March 12, 2025

ABC Testimonial | Pam Williams | Winter GAEL

ABC Testimonial | Pam Williams | Winter GAEL
Apple Podcasts podcast player icon Spotify podcast player icon Youtube Music podcast player icon RSS Feed podcast player icon
Apple Podcasts podcast player icon Spotify podcast player icon Youtube Music podcast player icon RSS Feed podcast player icon

Discover the powerful educational strategy that Pam Williams calls "the sweet spot" a deliberate approach to curriculum pacing that's yielding remarkable results across an entire district using ABC products. Pam explains how they've transformed their approach to end-of-course preparation, particularly in state-assessed subjects. 

Chapters

00:06 - Introduction to ABC Materials

00:24 - District's Approach to Textbooks

00:31 - Benefits of ABC Books for Students

00:53 - The "Sweet Spot" Review Strategy

01:27 - Impact on Student Performance

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:06.352 --> 00:00:07.195
Can you tell us a bit?

00:00:07.195 --> 00:00:09.820
I understand you've used American Book Company Mateos before.

00:00:09.820 --> 00:00:20.172
Yes, so as a high school principal, most of my departments did invest in the ABC books in order to, particularly in our EOC courses.

00:00:20.172 --> 00:00:24.056
We don't use a lot of textbooks in our district.

00:00:24.056 --> 00:00:27.765
We don't use a lot of textbooks in our district.

00:00:27.765 --> 00:00:31.983
We are very much about rolling up our sleeves and getting into the standards themselves and making sure that we're teaching the standards and making them accessible to the students.

00:00:31.983 --> 00:00:40.249
What I really like in the american book company books is the, the small almost vignettes, the lead-ins, um it's.

00:00:40.249 --> 00:00:43.582
It's accessible for our students who struggle to read um.

00:00:43.582 --> 00:00:44.604
So that's useful.

00:00:44.604 --> 00:00:52.231
It's very useful as we're coming out of COVID especially, and so many students were still absent that gave them a little look, a little scratch the surface.

00:00:53.240 --> 00:01:07.057
Where we've really enjoyed the success is I call it the sweet spot, but it's that point that month before the state assessments are given where we're able to have very intentional reviews.

00:01:07.521 --> 00:01:12.825
We're very focused on our pacing and we don't like to be teaching new content right up until the state assessment day.

00:01:12.825 --> 00:01:27.108
We like to finish our content earlier so that we can spend some time in that sweet spot reviewing, and we have really capitalized on the use of the American Book Company books and those courses to be able to help us as we're doing that spiral review at that time.

00:01:27.108 --> 00:01:28.492
Well, that is fantastic.

00:01:28.492 --> 00:01:32.551
What a great way to practice good pedagogy using instructional materials.

00:01:32.551 --> 00:01:36.364
And have you found a score increases as a result of using the tools?

00:01:36.364 --> 00:01:37.447
Oh, yes, we've experienced.

00:01:37.447 --> 00:01:53.371
Over the last four years we've experienced a lot of significant increases, particularly if you go look at our high school, but really across all of our schools, and a lot of that has to do with that spiral review and that intentional pacing, and we appreciate what we've been able to pull, particularly at the high school level with the American Book Company.