When reviewing the alignment of a material, our subject matter experts review multiple citations (e.g., pages, lessons, videos) listed in the publisher’s correlation for alignment to each state standard. For some products, this means that Learning List will have reviewed all of the citations listed in the publisher’s correlation; for others, it means that Learning List has reviewed several but not all of the publisher’s citations.
We constructed our review methodology to balance subscribers’ need for a thorough review against
their need for a timely review. Some publishers list more than 20 citations as aligned to each standard. If we were to review all of the listed citations, it would take months instead of weeks to complete a review, and educators told us that the resulting alignment reports would be too cumbersome to use.
A subscriber once asked, “Do you think that the fact you don’t review all of the citations in the publisher’s correlation diminishes the usefulness of your service?” Even though we have not reviewed every citation listed in the publisher’s correlation, our alignment reports help educators focus on the parts of the material that will give them the greatest instructional value. [Read More …]
Here are five ways educators can use our alignment reports to inform their instruction:
1. To Identify Resources Aligned to Certain Standards: Our alignment reports help educators quickly identify which materials, and even more important, specific citations within each material that are fully aligned to the standards they intend to teach.
2. To Reteach Standards: Teachers who use their core material “cover to cover” can use our alignment reports for the supplemental materials their district owns to identify “aligned citations” that will help reteach standards students are struggling with.
3. To Identify Multiple Resources to Use In Lessons/For Differentiation: Instead of going to the internet to find additional resources, industrious teachers who want to incorporate multiple resources in their lessons can use Learning List’s alignment reports for each of their district’s materials to identify “aligned citations” for the standards they want to cover. Teachers tell us that this has saved them hours of work, and administrators have greater peace of mind about the resources teachers are using.
4. As a Predictor of Alignment: If a teacher wants to use a citation from the publisher’s correlation that we have not reviewed, our alignment report can serve as a guide to/predictor of the probability that additional citations listed in the publisher’s correlation are aligned to that standard.
For example: if our alignment report shows that only two of the five citations we reviewed were aligned to the standard, then there is a strong possibility that the additional citation may not be aligned to that standard. Thus, the teacher would probably want to review the alignment of that citation carefully before using it.
If, on the other hand, our alignment report shows that all of the citations we reviewed were aligned to standard, the teacher can be more confident that the additional citation he/she wants to use will be aligned to that standard.
5. As a Self-Check on the Teacher’s Own Alignment Decisions: We strongly encourage teachers to review the alignment of their materials themselves. In such cases, teachers can use our alignment reports as a reference or independent self-check, since alignment determinations often are not black-and-white.
Moreover, our alignment reports for many materials are more detailed than the publisher’s correlation. For example, College Board requires publishers to submit Advanced Placement (AP®) materials for our review in order to for the materials to be eligible to be selected for an AP Example Textbook List. Often, publishers submit to us a correlation that is significantly more specific than the correlation sold with their material. The same is true when publishers submit adaptive materials for our review. Thus, our alignment reports often provide teachers with more textual evidence of the alignment of a material than provided in the publisher’s correlation that is sold with the product.