August 2020 Newsletter

This Month’s Top Standards News and Trends

We Know Standards

How many different ways can we tell EdTech companies that we can help them meet standards alignment requirements? Well, it turns out there are many and sometimes this terminology can be quite confusing! Check out EdGate’s Geek Speak Guide below.

Whether your organization is looking for a crosswalk, a mapping, an alignment or correlation, EdGate ensures that content publishers have properly aligned their content to the appropriate learning outcomes. Not only do we offer the four core, but we also work with World Languages, Health and PE, Art, Technology Education, Media Literacy, SEL, CTE, and Religion. We’ve spent the last 23 years perfecting our many taxonomies so that we can provide the fastest, most precise, cost-efficient method to align content to standards.

Gina Faulk
General manager

 

Hot Topic

As students begin to return to the classroom, both virtually and in-person, schools are making plans for social-emotional support for the upcoming year. After extended school breaks, economic insecurity, fear of the virus, and possible loss of a family member due to COVID-19, the 2020-2021 school year will need to begin with extra support services and resources for both students and staff.

Many schools are choosing to start this new year by providing extensive SEL support in lieu of evaluating where students are academically. The Ithaca City School District Superintendent believes "there will be a time and place" for learning loss due to the extended closures, choosing to "reestablish the community instead of putting tests in front of them." We are now seeing schools placing the need for relationship building and rebuilding ahead of jumping headfirst into instruction.

However, planning for social-emotional support will be tricky. A new guide on reopening schools developed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) offers a roadmap for school leaders as students transition post-COVID closures. While this guide is extensive each district will find its own challenges to navigate. These SEL plans will vary in approach, but one thing is clear: student social and emotional well-being needs to be forefront in 2020 education.

As publishers look for new ways of supporting education during a pandemic, EdGate can help align your educational content to SEL standards. Our standards for all US states are diligently monitored and we continuously add new SEL standards as they become available.

By: Sharla Schuller
Marketing Manager

 

Teaching Trends

With the COVID outbreak, we've learned that students need to be more flexible as they face their future work life. According to an article on District Administration, 6 Ways the Future of Work is Changing Education, there are 6 changes educators must make to help students be better prepared for their future work environments.

1. Develop creators, not consumers
Instructors teach students to work independently, manage their time, develop plans, brainstorm for problem-solving, and market ideas.

2. Teach Entrepreneurial Skills
Students must learn every aspect of their work environment. Teachers can do this with makerspaces, project-based learning, STEAM-focused learning and pairing up students with professionals to job shadow.

3. Teach COVID-era Skills
Students need to learn self-reliance. Teach students how to facilitate connections both personal and professional. Students also need to learn how to find credible information online, and other do-it-yourself like skills.

4. Develop Students who can learn on the job
K-12 education has always been the focus of businesses and manufacturing as a source of future workers who can be trained and retrained as the different industries change. To make this happen, teachers are connecting the real world to learning.

5. Provide more apprenticeships
Before education as we know it came into existence, students left the one-room schoolhouse, and most went into an apprenticeship program. Many districts are going back to this model by working with local businesses and community colleges to create CTE learn-on-the-job programs.

6. Don't force kids to go to college
Students are guided into going to a 4-year college, but now that emphasis is changing. Plumbers are in high demand and make a good living wage. A career in the trades is no longer a profession with no future.

With every shift that happens in our world, education has always made the jump to meet that change. COVID made this all the more apparent and educators are now scrambling to ensure students have the correct tools for the future of work.

By: Laura Jacoby 
Office Administrator

 

EdGate Services

Anyone outside of EdTech would look at you with a blank stare if you told them that you just mapped your correlations. Or if you said that your alignments have all been crosswalked. However, in the K-12 Education industry, this all makes perfect sense.

So what's all of this mean anyway? Let's break it down:

Correlate: We use this term to describe the process that involves matching or tagging education content to the appropriate education standard. We believe that "correlate" is the most accurate description because a correlation is a relationship between two things based on a common trait. So we create alignments using a correlation between two things (e.g. - standard A correlated to content B because they both share concept C, therefore they align).

Align: We sometimes use this term interchangeably with "Correlate." However, there are some hardliners out there that say that "align" is actually the correct term and that the word correlate is misused. We respectfully disagree. An "alignment" is the direct relationship between two things (e.g. - standard A aligns to content B). But we're really not sticklers on this one. Life's too short!

Map: While in the U.S. our clients typically use the words "correlate" or "align", our international clients ask us to map their content to curriculum (curriculum refers to standards or learning outcomes). At the same time, EdGate and our U.S. clients also use the term "map" to mean that the content has already been correlated to one set of standards and now needs to be mapped to an additional standard set.

Crosswalk: Similar to how we use the term "map", a crosswalk means that we are taking an existing correlation to standards and using that it as a basis for creating a correlation to additional standards. Both a crosswalk and a mapping depend on an underlying taxonomy to accurately inform the process.

Clear as mud, right? If all else fails, the team at EdGate will figure it out for you.

By: Gina Faulk
General Manager

 

Curriculum Grants and Funding

In this section of the EdGate Observer we point our clients to news about districts, states, etc. that may have available funding for curriculum.

This month we highlight two upcoming grants and awards:

 

Standard Updates

Updates to The EdGate Standards Repository include:

  • Delaware Standards and Instruction World Languages (Refreshed 2016) Grades K-12
  • Georgia Standards of Excellence Science (AD 2019) Grades 9-12 new course standards
  • Georgia Standards of Excellence World Languages (AD 2018) Grades 6,7,8 DLI; 9-12 Spanish for Native Speakers III
  • Hawaii Content and Performance Standards Health and PE (AD 2019) Grades K-12 Health Education
  • Utah Core Standards Science (AD 2019) Grades K,1,2,3,4,5,9-12

 

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