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It seems like school just let out yesterday. “Back to School” sales are everywhere… children are labeling their school supplies, teachers are already in their classrooms preparing for the new school year, and administrators are carefully disaggregating student data. As a teacher and administrator for many years, I know how hard educators work to provide the best instruction possible for their students. Many wonderful products are out there that will assist you in meeting the educational needs of your students, but how do you know which one is the best for YOUR students? Educators don’t have time, especially at the beginning of the year, to sort through hundreds of catalogs or listen to long sales presentations. So what do you do? Learning List is here to help you quickly find the best instructional materials. No longer do teachers have to be taken out of their classroom to verify that a product’s alignment to the standards is on the mark. Learning List’s team of expert educators does that for you plus provides much information about the product and names of school districts that have used the product. Think of it as Christmas in August for all you educators!

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 .

Parental engagement is a well-documented contributor to student success. So much so, that the Texas legislature just added a requirement to the state accountability system that districts make public a self-evaluation of, among other factors, the level of community and parental involvement. Here’s a carrot….the application deadline for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Family Engagement Grants is September 23, 2013. WKKF awards grants of up to $500,000 to organizations, including public schools, that are developing promising models of family engagement in low-income communities. Grants will be awarded for one to three years. WKKF defines family engagement as “a shared responsibility of families, schools and communities for student learning and achievement.” WKKF seeks to fund “on the ground” efforts, including those focused on program design and implementation, policy design and implementation, and service delivery. Selected applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal in October 2013. Selected grantees will be notified of grant awards in December 2013.

We are happy to launch Learning List’s blog. Not surprisingly, our blog will focus on selecting and purchasing instructional materials and online courses. More specifically, we hope our posts will help educators review and select the instructional materials best suited to meet their students’ unique needs. Our blog posts will address such topics as: Understanding the standards; aligning to standards; policy trends and changes; and, factors to consider when selecting and purchasing instructional materials. We hope this blog will be a useful information resource for educators and publishers, alike. Please feel free to submit ideas for topics you’d like to see us address.

Learning List has reviewed Wiley Publishing’s Calculus and Calculus: Single Variable comprehensive courses. Both courses are written by the team of authors led by Howard Anton and support instruction in Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC courses. Resources are available in print and eBook formats and additional online instructional materials are available from www.howardanton.com and using the WileyPLUS learning management system (LMS). Calculus presents instruction in single and multivariable calculus in 16 chapters that include “Chapter 0: Before Calculus.” Chapter 0 reviews the concept of a function, including functions students have likely encountered in algebra and other math courses (e.g., absolute value functions, piecewise functions). Calculus: Single Variable provides instruction in single-variable calculus in 11 chapters, which is the same content as provided in chapters 0-10 of Calculus. Both courses support student self-study and teacher-led instruction and the application of calculus to solve real-world problems. Chapters open with a photograph and brief introduction that introduces content and establishes its relevance to real-world problems. Instructional narratives are written at an advanced level and include illustrations, graphs, and figures to support understanding. Extensive problem sets are provided for each chapter section. Courses do not include materials, question sets, or practice tests that specifically address preparation for AP exams. Learning List’s reviewers found online resources for both courses to be easy to access and use. Teacher and student eBooks have an interactive table of contents and highlighting and note taking tools. When accessing eBooks in WileyPLUS, users have access to dropdown menus that enable searches by chapter content, by section, or learning objective. Teachers may add content, including a course syllabus, and use messaging tools to communicate with students. About Wiley Publishing* Wiley's Global Research business is a provider of content-enabled solutions to improve outcomes in research, education and professional practice with online tools, journals, books, databases, reference works and laboratory protocols. With strengths in every major academic, scientific and professional field, and strong brands including Wiley Blackwell and Wiley VCH, Wiley proudly partners with over 800 prestigious societies representing two million members. Through Wiley Online Library , we provide online access to a broad range of content: over 4 million articles from 1,500 journals, 9,000+ books, and many reference works and databases. Access to abstracts and searching is free, full content is accessible through licensing agreements, and large portions of the content are provided free or at nominal cost to nations in the developing world through partnerships with organizations such as HINARI, AGORA, and OARE. Wiley's Professional Development business creates products and services that help customers become more effective in the workplace and achieve career success. It brings to life the ideas and best practices of thought leaders in business, finance, accounting, workplace learning, management, leadership, technology, behavioral health, engineering/architecture, and education to serve these communities worldwide. Wiley Global Education serves undergraduate, graduate, and advanced placement students, lifelong learners, and, in Australia, secondary school students. We publish educational materials in all media, notably through WileyPLUS, our integrated online suite of teaching and learning resources. Our programs target the sciences, engineering, computer science, mathematics, business and accounting, statistics, geography, hospitality and the culinary arts, education, psychology, and modern languages. *The content in this section is provided by or adapted from Wiley Publishing . Subscribe to Learning List for access to full editorial reviews, alignment reports and spec sheets.

L earning A-Z’s Reading A-Z is a supplemental program that supports reading instruction in grades K-5. Resources are available online and may be downloaded and printed or displayed using classroom projection devices. Instruction focuses on developing proficient readers using texts that match students’ individual reading levels. Learning List has recently completed reviews of Learning A-Z's materials for grades K-5. Reading A-Z content is organized in 27 reading levels (i.e., aa to Z) that gradually increase in difficulty. Levels are identified using Learning A- Z’s proprietary “Text Leveling System.” This system considers qualitative indicators (e.g., author’s purpose), quantitative measures (e.g., word count), and reader and task considerations (e.g., student interest and skill) to provide a rounded measure of text complexity. Learning A-Z provides a “Level Correlation Chart” aligning its complexity levels with other widely used measures (e.g., Lexiles, Fountas & Pinnell). At each level of text complexity, Reading A-Z provides two “Benchmark Books” that assess students’ readiness for instruction. Core instruction is presented through the use of more than 1,400 leveled texts and their associated “Guided Lessons.” Texts include a balance of fiction and non-fiction selections. Lessons address fluency, comprehension, writing, vocabulary and foundational skills, such as letter recognition, phonological awareness, and phonics. Each leveled reader is accompanied by a set of instructional resources, including worksheets and quizzes. Teachers may enable individual students and/or classes to access the online “On Your Own Book Room.”  The Book Room contains a variety of independent reading materials in eBook format, including Spanish-language books, poetry, and texts that emphasize high frequency vocabulary.

For those who had other plans on Saturday evening and thus, did not watch the Patrick-Ratliff debate over CSCOPE, here’s a run-down. The debate, moderated by Scott Braddock, Quorum Report, continued for two hours, and despite trading a few jabs, both men focused their comments on answering questions from two panelists: Dr. Mary Ann Whiteker, Superintendent of Hudson ISD and JoAnn Fleming, from Grassroots America - We The People. The questions focused on such topics as: (1) research base for Patrick’s claim during the legislative session that students in schools that used CSCOPE underperformed their peers in schools that did not use CSCOPE lessons; (2) why the Legislature only investigated CSCOPE lesson plans, and not the other lesson plans used by Texas districts, and (3) issues of CSCOPE’s management and transparency. In their closing statements, both men agreed that the crux of “this debate is a difference of opinion about what local control looks like.” Patrick believes that “local control” is about parents’ right to decide their children’s education, and the Legislature’s number one job is to stand up for the parents and students. He believes that parents do not want CSCOPE lessons to be taught in Texas schools without further vetting by the State Board of Education: “Let’s look at the lessons and see if there’s value there. If there’s not value there, no one should want them.” Ratliff, on the other hand, defines local control as governance by the locally elected school board. He believes that the legislature should not micromanage what’s going on in Texas classrooms. He argued that school boards, not the legislature, are in the best position to decide whether their district should use CSCOPE. Saturday’s debate will not be the end of the controversy over CSCOPE or over the definition of local control.

Our goal is to save educators time and money! We hire experienced, certified teachers with expertise in standards alignment.  We train our reviewers to verify a publisher’s correlation and to assess the products’ key features and functionality.  Our editorial reviews draw from our reviewer's feedback and interviews with the publisher and their customers who have personally used the product with students.   The purpose of these reviews is to identify the attributes that make each product unique and distill the information necessary to implement the product effectively so that students get the full instructional value from the product. The reviews on LearningList.com will be accessible to educators nationally via an individual or organization-wide low, annual subscription, starting in August 2013. Additional products in additional subjects will be added on an ongoing basis.

Learning List is a national online library of professional reviews of K-12 instructional materials and online courses, which will launch in August 2013.  For each featured product, we provide an alignment to state standards , an editorial review highlighting the products unique features and key information that educators need to implement the product effectively, and subscriber ratings and reviews . Learning List is a service by and for educators. Our goal is to make the selection of instructional materials more efficient and effective. Why should every district have to review a textbook’s alignment to state standards? It’s far more efficient for Learning List to do it once and do it well. For which students and under what conditions is a particular product most effective? Learning List’s editorial review tells you so that you can find the best resources for your students.

We invite publishers to submit the products they want to sell.  And we review the products for free.  But, since Learning List is designed as a service for educators, we want educators to help fill our library.  Think of us as an extension of your curriculum department. And, if you or your teachers have heard about a great textbook or an online instructional product, go to LearningList.com and request that the publisher submit the product to Learning List for review.  You can also submit open-source instructional materials and online courses for review.  There is no cost for submitting products to Learning List for review.

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.

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.