Remote Learning
Supporting teachers with engaging instructional tools to reduce the learning gaps among students
Case Study Background
Clarion-Goldfield-Dows Community School District serves 1,008 students across three rural public schools in northern Iowa and has one of the highest concentrations of top-ranked schools in the state, with a graduation rate in the top 5%.
Lori Swanson, Instructional Coach
Lori Swanson is an Instructional Coach for Clarion-Goldfield-Dows School District and has an extensive background in Special Education. She works with teachers throughout the school district to implement and leverage new tools.
The Challenge
CGD School District sought a way to better engage students and close learning gaps using technology.
In response to instructional disruption of the pandemic, CGD School District needed a supplemental content provider that could help empower teachers to address the need for engaging standardized lessons that help alleviate the growing risk of learning gaps among their students during remote and hybrid learning.
Facing the same pressing challenges seen across the US educational landscape, Clarion-Goldfield-Dows Community School District proactively evaluated how to implement supplemental resources that would provide consistency to teacher instruction across K-12. They wanted to help reduce the heavy burden of lesson prep stress on teachers and provide engaging content to support every instructional modality across K12 environments.
“[Teachers] are constantly creating, pulling, and/or searching for engaging content to address specific standards and learning gaps. We desired more interaction and higher engagement for novelty and to give a level playing field for consistent instruction while efficiently utilizing technology”
The Solution
Boardworks leveled the playing field for teachers, providing interactive slideshows that can be adjusted as needed for individual and group differentiation.
Clarion-Goldfield-Dows Community School District purchased the full suite of Boardworks for all K-12 content in Math, Science, English Language, and History to support core subject areas for every grade level.
Boardworks leveled the playing field for their teachers, providing interactive slideshows that can be adjusted as needed for individual and group differentiation. This helped address learning gaps based on specific standards that may have arisen during the pandemic and have been identified by the district as an area of focus.
Interactive slide decks are easy to use and flexible, so teachers can use them in a variety of ways. Boardworks seamlessly pairs with and enriches existing lesson plans and curriculum with highly interactive and engaging content. The ability to share live lesson and student led presentation codes for specific standard aligned content has allowed seamless synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning.
Boardworks has helped Ms. Swanson get teachers up to speed quickly with meaningful integration of tech into their instruction, no matter their prior technology confidence and experience. Teachers are subsequently able to use Boardworks content in the way that best fits their lesson plans and student needs. They can pull a full lesson, individual slides, or a mixture of slides from across our K-12 library, which ultimately enhances instruction and saves time for all teachers.
“We use Boardworks in every teaching modality. We use it live with teacher-led groups, some have pushed to Google Classroom for extra help for individual students, and some plan to record flipped lessons as the need arises.”
Lori Swanson, Instructional Coach
Implementation
A member of the Boardworks team provided hands-on virtual training, giving a presentation on how the supplemental tools worked and answering key questions that the District had. Ms. Swanson then worked directly with teachers to help with technology integration, best practice implementation, and supporting usage with the existing technology tools being used in the district.
Clarion-Goldfield-Dows Middle and High School teachers were able to quickly begin using Boardworks and now benefit in a variety of ways such as saving lesson prep time, enriching existing lesson plans with interactive content, and differentiating instruction that is tailored to student needs.
“Students at the high school level like the interaction instead of just worksheets. Students were taking screenshots of the interactive, formative assessment slides for immediate feedback and higher engagement.”
The Results
By partnering with Boardworks, Clarion-Goldfield-Dows Community School District put themselves in a strong position to best support their teachers.
They were able to provide supplemental, interactive content that enriched instruction and reduced learning loss during remote learning, but also for the future when their schools reopened. They ensured that all teachers were consistently integrating technology in a meaningful way to engage students with interactive content that improved learning outcomes.
In the future, Clarion-Goldfield-Dows plans to further implement Boardworks to supplement teacher instruction in special education settings, providing engaging content to support IEP’s. The system is being leveraged for online learning lessons, in-class supplements, and short preparatory lessons for upcoming skills. Administrators are also using Boardworks as a tool to support plans for creating a more interactive learning environment, interactive resources used for RTI, and pre-planning for eLearning days.
Additional Remote Learning Case Studies
Johnson City School District
Tennessee
How Boardworks provided interactive content to supplement and enrich K-12 instruction during remote learning