Pedagogical Approach
Overview of The Juice
The Juice is a browser-based learning platform for grades 5-12. It utilizes short-form stories about today’s news to foster a love of reading, build media literacy skills, and prepare students to become tomorrow’s leaders.
Published five days a week, students receive a mix of original news articles, vocabulary builders, standards-aligned quizzes, infographics, deep dives on important topics and issues, and educational STEAM videos.
The Juice’s data-driven dashboard provides teachers with real-time, detailed reports and insights on student performance based on Common Core or state-specific reading standards. Teachers can quickly identify reteaching opportunities for the entire class or individual students.
Award-winning journalists and veteran educators on The Juice’s team carefully select and write the day’s news stories. Each morning by 6 a.m., the team delivers a mix of five original articles on a wide range of topics – from major U.S. and world news, the economy and environment, to scientific discoveries, civics, the arts, and inspirational stories highlighting exemplary moral character. At least one thoroughly researched 600-1,000-word supplement provides context and background to help students understand complex issues.
Students and teachers have access to The Juice’s vast searchable archive that instantly provides context for subjects across the curriculum. The Juice makes even the most complex news understandable and accessible to all its readers by crafting its content at four separate reading levels based on well-established readability indexes.
The Juice produces balanced news stories that students, teachers, and parents can trust. Educators who build lessons around The Juice attest that it stimulates lively discussions about the news while advancing the development of vitally important learning skills for students and teaching them how to evaluate media coverage critically.
Philosophy and Approach
The Juice supports all students’ informational text mastery with high-quality news, and current events content accessible to all 5-12 students, regardless of reading ability. Aligned to state and Common Core Standards, our content is classroom-appropriate and saves educators valuable time finding student-friendly instructional materials.
For students with diverse levels of reading proficiency to reach and exceed grade-level standards, educators need differentiated instructional content that connects with students’ interests. The Juice’s content approach aligns to research that proves differentiated and culturally relevant reading material leads to increased reading performance for students of varying learning proficiency. The Juice helps students make their learning visible by providing differentiated reading content with linked higher-order thinking formative assessments and immediate feedback.
Every academic day The Juice provides educators with five new current events articles differentiated into four reading levels with linked vocabulary, standards-based formative assessments, infographics, SEL articles, and STEAM content. Educators receive real-time diagnostic student performance data across standards-based skills to help monitor progress and inform intervention. The Juice promotes student motivation, reading comprehension growth, and news literacy through regular, up-to-date, culturally relevant instructional materials.
Research Introduction
Four key factors drive the learning science and educational approach of The Juice:
- The importance of cultural relevance as a precursor to student engagement and the effect that student engagement has on academic performance.
- Short-form content can be a powerful catalyst to support reading comprehension growth for learners with varying reading proficiency in the classroom.
- Differentiated content to provide equity and access for low-performing readers to improve reading comprehension growth.
- Make student learning visible with formative assessments and feedback to support skills mastery.
The Juice Logic Model
The Juice Logic Model explains how administrators, teachers, and students use The Juice, what they do with it, and the outcomes they can expect. For the administrators and teachers who use The Juice, the Logic Model helps explain why using The Juice can result in more effective teaching, what the indicators of success will be, and what should be improved to increase efficacy moving forward.
Goal Statement: Provide students with meaningful, timely nonfiction and current event content that spans the disciplines. Encourage discussion, support content knowledge, numerical literacy, critical thought, and build overall reading comprehension and literacy skills.
Underlying conditions: Students and teachers have regular access to The Juice digital content on a consistent delivery schedule.
INPUTS
ACTIVITIES
OUTPUTS
OUTCOMES
SHORT-TERM
LONG-TERM
The Juice provides teachers and students:
– Digital access to differentiated current events articles, nonfiction texts, vocabulary, STEAM concepts, and infographics
– Content that is grade and subject-focused and adheres to key anchor standards across relevant subjects
– Daily SEL questions that help build empathy in students.
– Formative assessments linked to the content of the texts for data-driven instruction
– Additional instructional materials and resources
Teachers
– Teachers use The Juice across disciplines to support classroom curricula in whole class, small group, and independent settings
Students
– Students use The Juice to:
- Learn about current events and specific topics
- Practice relevant content and grade specific literacy skills
- Develop their knowledge and literacy across disciplines
– Students can access The Juice from home to extend learning beyond the school day
Teachers
– Teachers incorporate relevant, high-quality content from diverse focus areas into their practice
Students
– Students have access to diverse current events and nonfiction content, including practical information
– Students have the opportunity to build:
- reading comprehension
- critical-thinking
- background knowledge
- graphical literacy
- academic and domain vocabulary in connect
- Practice digital literacy and experience digital resources
- Engage in topical discussions
- Build social and emotional skills
– Diverse readers (striving, MLL, gifted, special needs, etc.) are provided different entry points to literacy and content study
– Students build the homeschool connection by sharing their experiences with The Juice with peers and family
Teachers
– Teachers across disciplines support literacy development
– Teachers broaden learning goals to include peer-to-peer and home-to-school
Students
– Students increase their familiarity with different genres of content
– Students increase their facility with graphical representations of information
– Students are able to draw connections across disciplines
– Students strengthen their fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and critical thinking skills
– Students experience an increase in proficiency in literacy skills, including across disciplines
– Students use social and emotional skills to support their learning, decision making, and relationships
Teachers
– Teachers across disciplines effectively incorporate literacy instruction while simultaneously building content knowledge
Students
– Students exhibit strong reading comprehension, literacy and skill-based foundations across disciplines
– Students display expansive content and current events knowledge
– Students display strong critical-thinking skills
– Students incorporate strong social and emotional competencies into their learning, decision making
