Explore: Digital Content Distribution for K-12

 

Whether in-classroom, remote learning, or hybrid, teachers spend enormous amounts of time building lesson plans and gathering supplemental content. Globally, less than 50% of teacher time spent is actually instructional time; the balance is spent on outside-the-classroom activities like grading, intervention, extra-curricular support, and instructional preparation. In the new era of remote learning, teachers are spending even more time outside the classroom overcoming challenges of access, technological difficulties, and more.

These figures are no surprise to the district administration. Districts consistently seek cost-effective ways to support teacher efficacy, knowing that the scarcest resource teachers require is time. One solution, aimed at both saving teacher time as well as transitioning to a more digital campus has been investment in Learning Management Systems (LMS) to provide better access to premium digital instructional material.

While LMS has afforded access and distribution capabilities, teachers continue to spend enormous effort curating content for the classroom.

 

The cost of disparate content resources

 

Lesson planning is a creative process and is one of the most valued aspects of a teacher’s role. As they seek out the necessary resources for lesson planning, teachers turn to:

  • Your Learning Management System (LMS)
  • Pinterest boards
  • General internet searches
  • Teacher forums
  • Paper binders they’ve used for years

In fact, most teachers curate from some combination of all of these sources. Yet when content is hard to find, spread out over disparate sources (and likely outdated, possibly misaligned with district and state-mandated standards), it costs your district. Both in time lost and in quality.

It turns out that the average teacher spends 7 hours every week searching for content to deliver as lesson plans, supplemental resources, instructional material, and more. That’s 7 hours spent inefficiently scouring for content vital to their role and to the success of your students.

For K-12 districts, this is a massive time sink. Consider: The average school district in the United States employs 187 teachers. This means, on average, districts that lack the infrastructure to make content easily and readily available to their teachers lose over 1,300 hours every week.

That’s valuable time that removes them from grading, coaching, intervention, and above all, supporting the students in your district.

 

Simplify access to the best content

 

If all the content your teachers needed was instantly available in one place, easy to navigate, and aligned to state-mandated standards, imagine the value you could bring to your schools.

Frost Explore simplifies access to educational content by providing the flexibility and agility you need to leverage a multitude of published content all in one place. Explore works seamlessly with your LMS to provide premium content along with a generous offering of curated materials in one, easy-to-navigate platform.

Explore supports multiple learning modalities, including eBooks, courses, remediation, and adaptive content, making your school’s content richer and smarter.

 

Align content to state standards

 

When teachers are left on their own to develop and enhance their lesson plans, not only does it impact their outside classroom time management, but it also introduces some risk to your district’s ability to meet state-mandated learning goals. That’s because teachers are not in a position to ensure that the content they access has been developed with those standards in mind.

Frost Explore eliminates that challenge by delivering content that’s already aligned with your state’s goals. Teachers get the value of deep content at their fingertips for lesson planning and supplemental intervention, and districts can rest assured that their resource library will align with learning objectives and standards introduced by the state.

 

Freedom to Write or Design Your Own Content

 

Districts have spent millions on premium content from publishers like Pearson Education as a way to ensure students receive the highest caliber content available to meet district goals and state-mandated standards.

However, as digital content has become ubiquitous, districts are finding that their teachers can be one of the richest sources of original content. Traditionally, these powerful sources of learning materials often get siloed to a single teacher rather than enriching the entire district’s curriculum.

While original content won’t, in most cases, replace the need for premium content, it can greatly enhance the teaching capabilities of teachers. With Explore, original content, too, can be added to the full content library, making it instantly and easily available to all faculty in the district by grade, subject, and lesson type.

 

Accelerate learning resource distribution

 

When your systems are aligned, your faculty will not only have the content they need but will be able to distribute it efficiently to Google Classroom, getting it into your students’ hands with far fewer intermediary steps.

Leveraging educational constructs and interoperability standards, Frost Explore works seamlessly with Google Classroom and your Learning Management System agnostically in one easy-to-use platform that accelerates content distribution. With simplified access, teachers can remain creatively engaged with lesson planning without the frustration of dead-end searches.

You want your teachers to have all the resources they require to be successful. You want your students to grow. You want your school to beat the standards established at the state level. With Frost Explore, you’ll simplify your educational resource library and accelerate access to content. Most importantly, you’ll give back to your faculty one of the most important resources they need: their time.

Learn More About Explore

Authors: Ben Snedeker and Debbie Stirling

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