1. Instructional Tools for Teachers: Accessing Materials & Using the Lesson Planner
Copyright © 2012 Schoolnet, Inc. All rights reserved.

2. Classrooms is a module of Schoolnet that:
What is Classrooms?
Classrooms is a module of Schoolnet that:
Provides teachers with standards-based instructional tools, lessons and best practices
Delivers class and student level data to the teacher’s desktop
Provides teachers the information they need anytime and anywhere 24/7
Highlight the focus of today – reporting on classroom assessments
Because it is web based, you can use Classrooms anywhere you have internet access. 2

3. HOW DO I LOCATE, INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS?

4. Instructional Materials
In Classrooms, ‘Instructional Materials’ refers to:
Curriculum
Curricular Units
Instructional Units
Lesson
Resources
Assessments
Before we start, useful to understand..
Curricular Units are collections of instructional units. These can only be created by users with the Curriculum Manager role in CMD – a desktop tool for creating curriculum. CUs are the largest pieces (building blocks) that make up curriculum
Instructional units (use district specific term if applicable) are more granular chunks of CUs.
Lessons we all know. The lesson may be done fully in the Classrooms template or perhaps be an attachment to a file or a link to where the lesson actually lives.
Assessments should not be confused with standardized test and benchmarks (if applicable) found elsewhere in Schoolnet. Results from these tests can’t be loaded as data. However, they can include unit tests, quizzes, grading rubrics, etc.
Resources are a catch all for everything else. They can be attached to units or lessons or stand independently. Might include URLs, video titles (but not actual video clips), graphics such as maps, etc.

5. Accessing Instructional Materials
In Classrooms
Materials Search
Throughout Classrooms
By “curriculum”, we mean whatever scope and sequence, standards, units, etc., your district has organized and loaded for use with a particular course.
Not all courses have curricula assigned to them.
If a course or section does not have a curriculum mapped, the curriculum link will not appear in Classrooms home page or My Schoolnet
On Classrooms Home Page (for selected section only, once district maps curriculum to courses)

6. Search for Any Curriculum
Click
Filter by grade and subject
Use this method to access curriculum for courses you do not teach (or that aren’t mapped to your course)

7. Suggested Materials
Even before you search… the “Materials Search” home page pushes suggested materials to eligible users, without any search function being performed.
Filter by course
Displays additional materials aligned to the same standards as upcoming scheduled lessons
Even if the district has not pushed out a prescribed curriculum for the sections you teach, there may be materials available that are aligned to the same standards. May include materials submitted by teachers and approved in your district as well as items ‘bulk uploaded’ from district curriculum.
Displays materials aligned to same standards that students struggled with on a recent assessment

8. Logic for Suggested Materials
Suggestions will be based on aligned standards for:
Upcoming assessments (materials aligned to standards on upcoming tests that had lowest mastery rate)
Upcoming instruction (materials aligned to standards that have been scheduled on teacher’s lesson planner)
Recent assessment results (materials aligned to standards on recent test that had the lowest mastery rate)
Lesson Plans will be suggested over Instructional Units
System will randomly choose five materials from all available institution banks
If the user has no sections assigned or there are no suggestions available, Most Popular will appear
Recommend instructional materials based on
 Upcoming assessments (materials aligned to standards on upcoming test that had the lowest mastery rate)
 Upcoming instruction (materials aligned to standards in materials that have been scheduled on teacher’s lesson planner)
 Recent assessment results (materials aligned to standards on recent test that had the lowest mastery rate )
 Popularity
Suggestions based on recent and upcoming benchmark performance, upcoming scheduled lesson (all tied through the associated standards), as well as number of recommendations

9. Materials Smart Search: Pre-Search Quick Filters
Before searching, filter your search by Subject (multiple subjects can be selected) and/or Grade Level
For teachers, subject/grade will be pre-filtered based on the courses they teach

10. Materials Smart Search: Post-Search Filters
Can view by:
Subject
Grade
Institution
Material type, etc.
If no checkboxes are checked, it means that none are filtered – same as if they were all checked
All materials available have been approved by the District or your school.
You can filter by a unit, lesson, resource or assessment.
Advanced search lets you search on ‘organizers’ such as small group lessons.
Can add to personalized list (My Materials) to make it faster to access later.

11. Materials Detail Page
View aligned standards and other materials tied to the same standards
Create PDF
Recommend
Save in My Materials for later
Build an Express Test (jump to Assessment Admin module, create test from standards aligned to selected material)
Click materials title to access detail page

12. Recommended Materials
View # of recommendations on materials search results page
Click into material to recommend it to others
Can only recommend – no negative counterpart
Materials with more recommendations will be considered more “popular” and will be suggested over less popular materials

13. Standards Search Search for standards that contain a specific keyword
Locate all materials aligned to a particular standard
Schedule standard on the planner
Possible defect – only shows Level 1 standards
Fill in the search criteria relevant to your classes. Select Search and choose a standard from the resulting list.
Level allows you to select a more granular level of standard, e.g. sub-standard, benchmark, standard indicator, etc.
Classrooms hosts multiple standard sets.

14. Navigating to My Materials
Add items to my materials from the overview or detail view

15. My Materials
My Materials is a combination of materials you have created and those you have saved from the Materials Search
Default suggestions pushed to users
Same browsing/filter options as with Materials Search
Sorting options

16. Try It Out: Locating Instructional Materials
Questions for Understanding
What material types are searchable?
What are the two ways a material gets into My Materials?
Practice
Search for all resources across grade levels for a particular subject.
Browse for a resource by standard
Apply Your Knowledge
Locate some materials of interest and save them to My Materials.
Demonstrate. If not much is in there, suggest a subject/grade level to use.

17. HOW CAN I PLAN INSTRUCTION IN CIITS?

18. Lesson Planner
Teachers can schedule lessons, add notes, files, events, etc.
Personal and section views are available
Your lesson planner can contain curriculum that has been scheduled to your section by the district (indicated with a yellow star) as well as items you schedule.

19. Navigating in Your Planner
Filter calendars by section or material type
Day, Week or Month view
Click drop-down arrow to open selector boxes – click arrow again to close them
Hover actions (such as over year to view past planners)
Drag and drop
Navigating on your planner is easy - Click on box to filter by that section. You can also filter by material type.
When you click a drop-down arrow, for instance when filtering on just lessons, click the desired checkboxes and then click the blue arrow square to close the pop-up selector
To reduce visual clutter, some icons are hidden until you roll your cursor over them
‘Dragging and dropping’ is now supported

20. Schedule a Lesson or Unit
Choose materials from District-wide Materials Bank, School Bank, My Materials or Available Curriculum.
Must pick grade & subject
‘Hover’ to reveal schedule icon, then drag & drop.
It is easy to schedule a lesson or instructional unit right from the planner. You can choose materials from the Materials Bank, School Bank or My Materials, filtering by grade and subject. Hovering your cursor over the material reveals a schedule icon – click and hold down while dragging it to the desired day and section.
The 'Materials Bank' contains all district approved/pushed materials, the 'School Bank' includes all school approved/pushed materials (at user's school or other schools within the district). Only those School Bank materials that have also been submitted for approval by the district will also appear in the Materials Bank. In some districts only school bank tab is available.
The Available Curriculum tab provides the ability for a teacher to access, view and self-schedule a set of instructional materials that are components of an assigned curriculum but have not been scheduled. This is helpful for districts that wish to provide broad pacing to teachers, but do not wish to prescribe a very structured and paced instructional program

21. Schedule Material from within Detail Screen
Access detail screen by clicking title in Materials Search or My Materials
Click Schedule to view mini calendar
‘Save and Go to Planner’ or ‘Save and Close’
From My Materials or Materials search, click on the material title to access the light box. From here you can schedule the lesson or unit on the planner

22. Add Standards Coverage
If you have a lesson on paper (or in your head) that you plan on teaching and don’t want to spend the effort posting in Classrooms, you may still wish to keep track of the standards covered. In effect you are scheduling just the standards without the lesson content. You can schedule just a specific standard, or a standard plus any sub-standards underneath.
Use to keep track of standards covered without actually posting a lesson in Classrooms.

23. Drag and drop desired event to day square.
Add Events
Drag and drop desired event to day square.
Enter details.
Click to close detail window.
A number of event types are available for dragging and dropping to your calendar. Additional details can be added as needed. You can add these to the personal and/or section calendars.

24. Roll cursor over bottom of day square.
Attach Files to Any Day
Roll cursor over bottom of day square.
Click paperclip icon that appears.
Choose and attach file.
Paperclip visible to indicate available file.
Upload attachments, up to 5 per section per day. This could be flyers for parents to print and hand out, instructional support materials, forms, etc.
Roll your cursor over the bottom of a ‘day square’ click the paperclip icon. Choose and attach the file. Now the paperclip indicates that a file is attached to that day.
Note that these attachments only appear here – anything you want to be available next year in My Materials should still be added as a lesson or resource.

25. Roll cursor over bottom of day square. Click note icon that appears.
Add a Note to Any Day
Roll cursor over bottom of day square.
Click note icon that appears.
Enter title and content
Click Save ( )icon.
Note icon is visible to indicate added note.
In much the same way you can add a note to any day

26. Embedded Standards Mastery
On the standards to be covered today, how have my students done so far this year on those standards?
If standards are scheduled (via a material or standards coverage), a Standards Mastery view will appear to display the section’s recent performance on those scheduled standards

27. Copy Items
To copy a lesson (or other item) from one section to another, click and hold on the Copy icon. Drag and drop to the additional location.
If you teach the same lesson to two different classes, schedule it once and then drag and drop to additional sections

28. Create a New Lesson or Unit
Teachers can create their own instructional units and lessons by linking directly from the planner
You can create these plus assessments and resources from the materials section

29. Print Materials for the Week
Select material type(s)
Select day(s)
Choose section
Hint: Click arrow again to close pop-up window
You can print instructional materials for a section for the week, or specific days. You will probably want to filter on material type, such as just lessons.

30. Accessing Planners as an Administrator
In the Planner, click ‘Search other calendars.’
Slowly type the teacher’s last name.
Click the teacher’s name in the ‘type-ahead’ menu.
Administrators will see a link to search for teacher planners. They can type in a last name and select from the drop-down box.

31. Try It Out: Lesson Planner Scheduling
Questions for Understanding
What sorts of files might be useful to attach to a day in your lesson planner?
How do you attach a note to a day?
What is the fastest way to schedule a lesson to multiple periods of the same course?
Practice
Select a lesson to schedule to your Lesson Planner.
View your planner in day view.
Schedule an event and copy it to another section.