Do your teachers ever tell you that the material you have just purchased is not aligned to the standards? If so, breathe deeply and read on…
At Learning List, we have learned the scope of the citations listed in the publisher’s correlation can be determinative of whether a material is aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) or Advanced Placement (AP) standards.
What do we mean? Some publishers’ correlations consist of citations that cover one or two pages. Those citations are “narrow” in scope. Other publishers’ citations are broad in scope, consisting of a range of pages, a whole
module, a chapter, or a 15-minute video. Both types of citations have their merits; broader citations are most likely to incorporate all of the knowledge and skills dense standards require; narrow citations can be useful instructionally, because they pinpoint more precisely where certain content or a skill is addressed in the text. [Read More …]
The CCSS, NGSS and AP standards are dense. Each standard typically references multiple nouns (i.e., content knowledge the student must learn) and multiple verbs (i.e., actions the student must do). Because standards articulate what students should know and be able to do by the end of the school year, a material may spiral parts of standards, particularly dense standards, across several lessons, units, or chapters. Thus, it is highly unlikely for a single two-page citation to completely address all of the knowledge and skills required by a standard. That is likely why publishers list multiple citations as aligned to each standard. If teachers are assessing the material’s alignment by reviewing individual narrow citations for alignment, they likely will decide that the material is not aligned to the standards. But, it may be…
Learning List’s reviewers check the alignment of multiple citations listed in the publisher’s correlation for each standard. Each citation is reviewed individually for alignment to the content, context and cognitive demand of the standard. If the citations are narrow in scope (i.e., one or two pages long), each may be partially aligned to the standard, but few citations will be fully aligned to standards. However, multiple partially aligned citations may collectively align to the standard in its entirety. If a publisher correlation lists multiple citations as aligned to a standard, and our reviewers determine that several of the citations reviewed if used together would address the standard completely, we note which citations must be “bundled” together to achieve alignment to the standard.
Thus, our alignment reports show not only which standards each material is aligned to but also which citations teachers could use (individually or bundled together) to fully teach each standard. Without this knowledge, your teachers may dismiss a perfectly great material or may only partially teach the standards, creating gaps in your students’ knowledge.