Discovery Education announced today it is expanding its partnership with Idaho’s Meridian Joint School District #2. to provide customized professional development for district teachers.
Meridian district administrators are partnering with Discovery Education to create and implement a comprehensive professional development initiative that does the following:
- Provides educators with a broad conceptual view of addressing the Idaho Common State Standards, assessment literacy, and using digital resources to improve instruction and achievement
- Develops participants’ assessment literacy by increasing awareness of formative, interim and summative assessment
- Enhances educators’ ability to create learning units and assessments
- Helps district leaders to create a three-year professional development sustainability plan.
“We are excited to build on our relationship with Discovery Education,” said Dr. Linda Clark, Meridian Joint School District #2 Superintendent. “When looking for professional development support, we wanted a trusted partner that knew our school system, our goals, and was aligned with our vision for success. The Discovery Education professional development team’s ability to consult with our staff, determine our unique needs, and then create an effective, customized professional development solution in line with our existing work were critical factors in our decision to deepen our partnership.”
Prior to this latest initiative, Meridian Joint School District #2 educators and students used Discovery Education Streaming Plus in classrooms district wide. Discovery Education Streaming Plus provides access to more than 155,000 digital learning objects, including videos, skill builders, games, audio files, images, writing prompts, encyclopedia articles and model lessons.
In addition, Meridian Joint School District #2 participated in a six-month beta test of Discovery Education’s Social Studies Techbook through their relationship with Digital Promises’ League of Innovative Schools. A complete digital solution that replaces traditional textbooks, Discovery Education’s Social Studies Techbook features video; interactive text; digital simulations and explorations; virtual and hands-on labs; and an interactive glossary with animations, audio and video.
The Discovery Educator Network (DEN) also supports Meridian Joint School District #2’s educators in their efforts to transform the learning experience with digital media. A global community of education professionals, the DEN connects members across school systems and around the world through social media, virtual conferences, and in-person events.
“Discovery Education and the Meridian Joint School District #2 team share the belief that ongoing, job-embedded profession development is critical to the creation of the authentic learning environments today’s students need and deserve,” said Susanne Thompson, vice president, Discovery Education. “We are honored to be partnering with Dr. Clark and her staff on this new initiative.”
