3 Benefits of Using Authentic Curriculum Resources

Incorporating authentic sources as curriculum resources has many benefits. First, and foremost, they facilitate the transfer of skills from the classroom into the real world and demonstrate the relevance of curricular content to students. Additionally, authentic sources increase engagement in the lesson and, potentially, to the overall content area, and provide an opportunity to dig deeper into the topics.

Make Real World Connections

Because students realize the authentic sources come from the real world, the real-world application of the knowledge and skills being taught with the sources is more apparent. Students understand how they will use the content beyond the classroom and will be more willing to invest their time into the lesson. For example, incorporating sale ads from stores or for items that students are interested in demonstrates the relevance and real-world application of learning percentages in a math class. In this instance, the resource explains the relevance and real-world application of the lesson, not the teacher.

Increase Student Engagement

Authentic sources increase student engagement as students are more inclined to investigate something that does not appear to be a typical assignment. Further, when an authentic source is familiar to students, they can activate background knowledge they didn’t realize they had in the content area. Imagine a health class in which students read nutrition facts from food items they have in their backpack or asking students to correct their own (appropriate) social media post to improve grammar in an ELA class. Another notable example is listening to or watching an airline safety announcement in another language and using previous experiences and images to facilitate comprehension.

Increase Cultural Knowledge

Finally, authentic sources increase cultural knowledge and provide an opportunity to dig deeper into the content area. In ELL and World Languages, authentic resources can be used to teach cultural nuances in a way that is organic and natural- further increasing understanding. Likewise, in ELA, authentic resources facilitate a more engaging and meaningful approach to grammar instruction through idioms and other language functions. Increased cultural knowledge can be gained in Social Studies as well through historical documents, pamphlets, and images. These resources include signs of the times and can improve a student’s understanding of history and how it shaped our current world.

Curating these resources can be as easy as a Google search; however, you may come across them in your mailbox, while out to dinner, or running errands. Take a quick inventory of your curriculum and identify some authentic resources that could impact your lessons. Then, think about where you could find them and how you can use them to meet your curricular goals and objectives.

As you gather authentic resources, Embarc offers an efficient and streamlined approach to organizing the materials and ensuring that the lessons they enhance are aligned to the course standards. You would be surprised at how easy it is to find and incorporate authentic resources into your existing curriculum and organize them using the Embarc platform! Not sure what to use in your own curriculum? Take a look at some examples below to get started.

English

• blog posts and social media clips to compare formal and informal speech/writing
• news clips and articles from time period of novels or other reading sources  
• see Social Studies for more examples

Health

• nutritional facts from actual food items
• warning labels and ingredient lists from OTC medicine boxes

Math

• sale ads with % discounts
• real estate ads for square foot  
• relevant manipulatives
• food/money for proportions and fractions

Science

• recipes for unit conversions
• weather channel app to compare Celsius and Fahrenheit
• see Math for more examples

Social Studies

• news clips (recent and past)
• newspaper articles on historical events from the time period
• pamphlets
• posters
• commercials
• speeches

World Language and ELL  

• apartment listings
• food labels
• menus
• news articles
• recordings of public transportation notices
• commercials
• videos
• blogs