Case Studies | CK-12 Community Site

Millions of teachers and students around the world are taking advantage of our free resources with great success. Please read through some of these case studies to see how CK-12′s offerings can be utilized in your school. If you have been using any of CK-12′s offerings and would like to share your observations, please submit a case study by filling out the template below.

Challenge:	High material costs Differentiation for all learners Creating content for mobile device
Solution:	Used FlexBook System as model platform for creating and sharing customized content and open textbooks with public and non-public schools throughout the district. More than 6,000 educators serving 86,000 students are supported in the pilot, which started during the ’12-’13 academic year.
Result:	School-specific custom content demonstrated. Created original Common Core content and Biology Concept Review FlexBook. Options for gifted-program teachers emphasized.

Challenge:	Low Algebra 1 proficiency scores
Solution:	Used FlexMath as full curriculum including lesson plans, assessments, assignments, and practice. Pilot began in ’12-’13 academic year with 4 schools and 40 teachers serving 6,000 students.
Result:	Results still pending.

Challenge:	Need content material for students re-takng Florida Algebra I End-of-Course Exam
Solution:	Used FlexBook System to create original textbook for Algebra I Florida End-of-Course Exam review course.
Result:	$200,000 in savings for custom textbook

Challenge:	Testing efficacy and cost savings of open textbooks
Solution:	Starting in the ’10-’11 academic year, two BYU professors initiated a two year study to test the hypothesis that open educational resources can save K-12 public schools money. 20 middle and high school teachers adopted open textbooks in their classroom for the pilot period. Cumulatively 3,900 students were a part of the pilot study.
Result:	Pilot study found that open textbook adoption reduces costs by over 50% compared to the cost of adopting traditional textbooks . The average annual cost of a traditional textbook was $11.43 whereas the average cost of an open CK-12 textbook was $5.14 when printed ($0.00 when viewed digitally). Furthermore, there was no decrease in student performance when using open textbooks.

Challenge:	Deep budget cuts for curriculum adoption
Solution:	Used FlexBook System to create their own Probability & Statistics FlexBook for their school district, the largest school district in Minnesota with around 40,000 students. 3 authors and 6 editors spent 300 hours working on their FlexBook.
Result:	Saved $175,000 on textbook adoption

Challenge:	Low Algebra 1 proficiency scores on STAR test
Solution:	Pilot ran in 2011. FlexMath was used as the full curriculum including lesson plans, assessments, assignments, and practice. 4 teachers taught 400 8th and 7th grade students using FlexMath.
Result:	7th and 8th grade passing rates on Algebra STAR tests increased from 88% to 97% and 31% to 68%, respectively

Challenge:	High cost of materials.
Solution:	Used FlexBook System to find and customize primary textbook from CK-12 Biology FlexBooks (especially Honors Biology) for the course TED 5380 Health and Safety in the Secondary School, a required course for credential candidates seeking to become teachers in secondary schools.
Result:	Created replacement primary textbook for course

Subjects:	Probability and Statistics
Size of Pilot:	40,000 students
Grade(s):	9 – 12
Challenge:	Deep budget cuts for curriculum adoption.
Solution:	Used FlexBook System to create their own Probability & Statistics FlexBook for their school district, the largest school district in Minnesota with around 40,000 students. 3 authors and 6 editors spent 300 hours working on their FlexBook.
Results:	Saved $175,000 on textbook adoption.
Best Practices:	Costs savings is important and, with the money saved, the district could purchase up to 350 new IPADs but… Costs savings can’t be the only benefit:it’s important to have teachers on board who see the curricular benefits of a digital curriculum. Start early and have small deadlines: once teachers at Anoka-Hennepin began customizing their books, they had a lot of ideas they wanted to incorporate in their text and it was a rush to get everything done in time for the school year Teacher teamwork is essential – “It’s important to have a good team of 3-4 teachers, and divide up the chapters and help each others, says Michael Engelhaupt, one of the authors in the project Involve multiple stakeholders: Anoka-Hennepin ensured that someone from every school was involved, either as a writer or on the team of editors. This assured broad buy-in throughout the district Someone has to own the project: in the case of Anoka-Hennepin, technology facilitator Bruce DeWitt served as the project owner, coordinating efforts between district and teachers at various locations.

Subjects:	Precalculus, Trigonometry, Calculus
Size of Pilot:	90 students
Grade(s):	9th – 12th grade
Challenge:	High material costs moving to 1-to-1
Solution:	Used FlexBook System to find, assemble, and customize primary textbooks from CK-12 Trigonometry, Math Analysis, and Calculus FlexBooks. Pilot began in the ’12-’13 academic year as part of iPad initiative for 90 students in grades 9-12.
Results:	More than $4,000 in savings on textbook costs
Rural/Urban:	Rural
Best Practices:	It’s absolutely necessary to proofread the exercises; sometimes, the number of exercises doesn’t match the number of answers (or the numbers are mismatched, since the computer auto-number must have inserted a new number with every EOL character in the text), and some graphs are inaccurate or missing. extremely convenient to use (either in PDF fomat or in ePub—though both have formatting issues) There’s no Precalculus book, as such (I’m using the “Math Analysis” book, for now, and supplementing my own material), and I’d very much like to see one. The density of problems varies greatly; the Trigonometry Concepts FlexBook is wonderfully piecemeal and step-by-step, whereas the Math Analysis and Calculus books tend to try to “squeeze” many different concepts/twists/variations into a very few problems. I’d very much like to see many more problems (30-50 exercises per section), quite probably more sections (not trying to push 5-10 sub-topics into one section), and numerous “easier/drill” problems first, followed by more advanced/convoluted problems. The free price-tag is wonderful, and much of the material is excellent (I’m utterly impressed with the Trigonometry Concepts FlexBook, and with its numerous sections which break concepts into “bite-sized” pieces which the instructor can combine or skip at his/her discretion)—though the PDF version didn’t import its graphs/pictures properly, and even the ePub version has difficulties with Chapter breaks, occasional title mismatches for sections, etc.) In summary: (a) please supply an actual Precalculus book (which includes a section on conics!); (b) please encourage formats which are less “rushed” and have more copious exercises and/or sections per chapter.

Subjects:	Math
Size of Pilot:	9 students
Grade(s):	8th grade
Challenge:	High material costs, transportability, editable/customizable
Solution:	Used FlexBook System to find, assemble, and customize primary textbook from CK-12 Geometry FlexBook. Pilot began in the ’12-’13 academic year with 9 students in 8th grade. Open textbook is also used as a living text for the class with subsequent classes making revisions.
Results:	Significant savings for parents,Text editing greatly enhanced student engagement in content
Rural/Urban:	Suburban
Best Practices:	Different formats (ePub, pdf, Mobi) made assigning problem sets challenging because the auto-numbering conventions on the ePub and Mobi platforms renumbered following list breaks and differed from the pdf version. Group editing the text through the website is a bit clunky. Too many “Could not save. . .” prompts that did not explain how to resolve the conflict even with kids working independently on different chapters. Support of editing features too deeply hidden on website.

Subjects:	Biology and Earth Science
Size of Pilot:	160 students
Grade(s):	9th – 12th grade (honors and standard level)
Challenge:	Wanted state aligned texts, workbooks, and teacher resources
Solution:	Pilot began in ’11-’12 academic year with one teacher using the CK-12 Biology FlexBook as the primary text for both Honors and at grade level Biology for 100 students. During ’12-’13, 160 students used CK-12 FlexBooks in Biology and Earth Science.
Results:	2012 Biology state tests showed 81% proficiency at Voyager compared to 75% for state average. Savings between $2,000 and $5,000.