Studies Weekly: Always Growing and Improving

Studies Weekly is continually improving and growing.

As a company, we are dedicated to updating and improving our products to better serve teachers and students.

For example, we were extremely excited to roll out our Google Integration recently, as we know how time-saving that is for teachers.

But that’s not all. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

Our editorial and production teams worked tirelessly to create completely new and updated K-5 Social Studies publications for Georgia and Ohio. They also completely updated the Louisiana 3rd Grade Social Studies publication. Those all are available for advance purchase online and through local sales teams, for use in the 2019-2020 school year.

Your teacher resources now include 35 pages of graphic organizers and activities for students. Those additional tools are accessible through your online account, and they will be included in the printed Teacher Resource starting this fall.

Teachers can now rate and review all online articles, article questions, bonus media questions and assessment questions.

In the right-hand corner on articles and assessments, you can see the 5-star rating system. Simply click on the star of your choice.

If you rate an article or question below 4 stars, a comment box pops up and you can give us feedback on how we need to improve that item.

If you rate an article or question 5 stars, a different comment box pops up so you can tell us what we are doing right.

As a company, this helps our product development team see where we are succeeding, and where we need to improve and update our curriculum.

Don’t worry, only teachers can rate content. This feature is not available for students.

Your students can now choose the reading speed for the audio reader option on online articles. Students who are in the early language acquisition phase can slow down the reader speed so they can follow along easier. Students can also speed up the reader to a pace that works for them.

In November, we organized a focus group, and gained valuable insight from those who use our product every day. Group members shared a number of suggestions where we can improve. Since then, we have implemented those, and are working to finalize other changes.

Here’s just a few of those suggestions we heard, and our resulting actions:

• • • More K-2 videos. We’ve increased our K-2 video productions, and will continue to do so this year.
    • Different content than crosswords. As we update each state’s content, we’re swapping out a large number of our crosswords with additional activities and content in our publications.
    • More rigor and relevance in publications. As we update state content, we are building in more rigor and relevance.
    • More online professional development. We have created an online professional development program, and will continue to add to it. District leaders can also now purchase additional PD training from Studies Weekly.
    • More Tech Support hours. We now provide full day Tech Support coverage for all United States time zones except for Hawaii and Alaska.

These are only a few of the most recent improvements we’ve made to better serve you. We enjoy hearing from you as well. If you have other suggestions and ideas, feel free to contact us through our Facebook page, or text us at: (385) 399-1786.