SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 25, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kiddom, the first all-in-one education platform for high-quality digital curriculum, today released data from its second annual State of Curriculum Report. The report, assessed from a survey of 1,361 educators throughout the United States, offers a unique snapshot of how ideas around digital curriculum have evolved through the pandemic.
Kiddom’s State of Curriculum Report, conducted in January 2021, represents firsthand experience across five main role groups: principals, curriculum roles, superintendents, teachers, and technology staff leaders. The data is also grouped into five learning communities: public schools, private / religious schools, charter / magnet schools, school districts, and alternative schools.
N = 1361
The report summary highlights three pressing issues, all of which were exacerbated by COVID-19. The first is continued differences of opinion across educational roles regarding the quality and efficacy of curriculum, which has widened in some cases from Kiddom’s 2019-20 report. Secondly, Kiddom noticed a marked increase in the implementation of fully digital curriculum from the initial report. However, the understanding of what “digital curriculum” truly is remains blurry, particularly across the lines of supplemental digital content and core digital curriculum. The third theme centers around how closer attention is being paid across roles regarding the need for high-quality, flexible digital curriculum.
Theme 1: Role Misalignment and Differing Opinions on Digital Curriculum
Teachers, school leaders, and district leaders disagreed on several aspects of curriculum, including the most important factors when choosing curriculum, what constitutes high-quality curriculum and fidelity of implementation. The survey also revealed that only two of every five learning communities involve teachers in the curriculum research process, which surfaces the issue of teacher autonomy.
“Given the challenging teaching environment of 2020 and concerns over an impending teacher shortage, the question of how to better support teachers should be on every administrator's mind. These survey findings prove that better alignment is key to improve teacher autonomy and trust,” notes Ahsan Rizvi, Kiddom’s Founder and CEO.
On the subject of curriculum quality, when choosing curriculum, "engaging to students" was a unanimously more important factor than "standards-alignment" for all respondents except for principals, most of whom still feel standards alignment is most important.
Of all role groups surveyed, teachers had the most pessimistic view of their curriculum, while the district leaders rated their curriculum significantly higher than before the pandemic, which continues the theme of misalignment among educator and leadership roles.
Theme 2: Increased Demand for Fully Digital Curriculum
Compared to the previous report, most communities saw a significant jump towards digital curriculum in 2021, which is likely a result of forced remote learning during the pandemic.
However, many shockingly noted that they don’t have budget for digital curriculum post-pandemic. Despite the opening up of ESSER funds over the past year, most educational communities still cited budget constraints as the primary reason for not adopting a fully digital curriculum.
“The great irony is that many school leaders see digital curriculum as out of reach, expensive, or time consuming. The increasing fragmentation of education tools and inverse in content quality is resulting in failing outcomes. Teachers and administrators must be able to seamlessly access high-quality content to personalize learning with ease, and the teachers’ responses in our survey underlined that,” says Rizvi.
While the survey revealed an increase in those reporting to have fully digital curriculum, it also showed continued misalignment on the definition of “digital curriculum," given the high amount of supplemental content that teachers are using.
Twice as many learning communities built their own curriculum in the 2020-21 school year as compared to last year’s pre-pandemic report, and there is correlation both years between the "most lacking subjects" being the same subjects where more supplemental content is used. This calls to question the quality of the curriculum most teachers are using, brings concerns of variability in instruction, and furthermore, shows that teachers are spending a lot of time searching for supplemental resources and augmenting curriculum to deliver effective lessons.
Theme 3: Emphasis on Curricular Flexibility & Quality
Emphasis on curricular flexibility is a new theme that emerged in this year’s report. When asked which ideas around curriculum had been adopted more readily due to COVID-19, overwhelmingly the majority answered "curriculum should be flexible" while “ high-quality curriculum is crucial for student success" was the second most popular response, mentioned on average by more than 50% of all respondents.
In another nod to the way COVID-19 is shaping ideas around curricular quality, compared to Kiddom’s 2019-20 report, this year far more respondents reported that they measure efficacy, and those who do tend to report an overall higher quality of curriculum.
“Our findings support the claim that the pandemic created a permanent shift in teaching and learning. COVID-19 forced educators into new pedagogical models, and now many look to apply lessons learned next year and beyond. Supporting budget for high quality digital curriculum will be critical for students post-pandemic,“ said Abbas Manjee, Chief Academic Officer at Kiddom.
“These survey findings underline why it’s crucial for Kiddom to be in teachers’ toolkits, so we can provide all the resources that teachers need to make better decisions for students. We don’t do that for them, but empower them to make those decisions,” says Rizvi.
To read Kiddom’s full Educator Survey report, visit: https://f.hubspotusercontent40.net/hubfs/1952197/Resource_Downloads/State-of-Curriculum-2021.pdf.
About Kiddom
Kiddom is the first all-in-one education platform for high-quality digital curriculum. It integrates curriculum management, instruction, assessment, and communication tools into one solution, saving schools valuable time, resources and money. With the flexibility to access and edit curriculum from any location, Kiddom is the only education platform that can effectively support teachers and learners engaging in in-class, blended, hybrid or distance learning scenarios, as well as in the quick pivots between them. Headquartered in San Francisco with an office in New York City, Kiddom is a team of passionate educators, designers, and developers building technology to enable all teachers and learners to unlock their full potential. To learn more, visit https://www.kiddom.co.
CONTACT
CommStrat
Jessica Cheney, CommStrat for Kiddom
jessica@commstrat.com
Kiddom
Kym Hawkins, Senior Brand & Content Marketing Manager
press@kiddom.co
Figure 0-2 accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/36552be7-e282-4a82-9f64-98875037b0a0
Figure 1C-1 accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6c83c975-3b4c-4b75-b81f-8eb128d928e3
Figure 2A-1 accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/77478b86-648b-4ab3-8a6c-638c4eb3549b
Figure 2B-3 accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d33ffa34-7dd0-4315-b3af-309a88fcbd36
Figure 1B-3 accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/193394c8-487c-4476-b9f4-8802d1c8ff7f
Figure 2C-11 accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/683c5a0d-2d7e-4cf2-9f69-711da8b8db36
Figure 1D-1 accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d1c969e7-d435-4c94-a11e-0beb75540319
