Creating Student Buy-In with Studies Weekly | Teacher Testimonial

Speaker: Mechelle C., 4th Grade Teacher, KS

Tell us why you love Studies Weekly!

Mechelle C.: My team and I love the Studies Weekly resource because it’s current informational text. We were using outdated curriculum, so piecing together components that would make it more current was also an endeavor. So it’s nice to have this resource that is ready to use, and with the teacher guides and sequencing, it just makes it pretty seamless. I also love that the students get their own consumables that they can, as we read, we mark the text, we use AVID strategies, and we also love all the text features that this resource has, that allow for deeper understanding and the students get to take these resources home, and they get to discuss with their families what we’re learning, and all the additional information that they are learning.

What would you tell another educator about Studies Weekly?

Mechelle C.: For another educator, I would highlight the engagement strategies that are embedded within this curriculum. There is an outline of activity suggestions, and you can build upon those. You can also take what they’ve given you and differentiate for your students, and retrofit it to best fit your classroom. But the ideas and the materials are all there, ready to use for you. And then as an educator, you get to spend time being more creative versus digging for applicable content that will meet the standards.

What feature of Studies Weekly do you find the most valuable? And why?

Mechelle C.: The feature that’s most valuable to me is it’s very time-saving. As educators, we know we do not have enough time in the day, so to have this resource so well-organized and planned out is such a blessing and time saver.

How does Studies Weekly help you save time in the classroom?

Mechelle C.: Studies Weekly helps me save time because these resources are ready to go with the teacher lessons, and the sequencing guide, all the activities are ready and embedded, and so you can just tweak it and retrofit it to fit your classroom needs. A huge time saver.

What is the one thing that you would want someone to know about Studies Weekly?

Mechelle C.: Number one goal here at our school is student engagement— getting these students to buy-in to what they’re learning, and the Studies Weekly resource is highly engaging, from marking of the text, from the supplemental videos that are attached, to all the engagements strategies, and then as they read and then they listen to the read aloud and follow along. And then even the Explorers World where they get to earn coins and have it as a reward at the end of the week to spend time in that area of the platform of online is highly, highly engaged, which cuts down immensely on behavior, which that alone is priceless.

How does Studies Weekly curriculum align with your state’s standards?

Mechelle C.: We utilize the Studies Weekly curriculum throughout the entire year, but from the months of January to April, we use it specifically in social studies and ELA for utilizing as informational text. So it’s cross-curricular, which is extremely helpful. But our state has specific performance tasks that our fourth graders need to perform, and the scale or standard is Places and Regions. So we spend those months studying the regions of the United States, along with utilizing it for an ELA component as informational text and text features and along with the supporting videos, it is just a beautifully seamless process to take it from ELA to social studies.

For the past six years of her teaching career, a key focus of Mechelle’s has been getting students to fully “buy in” and become excited about their learning. She is always searching for and exploring new classroom engagement strategies and has found that her students truly thrive when they feel excited to learn. 

Mechelle believes in the power of collaboration as the foundation of her teaching philosophy. Her teaching focuses on engaging students, covering district standards, and giving students opportunities to work together. She reflects, “What brings me joy in the classroom is seeing children show respect and kindness to one another as they learn to work together across various facets of education.” 

Mechelle also enjoys collaborating with her team members to identify how they can enrich the overall educational experience for their students. Her advice to fellow educators? “Work together. Every team member has strengths — capitalize on those strengths and develop a game plan as a team.”

Mechelle uses Studies Weekly’s built-in engagement resources, like text annotation and reading tools, supplemental videos and activities, and gamified online content, to reach her goal of student buy-in. She recommends fellow educators take advantage of Studies Weekly’s ready-access resources to engage students. “The ideas and materials are all there, ready to use for you.”

“This job is hard,” she acknowledges, but “watching [my students] embrace new concepts and witnessing those ‘light bulb moments’ is incredibly rewarding.” With her students at the heart of her work, Mechelle strives every day to build relationships with her students and see them grow and flourish toward bright futures.