Learning List Blog

In the July 15th issue of Education Week, there was a tech-related article about personalized learning titled: “Before Buying Technology, Asking ‘Why?’ ” The same can be asked about the K12 instructional materials selection process. Before you purchase anything, ask “Why?” Why is your proposed selection the best choice? We seek your reply to: What Key Question(s) Do You (the Educator) Ask Before Purchasing Instructional Materials?

...

Earlier this week, we began our series on the 15 questions that are most commonly asked of Learning List by those who develop and deliver content. The series began with the answers to five of those questions. In this installment, we’ll address five more.

Learning List has reviewed hundreds of K-12 instructional materials. What we’ve learned is that no two materials are alike. Learning List verifies that instructional material is aligned to the content, context and cognitive demand of each standard. One of the most challenging aspects of an alignment analysis is to determine whether the material aligns to the verb of the standard to grade-appropriate level of rigor.

Being an independent instructional materials review service for schools and districts, Learning List focuses on serving educators. However, in meeting the needs of districts, we also create value for publishers of instructional materials. We have identified 15 questions that are most commonly asked by those who develop and deliver instructional content. This is Part 1 of a 3-part series.

...

...

Having attended almost 10 years of legislative hearings, I’ve heard countless educators lament that with so many demands on teachers’ time, lesson planning is often relegated to a last-minute “to do”. Just as our alignment reports and editorial reviews help districts and campuses streamline their selection processes, educators can use Learning List’s independent alignment reports to create standards-aligned lesson plans more efficiently and effectively.

...

Have you ever wondered how your district is going to purchase all the new instructional materials your students need? If funding streams aren't sufficient to cover the costs of all the new instructional materials your students need, here are five strategies to help you stretch your dollars so that you can afford the instructional materials to maximize your ROI.

As 1-to-1 and BYOD* initiatives proliferate in K12 education across the country, keyboarding skills increasingly are taking precedence over handwriting instruction in elementary school classrooms. In June, Scientific American cited a 2014 study by psychologists at the University of California Los Angeles and Princeton found that college students who took notes using longhand had better retention and understanding of lecture information than students who took notes on laptops.

...

...

...

...

...

...

Reasoning Mind is an interactive, online, mathematics curriculum that provides individualized instruction for students in grades 2-6. Reasoning Mind’s case studies showed that students who used their curriculum in 5th and 6th grades were more than twice as likely to accelerate into Algebra I in 8th grade as non-Reasoning Mind students.

...

...