KET content contributing to significant improvements in student performance Kentucky Educational Television is helping to make a significant impact on improvements in student performance in schools across the nation. At the PBS Annual Meeting in Austin, TX, PBS LearningMedia, a media-on-demand service designed for K-12 classrooms, revealed new study results that demonstrate the potential impact of PBS’ educational resources on student achievement.

KET makes extensive contributions to PBS LearningMedia over a wide spectrum of subject matter ranging from English Language Arts, Literacy, Health and Physical
Education to Mathematics, Science, Social Studies and World Languages.

The content produced by KET at the statewide network’s studios in Lexington includes Math at the Core: Middle School , a collection featuring 50 classroom resources, including videos, animations, games, and interactive lessons; a Social Studies Arts Toolkit designed to integrate arts into the curriculum of K-12 social studies and arts classrooms; and Everyday Learning, a collection of media for preschool.

More than 80,000 teachers, parents and students in Kentucky have PBS LearningMedia accounts and have accessed 850,000 digital learning resources since the service launched on KET in 2013.

The PBS LearningMedia Impact Study, conducted by Education Development Center’s Center for Children and Technology, investigated the potential impact on student performance when the resources available through PBS LearningMedia were integrated into existing curriculum.

The study was conducted during the 2014-2015 school year in middle-school classrooms over a 6-10 week period and included more than 2,200 students in collaboration with three school districts from New Jersey and California. The study focused on four core subject areas: English language arts, mathematics, science and social studies. Results of the study show that the digital content from PBS LearningMedia positively impacted student content knowledge and critical thinking practices when integrated into existing curriculum.

Key findings include:

• Across subject areas, student performance on content assessments showed significant improvement, increasing by eight percentage points
• On average, students outperformed national assessment norms by 10 percentage points
• Students also outperformed state assessment norms, by an average of 11 percentage points
• More than half (56 percent) of students also showed an increase in the frequency with which they engaged in critical thinking practices

In addition, teachers who participated in the study overwhelmingly reported that PBS LearningMedia made positive contributions to their classroom practices, with many saying they are more likely to integrate digital media into their lessons.

“Education is at the heart of KET’s mission,” said Shae Hopkins, KET’s executive director and CEO. “KET resources and videos in PBS Learning Media are free and easily accessible to teachers, students, and parents across Kentucky and the nation. We’re committed to providing innovative classroom tools and knowledge that help educators and students succeed.”

KET is Kentucky’s largest classroom, serving more than one million people each week via television, online and mobile. Learn more about Kentucky’s preeminent public media organization on Twitter @KET and facebook.com/KET and at KET.org.

PBS LearningMedia offers more than 100,000 digital resources aligned to national and Common Core State Standards.

Contact:

Todd Piccirilli
Senior Director, Marketing and Communications
859-258-7242
tpiccirilli@ket.org