Too many educational materials are just not very good

I saw an advertisement today for an "instructional design expert and consultant" who was marketing her plans, activities and strategies. Intrigued, I followed the link and visited her site. Oh dear. While I commend her entrepreneurial zeal, I do hope that if anyone purchases any of her services,  they do so with copious bags of salt. Hopefully no does, but given her LinkedIn profile shows seven years at this, I rather fear that people do. Accordingly, children and learning will have suffered.

In making such a bold assertion, I am assuming that she is showcasing her best work on her site. Her best work is not very good.

Firstly, let me make clear that the best teaching depends on the ages and stages of the child(ren); that it varies with externalities such as day, time, weather; that strategies must consider hunger, illness, violence at home and so. Accordingly, every plan (annual, unit or lesson) and every activity must be specifically crafted, and effective teachers must have multiple alternative strategies they can employ (the "teacher's toolbox") as needed.

Purchasing off-shelf-plans and activities can not reflect the child(ren) in front of you. While the occasional plan or activity might on the odd occasion fit, at best it will need fine-tuning. I believe that the teacher who buys pre-made teaching is unlikely to be the teacher who will adjust and adapt it.

The activities I previewed from the self-described expert were dreadful. Several were simple "fill the gap" or "matching" worksheets, and in most of them I found errors, or at least questions with multiple possible responses or without any possible responses. I also found grammatical problems in both the source texts and the question prompts on several of these printable worksheets. I found typos, and cartoons or sketches playing on tropes which many in the community would find offensive.

Possibly worse than this, what was labeled as "Grade 4" prompted the question of "Grade 4 where?" The level was at best Grade 2 in my last school, more likely Grade 1 extension material, and does not appear in my state's curriculum standards. A Grade 6 unit would have provided perhaps a week for my last Grade 2 / 3 students, and then another week to review and to correct the errors in the materials.

I remember a problem in the 1980s where publishers began producing new materials too quickly to pilot them, to refine them or to proofread them. The battle to get stuff out and to capture market share was more important than the need to produce good materials, especially in math and English. Today, those publishing behemoths have been supplemented (perhaps supplanted?) by these "instructional design experts and consultants" and we are worse off for it.

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