[Grounded in Educator Input] Our Commitment to High-Quality Curriculum in Exact Path

Developed with educators, by educators, for educators—this guiding principle is seen throughout the improvements made to our high-quality curriculum and additional content released this summer and to come in the fall for Exact Path, our K–8 individualized learning program. To really understand where we focused our attention, one must look at four key program areas:

1. We targeted specific areas identified in middle school English that needed more tightly aligned and engaging content. From there, 45 Exact Path lessons in middle school English will receive brand-new content.
2. To give educators easier ways to teach and interact with Exact Path lessons in their classroom, 64 lesson ideas and worksheets are being added as teacher resources.
3. To offer more lessons with complete content or content with a tutorial, practice, and quiz, 190 activities are being updated to now include more of these elements.
4. Several pieces of K–2 math content were updated to better meet educator needs and align more tightly to the skills.

Arriving at these ultimate release decisions requires an experienced team and tight educator partnership. Many Curriculum team members are former educators, which helps us better understand the daily challenges and opportunities that educators are provided with each day. However, nothing is more powerful than collaboration and content development with current educators. When making any decision about the content, the first question Curriculum team members always start with is, “What outcome is going to be the best for an educator?” If this question doesn’t have a clear answer, then we find the best educators to gather feedback from in coming to a decision. We use a network of educators to ensure that our content is presented in compelling ways and also provides opportunities for rigorous, self-directed practice that challenges students to strive above their current level of proficiency.

One example of this can be seen in the updates made to the middle school English content. The updates addressed key concerns of educators. The concerns were: 1) some lessons weren’t aligned to the skills as well as teachers would like, 2) young learners being served middle school content found the content to be too mature for, and 3) middle school English content was long and not engaging enough.

Therefore, to prepare for the 2018–19 school year updates, the Curriculum team located a network of educators, administrators, and even students who use Exact Path. Using the feedback we received and additional surveys administered to current Exact Path educators, the Curriculum team developed a prototype. The network of consultants and our in-house Curriculum team went through three rounds of iterations of the prototype. Refinements included making images more relevant to middle school students, reducing the number of open-ended questions, adding more technology-enhanced items, reducing the amount of text on the screen, and incorporating more engaging theme-based content. The new design has been implemented in all updates for Exact Path content for the 2018–19 school year.

Another example of partnering with educators to guide content decisions can be seen in the new additions to the Exact Path K–5 teacher resources. These updates include content designed to better support students and educators. The additional worksheets and printable lesson ideas align to in-program student lessons and offer targeted instruction that provides alternative ways to gather data on a student’s understanding of a skill. Also, the new teacher resources provide educators with on-demand lessons, activities, and projects to use in small-group settings or 1:1 interventions. With these new additions, educators can better analyze student progress and evaluate student growth in real time.

The recent Exact Path content updates are just some of many examples that demonstrate Edmentum’s commitment to providing high-quality curriculum for educators. As we continue to develop and evolve our curriculum, you can rest assured that our development process will include first and foremost, educator input and feedback.

Interested in learning more about these updates and when you can expect to see these changes in your Exact Path account? Check out our Edmentum What’s New page for the latest updates. You can also watch our recorded OnDemand What’s New webinar for a firsthand look at all the new Exact Path updates and features.