Teachers Domain Collection: Life Sciences, K-12

Wgbh Educational Foundation, Brighton MA

Investigators

Abstract

TeachersDomain.org (w.t.), a digital library collection, is being developed to harness WGBH's extensive broadcast, video, and interactive programming resources in the Life Sciences to support standards-based teaching and learning from elementary through high school. The product is a searchable, Web-based repository of contextualized multimedia materials that teachers are able to access easily and productively for their own professional development, as well as to enrich classroom activities with students. WGBH is expanding this library from its current focus on the topic of Diversity and Adaptation, to include resources that span the Life Sciences across the entire K-12 curriculum. These materials are being organized to reflect alignment with commonly taught classroom units as well as with the performance standards currently applied at both state and national levels. These multimedia assets are being metatagged and presented with extensive contextual information to allow for effective use. Annotations, background essays, standards correlations, and lesson plans accompany each archival resource, and features such as personalized resource bins and community discussion boards enable ease of use and maximum impact. The initiative grew from WGBH's longstanding commitment to the support of educational reform efforts nationwide, a commitment perhaps most evident in the subject area of science. The WGBH archives are rich with high quality, multimedia assets, especially within the subject area of science. The overarching intent in TeachersDomain.org is to get these resources out of the vaults and into the hands of teachers and students in digital form that is directly targeted to their teaching and learning needs.