New Report/Case Study from Rand: “Use of Open Educational Resources in an Era of Common Standards” | LJ INFOdocket

"The purpose of this report is to better understand the uses of EngageNY in order to shed light on the channels through which open educational resources (OER) could better support teachers and the implementation of state standards. In this report, we use data from Google Analytics, surveys, and interviews with teachers from the RAND Corporation’s American Teacher Panel to provide evidence about who is using EngageNY, reasons for its use, and the extent to which it is supporting teachers to address standards for mathematics and English language arts (ELA). EngageNY represents one of the first efforts to create coherent, standards-aligned OER curriculum materials. Early evidence suggests that EngageNY is among the most commonly used curriculum materials for mathematics and ELA in kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Data from the American Teacher Panel suggests that high use of EngageNY curriculum materials across the United States was at least partly driven by educators’ desire to help students meet state standards and prepare for assessments that are aligned with state standards. In particular, teachers in states that adopted Common Core or similar standards were 65 percent more likely to use EngageNY than those in non–Common Core states. The survey data also suggest that school district requirements and recommendations may be a prime reason why teachers used EngageNY.

Our survey data suggest that EngageNY gives students more opportunities to engage in some standards-aligned practices compared with other instructional materials. Our research has implications for states, districts, and online providers of standards-aligned instructional materials."