Curriculum & Instruction

New Product Review: McGraw Hill Texas StudySync

August 12, 2022October 3, 2018

Learning List recently reviewed McGraw Hill’s Texas StudySync, which was submitted for state adoption in Texas in response the Texas Education Agency’s Proclamation 2019 call for K-8 English language arts and reading (ELAR) products aligned to the new ELAR Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). StudySync is a comprehensive product that supports English language arts/reading (ELAR) instruction in grades 6-12. Content is available in print and digital formats and is intended for blended learning environments. Learning List reviewed online resources for grades 6-8. Instruction centers on the close reading of a set of thematically-related texts with integrated lessons in reading comprehension, writing, and speaking and listening skills.

StudySync’s content is organized in six, 30-day thematic units at each grade level. Each unit focuses on an essential question and a genre. Most units address personal topics (e.g., “No Risk, No Reward”) and include content that relates to other subject areas, particularly social studies. Units integrate authentic literary and informational texts and culminate in an overarching project that requires students to respond to what they have read in either written or spoken format. Across middle school grades, texts vary in length and genre and address diverse individuals and cultures. [Read more…]

Defining Roles: Standards vs. Curriculum vs. Instructional Materials

August 24, 2022June 18, 2018

Focus Educators and publishers often use the terms “standards,” “curriculum” and/or “instructional materials” interchangeably. Moreover, many educators consider their instructional materials to be their curriculum. However, each of these terms represents a distinct component of an educational program. In the sections that follow, we provide explanations of each of these terms to differentiate their meanings in the context of PreK-12 education.

Standards set out what students are expected to know and be able to do at the end of each school year. Standards are generally established at the state level. In fact, ESSA requires that each state create learning standards for public schools in three subjects—English language arts/reading, mathematics, and science—and many states go beyond ESSA’s minimum to set standards in social studies, career and technical education, languages other than English, and other subjects.

In contrast, the curriculum is developed at the district level, the product of local policy making. While the standards tell you what is expected, the curriculum provides the road map to get there. Often described in documents such as “scope and sequence” and “units of instruction,” a curriculum includes goals, instructional practices and pedagogical guidance, suggested resources and instructional materials, and methods of measuring student progress. [Read more…]

4 Ways to Use Materials to Achieve Student Learning Objectives

November 7, 2022April 16, 2018

Solid instruction begins with an analysis of student data followed by the development of targeted learning objectives/goals and instructional practices aimed at achieving them. District curriculum documents identify high-level learning objectives. Student Learning Objectives/Outcomes (SLOs) are growth targets set by teachers to help them plan instruction and drive learning throughout the year. SLOs are guided by the district curriculum and based on student data. SLOs also provide schools and districts with a way to make best instructional practice a common expectation for all teachers.

Here are four ways teachers can use their materials to achieve SLOs:
Learning Objectives: image showing the improvement cycle: Plan, Do, Check and Change
(1) After the focus of an SLO has been identified, check for causal connections between students’ learning deficits and deficits in the alignment of the district/campus’ instructional materials you have been using. Verify the alignment of any citations (lessons, activities, quizzes) you are planning to use to the standards students are struggling with.

Learning List’s alignment report for each material identifies which citations listed in the publisher’s correlation are aligned to each standard and which citations are not aligned.

(2) Use your existing materials to scaffold instruction from prior grade levels to address learning gaps that have persisted over multiple grade levels.

Learning List’s alignment comparison tool and alignment report for each grade level make it easy for teachers to identify citations in their existing materials that are aligned to the standards students are struggling with at any grade level. [Read more…]
Read more

The Role of Instructional Materials in Shaping Teacher Practice

August 12, 2022February 26, 2018

In a recent op-ed appearing in The Hill, ThinkCerca’s founder and CEO, Eileen Murphy Buckley, describes the challenges she faced as a novice English teacher working at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, one of Illinois’ best high schools and Michelle Obama’s alma mater. Like many first-year teachers, she struggled with classroom management, planning relevant and engaging instruction, and mastery of her content area. She received sage advice from veteran colleagues, but she “confesses” that her strongest supports as an inexperienced teacher were the instructional materials she used in the classroom.

She writes:

So, there is my confession after all these years, but I make it to say that the products we use in schools matter. The quality of those resources matter so very much because they are what empower students, regardless of which teacher they end up with. The materials shape teachers and teacher practice, and they shape the teachers they raise through years of side by side work.

These products must answer to students and teachers as well as buyers — the admins and school boards who are the stewards of our future, our culture, our democracy. Products have material impact on the lives of our children and grandchildren — who will be caring for us and our country in the very near future.

Simply put, reading materials impact the quality of teaching in much more significant ways than you might know.

At Learning List, we understand the importance of high quality materials. We recognize that instructional materials influence how teachers teach as well as how and what students learn. And this understanding shapes how we review products.

Our editorial reviews examine the supports each material does or does not provide for teachers. Our reviewers explain whether teacher resources include background in content and pedagogy; provide pacing information, lesson plans, and guidance in differentiating instruction; and offer professional development opportunities and professional communities that facilitate collaboration and sharing with other teachers who use the same product. Our reviewers note when they feel a product is particularly appropriate for novice teachers. Such products include comprehensive discussions of the required content knowledge and pedagogy, and offer detailed, often scripted, lesson plans to support instruction. [Read more…]

What to Expect from Supplemental Materials

January 22, 2018

A supplemental resource is designed to complement and support comprehensive materials. Publishers design supplemental resources for different purposes, including to:

help students learn the content and practice the skills contained in all of the standards for a particular grade and subject;
offer some of the same resources as comprehensive materials to support students in learning a specific subset of standards (e.g., writing standards, Personal Financial Literacy, etc…);
target specific standards with which students typically struggle;
build skills addressed across grade level standards; or
support specific student learning needs, such as the needs of English language learners, students with disabilities, or advanced learners.

Supplemental materials vary in the percentage of standards they intend to address. Some intend to align to all grade-level standards, but most do not. A supplemental resource that is aligned to only 50% of the grade-level standards may be the best material to select if it is aligned to the standards you need it to teach. Similarly, a resource that intends to build vocabulary may do so effectively even though it is aligned to fewer than 10% of the grade level standards because it does not teach the other content and skills the standards require. Thus, such a product may be a great addition to your district’s instructional arsenal despite its low alignment percentage. [Read more…]

Updates to Advanced Placement Course Frameworks

June 28, 2022December 11, 2017

The College Board recently updated the course frameworks for several of the Advanced Placement courses for which Learning List has reviewed materials. We have worked with the College Board to revise our alignment templates to reflect the following changes:

AP History Disciplinary Practices and Reasoning Skills

The Historical Thinking Skills were reorganized and renamed “AP History Disciplinary Practices and Reasoning Skills.” The number of practices and skills were reduced. There are now two practices and four skills. “Periodization” and “Synthesis” were eliminated as separate skills.
The revised “AP History Disciplinary Practices and Reasoning Skills” are part of the frameworks for AP US History, AP World History, and AP European History. [Read more…]
Read more

Frequently Asked Questions About Learning List

May 1, 2024November 19, 2017

As the school year shifts into high gear, we are getting a lot of questions about our service. Here are answers to the most frequently asked questions.

What is Learning List?Learning List is a subscription-based instructional materials review service designed to help improve student learning by empowering educators to choose and use instructional materials most effectively.

We created Learning List in 2013 to help districts become better informed consumers of instructional materials. Initially, districts used our reviews to facilitate their selection of materials. Over time, subscribers began telling us that our reviews also helped them identify the best parts of their existing materials to use to teach each standard. As one instructional coach explained, “We use your alignment reports as a GPS through our materials to ensure that we’re using the pages that teach each standard fully.”

What types of materials do you review?
We have reviewed over 2500 of the most widely used instructional materials, including:

Materials in the four core subjects, 12 Advanced Placement courses, Tech Apps and 85 CTE courses;
Comprehensive and supplemental materials, including RtI, testprep, criterion-referenced test banks, and professional development resources;
Publisher produced and free open educational resources (OERs);
State-adopted and non-adopted materials (i.e., materials that were not submitted for state adoption); and
English and Spanish versions of materials.

Subscribing districts get access to all published reviews and may request reviews of additional materials as part of the subscription. That’s why Learning List is a service, not just a website.

What Should You Expect From Test Prep Materials?

January 17, 2023November 5, 2017

Over the last five years, we have learned a lot about instructional materials. One observation is that comprehensive and supplemental materials, including RtI and test prep resources, are designed very differently and are intended for different purposes. Another observation is that unless you use a material for its intended purpose, it is unlikely you will achieve the result you need.

The Importance of Developing Teachers: Part Two Using Learning List’s Resources to Support Teacher Growth

August 12, 2022October 8, 2017

This is Part Two of a post in response to the recent report Leadership Perspectives on Public Education: The Gallup 2017 Survey of K-12 School District Superintendents. As discussed in our first post, the superintendents who participated in the Gallup 2017 Survey identified teacher quality as the most important element in student success, but noted the difficulty in hiring talented teachers. In particular, superintendents said that the quantity and quality of new teachers is decreasing and that districts need to become more effective in training teaching staff.

In Part One of this post, we explored how districts can use the resources embedded in instructional materials to support teacher professional development. In this post, we examine how the tools on LearningList.com can facilitate training by enhancing teachers’ understanding of state standards and how standards shape day-to-day instruction.

Learning List features a detailed alignment report for each product we review. The alignment reports reflect our independent verification of the alignment of citations listed in the publisher’s correlation. In order for Learning List to consider a citation to be aligned to the standard, the citation must address the content, context, and cognitive demand specified in the standard. [Read more…]

Meeting Students’ Learning Needs: Alignment Information Supports Selection of Materials for Differentiation

August 12, 2022September 25, 2017

Using Materials Effectively to Differentiate Instruction Have you ever been frustrated when attempting to plan differentiated lessons? Though “differentiation” is a rather simple concept, it is complex to implement successfully.

Most teachers understand that any resource used to differentiate instruction must have the requisite adaptions for the students being taught. For example, materials being used to teach ELLs should have multi-lingual glossaries, linguistic accommodations, and culturally relevant examples and activities to engage ELL students. Materials being used to engage Gifted and Talented students would have extension/ enrichment activities, higher-level questions, and options for inquiry-based learning. And, for RtI, the materials should have options for each tier of intervention. [Read more…]

+ More