Speaker: Brian Moore, Director of Curriculum | East Pennsboro
What were the main challenges you faced before partnering with Boardworks in regard to curriculum, instruction, and technology?
Brian Moore: instruction technology. There are many uh, first in regard to curriculum is finding and using engaging resources that are effective as well in align with our state standards, which Boardworks ensures that they are. The others for instruction; finding things that you know, offer a clear, concise and coherent stream of instruction. Special education also is finding a resource that allows you, if you have a kid who is, you know, in fifth grade and you need to give him or her some third grade resources to fill in some gaps or scaffold-Boardworks offers that, which is fantastic and it's easy to use. The other as far as technology is ease of use, which Boardworks for me, you can log on and learn how to use it honestly within five minutes. It's that good!
Could you describe a time that Boardworks had a positive and significant impact on your district?
Brian Moore: So there are several instances in which Boardworks had a significant and positive impact on our district and our instructional model. One of them being is Pennsylvania allows us to use flexible instructional days when we have inclement weather or some other type of emergency. And instead of teachers having to create something that they can then share online, they can go in the Boardworks and pick out a lesson that has, that is right in pace with where they are in their curriculum and they can share that out to the students in Google Classroom and then it's an easy stream of instruction, ease of use. Everyone understands it and knows where to look for it. The next time it was an incident where we've had like other places, we've had a lot of teacher turnover and a lot of new teachers, but where we had one instance where we had a middle school science teacher leave in December and our other new hire could not start until April. Well, in the interim we just had substitutes in there who were not certified in science. So we were able to use Boardworks and its lessons to create engaging lessons for the students and easy to use lessons for the substitute who's not certified in that area and it went very well. Honestly, without Boardworks works, it would be a very, very difficult what, 2-3 months.
How might Boardworks bring support to the MTSS model?
Brian Moore: Boardworks is a very good tool that assists school districts in that area. For instance, if you have students that you've identified in need of tier two or tier three support, you can actually use Boardworks lessons with them in small groups, small group setting or you can also push those out as something that students can work on in his or her own. The other thing is for those students who are needed enrichment, So while you're maybe remediating, you know, half your class, the other half of class, you can offer some type of enrichment through a Boardorks lesson that you can share out with them and it's a very good tool. The other area is, you know, just your tier one, so you recognize an area in Tier one that you know more than 80% of your kids are not getting. So you want to find another way of teaching it well, you can go in the Boardworks, find something standards align and you can use that lesson as another means of trying to reach those students and remediate at the Tier one level and help all kids. So it's a very good tool that I would recommend for anyone who is embarking on the M.T.S.S process and model.
