BOSTON, May 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- New report from Tyton Partners reveals that K-12 teachers who have instructional resources that they find useful – and sufficient support to use those materials – have higher job satisfaction, and highlights how developers can enhance materials and training to drive effective adoption.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, one in six K-12 teachers reported that they were likely to leave the profession. During the pandemic, this number increased to one in four.1
While many factors impact teachers’ experience and success in the classroom, Tyton Partners recently conducted an in-depth analysis focusing specifically on the use and importance of one key ingredient: instructional resources. Having access to easy-to-use, high-quality resources is vital. However, until now, limited public research has been completed on the teacher experience with these resources and how to improve it.
What Tyton Partners discovered was significant. From teachers’ point of view, even some of the most lauded materials can be difficult to use and don’t always address key pain points for teachers. Furthermore, educators rarely receive the robust training and support needed to effectively use the materials and understand the richness of what the tools offer. Therefore, teachers often ignore materials that don’t deliver and instead find workarounds or buy alternatives – sometimes with their own funds.
Nevertheless, Tyton Partners’ analysis revealed that teachers who have standards-aligned materials that they find useful – and sufficient support to use those materials – have higher job satisfaction. The company also identified a series of actionable steps that can enhance instructional resources and drive their adoption and effective use by educators.
Three key themes surfaced:
- Professional development, training, and support from suppliers often aren’t working well. From teachers’ point of view, there needs to be training available well beyond the first few weeks after introducing materials, and offerings that are tailored to schools’ and districts’ individual needs. This requires collaboration between schools, districts, and suppliers, as well as proper resourcing on all sides; efforts to find effective ways to work together need to be redoubled.
- Designs need to be more intuitive, simple, and familiar, as resources are often complex and frustrating to use. Incorporating teachers into development processes and mirroring the user experience of familiar consumer technology products can help accomplish these objectives.
- Many highly valued product features are often missing, particularly those that help to differentiate instruction.
Tyton Partners’ report offers more detail on each of these themes, derived from a rigorous analysis of teachers’ responsibilities; qualitative interviews with more than 50 teachers, administrators, suppliers, and other stakeholders; and quantitative surveys of 1,600 K-12 teachers and 700 school and district leaders.
To download the report Improving Instructional Resources to Enhance the Teacher Experience, click here.
About Tyton Partners
Tyton Partners is designed to be different. As the only advisor dedicated to the rapidly evolving Global Knowledge Sector, we have constructed a team of bankers, principal investors, consultants, operators, and educators to deliver industry-defining insights to power executives’ and investors’ critical decisions. For more information, visit www.tytonpartners.com.
1 RAND Job-Related Stress Threatens the Teacher Supply, 2021
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