Quality Teaching Resources: A How-To Guide

Great Teaching Needs Great Resources

High-quality teaching and training materials are not just convenient time-savers- they are essential tools for implementing an ambitious curriculum. The right resources bring concepts to life, deepen understanding, and help learners connect new knowledge to what they already know. Conversely, poorly chosen or designed materials can create confusion, introduce misconceptions, and act as a barrier to progress.

Developing a strategic approach to selecting, adapting, and creating teaching resources is a high-impact activity for any curriculum team. It ensures that the materials used day-to-day directly support the intended learning, cater for all learners, and reflect the high expectations you have for them. This is a cornerstone of effective provision-level practice for 'Curriculum, teaching and training'.

Selecting the Best External Resources

Before you create anything new, it is worth evaluating what already exists. Textbooks, industry publications, online platforms, and video content can save significant time, but they must be chosen with care. Use a clear set of criteria to gauge suitability.

• Curriculum Alignment: Does the resource match the intent, content, and sequence of your curriculum? Does it use the same key terminology and build on prior learning in a logical way?
• Accuracy and Currency: Is the information correct, up-to-date, and relevant? This is especially critical in fast-moving vocational and technical fields.
• Clarity and Cognitive Load: Is the resource clearly presented, or is it cluttered with distracting information? A good resource makes complex ideas easier to understand, it does not add unnecessary complexity.
• Accessibility and Inclusion: Can all learners access it? Consider readability, font size, colour contrast, and the availability of captions or transcripts for video/audio content. Does it reflect and value diversity, avoiding stereotypes?

Adapting Resources for Your Learners

A good off-the-shelf resource can become a great one with a few thoughtful adaptations. Customisation allows you to tailor materials to the specific needs, starting points, and contexts of your learner or apprentice group. This is a key part of responsive teaching.

• Add Scaffolding: For learners who may struggle, add support like a glossary of key terms, a partially completed worked example, or a checklist of steps to follow.
• Embed Stretch and Challenge: For more advanced learners, add extension tasks. This could involve asking them to evaluate the resource, compare different approaches, or apply the concept to a novel problem.
• Contextualise the Content: Make learning more meaningful by linking the resource to local employers, community projects, or issues relevant to your learners' lives and career goals.
• Simplify and Refocus: Sometimes, a resource tries to do too much. Do not be afraid to remove sections or graphics that are extraneous to the core learning objective to help learners focus on what truly matters.

Creating Your Own High-Impact Materials

When the perfect resource does not exist, you may need to create your own. This is an opportunity to produce something perfectly aligned with your curriculum and learners. To ensure quality, follow a clear process.

• Start with the 'Why': Begin with the specific knowledge or skill you want learners to develop. Define the learning objective first, then decide on the best format- it might be a diagram, a case study, a practice exercise, or a simple explanation.
• Prioritise Clear Explanations: Break down complex topics into smaller, manageable chunks. Use analogies and concrete examples to make abstract ideas tangible.
• Apply Dual Coding Principles: If using visuals, ensure they directly support and clarify the text. A meaningful diagram is better than a decorative image. Avoid presenting the same information in two different ways, which can increase cognitive load.
• Plan for Active Learning: Build in opportunities for learners to use the information. This could be through self-assessment questions, retrieval practice prompts, or small application tasks.
• Seek Peer Review: Before using a new resource with learners, ask a trusted colleague to review it. They can offer valuable feedback on its clarity, accuracy, and potential impact.

Where this fits in QualityHero

Developing a shared, high-quality bank of teaching and training resources is a powerful way to ensure consistency and support staff expertise. This practice provides clear, first-hand evidence for the 'Curriculum, teaching and training' evaluation area. Within QualityHero, the Toolkit Areas module is the ideal place to build a central library of exemplary resources, quality criteria checklists, and guidance documents, making best practice accessible to your entire team.