As the demands on educators increase, teachers need ongoing opportunities to build their instructional and content expertise to help them better meet the needs of their students and enable them to achieve at higher and higher levels.
Meet the first tool, powered by cutting-edge cognitive computing technology, developed by teachers, for teachers, to provide high-quality lesson plans and instructional materials, with guidance from a virtual, cognitive coach. Teacher Advisor with Watson has been trained by education experts, including teachers and an Advisory Board of respected thinkers in education – all focused on one purpose: the professional development of today’s modern educator.
A Free Cognitive Coach for Teachers
This free resource is powered by IBM Watson, a cognitive computing engine that, towards the end of 2017, will guide teachers as they plan and deliver lessons aligned to 21st century standards, saving them time and enabling them to better meet the needs of every student in their classroom. In the current version of the tool, teachers are able to leverage Watson’s ability to understand natural language to ask targeted individual questions, and receive specific answers and resources that will better meet their teaching needs.
Teachers will also be able to leverage four unique experiences that bring the highest quality content to their fingertips in one user-friendly space.
Four Interrelated Experiences
Exploring Academic Standards
Teacher Advisor helps teachers learn what they need to teach and importantly, how to effectively teach it. Teachers can:
Learn about a specific concept or academic standard in depth
See connections to pre- and post-requisite standards
View related instructional strategies aligned to a selected standard/concept
Finding and Customizing Lesson Plans to Fit Classroom Needs
Teacher Advisor enables teachers to easily identify lessons targeted to specific concepts or standards that have been vetted by educational experts. Teachers can:
Select full-length, vetted lessons and export to their personal workspace for use
Customize lessons to meet specific classroom needs using a bank of high quality activities.
Receive guidance from Watson as they customize their lessons
Finding an Activity or Worksheet
Teachers do not always need a whole lesson. For that reason, Teacher Advisor helps teachers identify and select vetted activities aligned to academic standards that teachers can use to:
Review prior learning
Elaborate on a particularly complex concept
Prepare students more effectively for an upcoming lesson
View Instructional Strategies
All teachers need resources to enhance their instruction, encourage reflection, and enable teacher growth. Teacher Advisor provides teachers with a corpus of instructional resources that will grow in diversity and depth over time. Teachers will be able to find materials in the following categories:
Curriculum materials
Mathematics standards
Mathematics teaching strategies
Engaging and managing students (by 2017)
Supporting diverse learners (by 2017)
Teacher Advisor, in conjunction with the IBM International Foundation, was piloted with a small group of 3rd grade math teachers nationwide, from August 2016 – November 2016. The IBM development team is incorporating teacher feedback for a December 2016 revised release, which will support up to 1,000 users nationwide. And thanks to the IBM International Foundation and funding partners, including The Stavros Niarchos Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation, this game changing resource will see new robust functionality, and be 100 percent free to teachers around the world by the end of 2017.
Teachers sign up here!
