response to our alignment review. Several publishers have provided comments to guide subscribers to content provided in another grade level where a particular standard is more deeply aligned. Other publishers suggest ways subscribers can adjust their use of the product (e.g., extend the number range; access a writing tool) to address the dictates of a particular standard that Learning List found not to be aligned in the material.

4) Strengthening product content:

Publishers have also added content to their products to address deficiencies highlighted in Learning List’s alignment reports. For example, in response to Learning List’s alignment review of its elementary math products, a publisher created new content for the teacher editions and submitted a correlation to the new content for a subsequent review. As a result of the additional content, the product’s alignment percentage increased from around 70 to 98%.

Last week, the publisher of state-adopted materials that were deemed by the state review panel to be aligned to fewer than 100% of the standards asked us to review new content developed to address deficits highlighted in the state’s review. We will review the new content and provide subscribers with both the original state alignment report and Learning List’s alignment report for the updated product.

Learning List helps students learn by providing high quality reviews that empower educators to select the instructional materials that will best meet their students’ needs. However, Learning List is helping students learn in another, equally important way. By helping publishers strengthen their materials’ alignment to the standards, Learning List is helping students receive materials that will better prepare them for academic success.