Quality Content: Now More Important than Ever

Do you remember, prior to COVID-19, when teachers spent six or more hours each day with students? In that model, teachable moments (where teachers could directly interact with and support student learning) were abundant. From study halls to classrooms to informal hallway chats, teachers had the time and opportunities to have a major impact.

Fast forward to today, where teachers have to engage with students virtually through Zoom and Google Meets. Students are doing a lot of work asynchronously—on their own or with the support of parents, friends, and others around them.

Content quality has always been important, but in the past, teachers were able to redirect and conduct the learning experience to avoid potholes where the content may be lacking. That is much more difficult to do in a virtual setting.

Teachers also need effective tools to help them answer the following questions:

• Where are my students succeeding, and where are they experiencing learning gaps?
• Where should I be spending my time? On which content and with which students?
• Overall, are my students on track or off track?

Without these insights, teachers are flying blind, and the limited time they have to work with students isn’t optimized.
 

Low Quality vs. High Quality CONTENT

If a student has a bad experience with ratios and rates in 6th grade, his/her ability to do work in 7th and 8th grade is hampered. Conversely, if the content helps them fully understand the ratio and rate concept, then all future learning will be easier for them.

If students fall behind, we have to remediate, which is even more difficult to do in a virtual environment.

Students need high quality learning materials that help them engage and understand because they are going to be doing a lot of learning on their own.

As math coordinators and teachers, we should be asking for two things from our content:

• It needs to really help students learn the topic. They can’t just read about it or watch a video about it and mimic—they need to really learn and understand. If the content isn’t doing that, it won’t be long before teachers see widening learning gaps across their classes.
• It needs to provide teachers insight so that they can focus their time on what students really need. Teacher time has become the most valuable and the most constrained resource, and we need to spend it very wisely.

In times like this, the right instructional content is necessary to give teachers the support they need to create powerful learning experiences for their students, whether in the classroom or remotely.