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One of the keynote presentation speakers at the recent Texas ASCD Conference was Dr. Jackie Walsh.  Her presentation was, “Questioning for Thinking:  Helping Students make Connections”.  Dr. Walsh talked about the importance of asking quality questions and developing effective questioning strategies to activate, support, and sustain student thinking. Dr. Walsh shared the impact that teachers have on student learning when they think of the types of questions they want to pose while developing their lesson plans instead of thinking of them spontaneously while teaching.  As a teacher of teachers, I have observed how the quality of questions asked by teachers increased when they took the time to think of effective questions before teaching the lesson.  Their questions became more open-ended and required responses that were at a much higher level of thinking.  Students were more engaged and the discussions became much more in-depth.  Teachers would comment on how difficult it was to think of effective questions at first, but then the more they practiced, the easier it got.  They began to help students ask questions of each other and that’s when teachers really started seeing student progress increase.  Students were taking responsibility for their own learning! As with any new learning, teachers need to reflect on the questions asked after the lesson to analyze the responses given by students and how the questions could be improved.  Teachers not only need to carefully think of the questions they ask of their students, but they also need to analyze the type of questions presented in instructional materials before making any purchase.  LearningList.com can help educators be assured that the type of questions asked in instructional materials align with the level of thinking required in the standards.

In the face of decreased budgets and increased pressure to improve students’ performance on standardized tests, many schools have reduced the number of field trips they provide to cultural institutions, such as museums and historical sites.  Instead, schools have focused on increasing the amount of time students spend in class preparing for tests and often allocate resources to “reward” field trips to entertainment venues, such as amusement parks, for students who improve their attendance or test scores.  However, research suggests that in de-emphasizing culturally enriching field trips, schools are missing valuable opportunities to develop students’ critical thinking skills as well as their ability to appreciate and understand diverse peoples, perspectives, and historical periods. The study, conducted by researchers a t the University of Arkansas, is the first large-scale, random-assignment analysis of the effects of cultural-enrichment field trips on student outcomes.  The research design compared survey results between matched pairs of K-12 students.  For each student pairing, one student was randomly selected to participate in a cultural-enrichment field trip during the period of the study and the second student’s participation was deferred.  Researchers found that the students who participated in field trips experienced significant increases in their critical thinking skills, as well as benefits in terms of historical empathy (i.e., the ability to understand the lives and perspectives of people who lived in different places or in different times), tolerance, and interest in cultural institutions.  Notably, the benefits of field trips were considerably stronger for disadvantaged students.  The study’s authors conclude: We don’t just want our children to acquire work skills from their education; we also want them to develop into civilized people who appreciate the breadth of human accomplishments.  The school field trip is an important tool in meeting this goal.

Some teachers get excited when a new online product is purchased for the campus or the district, other's don't. Why is that? For one reason, teachers will have to spend time during the day (or evening) getting to know the product - how to navigate through it, how to input students’ names, how to assign lessons and assess students and how to create reports. More importantly, teachers often feel as if they have to review lessons completely themselves to make sure they align with the standards before they assign the lessons to their students. Most teachers are already burning their candle at both ends; they cannot find an extra minute in the day to review lessons in a new product. Learning List to the rescue! Learning List verifies each product’s alignment to state standards, either to the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) or to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). When educators subscribe to Learning List, they have at their fingertips an alignment road-map for each product – a report listing multiple, specific citations (lessons or page numbers) that align to each standard addressed in the product. Teachers can assign with confidence the citations contained in Learning List's alignment road-maps, knowing that they align to the content, context and cognitive demand/rigor of the standards. With Learning List as a resource, teachers may even have time to work out or to see a movie.

A study published this month in the journal Science points to the benefits of reading literary fiction in developing students’ ability to empathize as well as to read and understand social cues. Social psychologists at the New School for Social Research in New York City relied on Amazon.com to recruit participants ranging in age from 18 to 73 from diverse backgrounds.  In a set of five experiments, study participants were paid between $2 and $3 to read selected texts for several minutes.  Some participants read non-fiction, others read popular fiction, and still others read literary fiction.  After reading their assigned texts, study participants took computerized tests that assessed their ability to identify emotions or predict an individual’s behaviors or thinking in a given situation.  Across experiments, participants who read literary fiction had better test scores than those who read non-fiction or popular fiction, or in some cases, nothing at all.  And, results held even when participants said they did not enjoy reading literary fiction.  Researchers reasoned that literary fiction is more open-ended than most popular fiction and non-fiction.  It requires that readers be sensitive to subtleties in characters’ behavior and language and that readers use their imagination and inference skills.  Although the study did not address how long results last, the study’s authors highlight the importance of findings for curriculum development, noting the movement away from literary fiction in the Common Core State Standards, which emphasizes non-fiction reading assignments. If you are interested in participating in the study, click here .

On Monday, the Business Roundtable released a report, Taking Action on Education and Workforce Preparedness , which outlines a plan for preparing the U.S. workforce to be competitive in the 21st century. The plan calls for full implementation of the Common Core State Standards , asserting that the CCSS are more rigorous than previous state standards, aligned with the expectations of higher education, and internationally benchmarked. Noting that “higher standards do not guarantee better student achievement,” the BRT provides a set of recommendations for successfully implementing the CCSS, including: Create an Independent Organization to Review Curricula: Educators need an independent organization to create Consumer Reports-type reviews that assess how well curriculum and instructional materials are aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Although there is currently a shortage of high-quality curricula aligned to the Common Core State Standards, eventually curricula of varying quality will be available from both nonprofit and for-profit sources. Independent review regarding the quality of these materials will assist educators with making well-informed, cost-effective decisions. Learning List meets this need. The editorial reviews and alignment reports featured on LearningList.com provide objective, qualitative information about instructional resources as well as their alignment to the Common Core and the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. Learning List reviews both publisher-produced and open-source instructional materials. The goal of our service is to provide educators and parents with the information they need to select standards-aligned materials that will improve their students’ achievement. Launched just two weeks ago, districts large and small, urban and rural are subscribing to Learning List’s instructional materials review service.

We just learned that the Urban Curriculum Council asked Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to submit the instructional materials they submitted for state adoption to Learning List for review, as well. The Urban Curriculum Council is a consortium of the instructional leaders of the 17 largest school districts in Texas. Why did they make this request? On September 20 th , the Texas Education Agency (TEA) announced that there are 277 K-12 science products and 131 K-8 math products going through the state adoption process.  Furthermore, the state panels have found that 280 products address 100% of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). How are districts going to determine which are best for their students? Learning List supplements the state’s adoption process by providing of reviews to help educators determine which products are best suited for their students. For state adopted products, LearningList.com will feature: the state panel’s verification of each product’s alignment to the TEKS, a professional review that concisely explains the features and functionality that makes each product unique, as well as the requirements for implementing the product successfully, and subscriber ratings and reviews where educators can share feedback about the products. For instructional materials that have been submitted for state adoption, Learning List provides an verification of each product’s alignment to the TEKS or the Common Core standards, as well as a professional review and subscriber ratings and reviews. Learning List is currently accepting English language arts, math and science products for review. Subscribers and publishers may submit products for review, .  The reviews on LearningList.com are available through an individual, district- or campus-wide subscription. To learn more about our service, go to LearningList.com.

Don’t miss the New York Times’ set of debates and discussions, Schools for Tomorrow , about the potential of technology to transform education.  Khan Academy founder, Sal Khan, provides the keynote address , and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan discusses the role of online learning in public education, including the President’s ConnectED initiative . Panel discussions with education experts and policymakers address the role of technology in leveling the playing field in education , engaging students , and changing what we understand about teaching and learning . To help educators and parents evaluate the rapidly expanding number of online and print-based educational resources, LearningList.com has just launched with independent reviews and alignment reports of online courses, online instructional resources, and textbooks from a range of providers, including Britannica Digital Learning , Compass Learning , Davis Publications (Discussions4Learning) , Edgenuity , Gourmet Learning , Read Naturally Live ,  and Rock ‘N Learn . Reviews for ORIGO Stepping Stones , Bridges in Mathematics , and STEMscopes science curriculum are coming soon.  Learning List will continue to release reviews on an ongoing basis.

David Streitfeld's piece in Sunday’s New York Times reported on regulatory efforts to crack down on deceptive product reviews on the Internet. The article highlighted the prevalence of online reviews that have been paid for by product sellers, and the increasing sophistication of writers who create false reviews for profit or to benefit employers. As a review site, Learning List is critically concerned with the authenticity of its product reviews, and has taken the following steps to ensure that our reviews accurately represent the products featured on LearningList.com . Learning List’ review services are offered free of charge. Learning List does not accept compensation from publishers or others who submit products for review. Subject matter experts who verify and review products’ alignment to standards may not have been employed by or received compensation from a publishing company, online course developer, or other K-12 instructional content provider for at least two years prior to employment with Learning List. Editorial reviews aggregate information collected through interviews with educators who have used featured products with students, independent research, and the views of subject matter experts who verified the product’s alignment to standards. Subscriber ratings and reviews are structured to elicit accurate product information on specific criteria. Learning List’s Terms of Service for educators and parents provide that only subscribers who have personally used the product with students may leave a review. The Terms for Publishers provide that representatives of publishers who subscribe to Learning List may only provide a review only of that company’s products and must identify him/herself as a publisher representative in the review.

When choosing instructional materials, it is imperative that we educators carefully consider if the materials are aligned to the standards. Too often, we make the mistake of choosing an instructional material by merely considering the content of the standard (what is being taught), such as ending punctuation or cause/effect. We often neglect to pay attention to whether the materials address the cognitive demand of the standard (what students are required to do to demonstrate their mastery of the standard). We spend countless hours finding what we think are the best lessons to teach a standard, but if the lessons we choose do not address the content, cognitive demand and context of the standard completely, then all of our hard work is for naught. No matter how well we teach the lesson, few students will be successful at mastering the standard. That’s why it’s so important to purchase materials that are aligned to the “depth and complexity,” or the 3 C’s of the standards. We’ll write more about the 3 C’s next week.

Yesterday, the Texas State Board of Education held a public hearing on the instructional materials submitted for state adoption this year. Not surprisingly, most of the testimony focused on science textbooks, and in particular biology textbooks. Historically, only products that addressed 100 percent of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) were eligible for state adoption. However, in 2011, the legislature changed the law to make products that address at least 50 percent of the TEKS eligible for state adoption. As a result, 516 products were submitted for state adoption this spring. Those products address K-8 mathematics, K-12 science or technology applications.  Over the course of the review process, some products were withdrawn. However, almost 165 K-8 math products and almost 300 K-12 science products have gone through the state adoption process, many, many more than ever before. The state adoption list will verify the percentage of state standards addressed by each product. But, how are educators going to tell 164 math K-8 products or 299 K-12 science products apart? And, don’t forget that there are hundreds of products available that were not submitted for state adoption.  Learning List is here to help! Learning List is a professional resource review service that helps educators and parents select the K-12 instructional materials and online courses best suited for students.  Learning List will debut at the TASA/TASB Convention in Dallas next week.  Stay tuned….

During a public hearing  over social studies lessons included in Texas’s CSCOPE curriculum management system, educators and members of Texas’s State Board of Education got into a discussion about the meaning of “rigor.” All agreed that giving students material that is developmentally appropriate for a higher grade may be “harder,” but is not more rigorous.  Research suggests that rigorous instructional materials: Engage students with complex but grade-appropriate, complex content, Require students to think critically about what they learn, and Ask students to solve problems linked to the real world and their own lives. As John Bogess explains in The Three Rs Redefined for a Flat World , these attributes address the quality of student thinking and may be found in instructional materials used at any grade level and in any subject area.

Are you confused about the difference between standards, curriculum, instructional materials and lesson plans? Well, you’re not alone. At Learning List, we often hear educators and publishers confuse the terms. Hopefully this will help you distinguish their meaning and, more importantly, understand how each is an invaluable component in helping students learn. State Standards are the state’s pronouncement of what students should know and be able to do after completing each course. Curriculum sets out what the district will teach. It contains the standards and defines when each standard will be taught and when students will be tested to measure their mastery of the standards. Districts develop their own curriculum or use a commercially available curriculum aligned to state standards. Instructional materials (IMs) include textbooks and online resources that reinforce and/or provide instruction. IMs should be “aligned” to the standards, meaning they should teach what the standards require students to know and be able to do, in order to prepare students to be successful on state and district assessments as well as have a strong foundation for the next year’s curriculum. Lesson plans are the teacher’s instructional plans for how they will teach the standards and what the students will do to demonstrate mastery of each standard. Teachers may develop their own lesson plans, drawing from multiple resources, or follow explicit instructional plans from the campus or district level.