Both states’ definitions of supplemental materials indicate that supplemental resources are not designed to be the primary or sole instructional resource for a course. As such, supplemental materials typically do not address all standards and, based on our reviews, vary significantly in the percentage of standards to which they are aligned. The rigor of supplemental materials also varies, depending on the material’s purpose. For example, a supplemental material designed for skills practice may provide less challenging content than one designed to support project-based learning or interdisciplinary connections. Finally, supplemental materials generally have fewer components, such as assessments, monitoring tools, and teacher resources, than core materials and vary significantly in the components they offer. Therefore, teachers should use their core material as their primary resource for instruction. Supplemental resources should be used in a complementary fashion, such as to fill in gaps when the core resource is not aligned to specific standards, to engage students, to help differentiate instruction, to provide skills practice, or to extend learning. Even if a supplemental material is aligned to all of the standards being taught, teachers should not use it as the primary resource for the course because it will likely not provide the depth or breadth of instruction (explanations, examples, practice) that a core material would provide.
Determining Which Standards Your Materials Address
Practice Tip
If a material does not provide a correlation to your state standards it probably will not cover all of the content knowledge and skills your standards require students to learn. It will also cause teachers more work in planning instruction. If you want to use such a material, consider using it for engagement or enrichment rather than as the primary/core resource for the course .
The next step is to determine which materials address the standards contained in the lesson you are planning or district curriculum unit to which you are mapping resources. The publisher’s correlation or the material’s search -by-standard
feature can be an invaluable resource. The correlation or search feature identifies which standards the material addresses, and like a map, directs you to specific content in the material that addresses those standards.
© Learning List, Inc. 2022
9
Powered by FlippingBook