Discovery Education is an educational technology platform featuring an extensive library of videos, virtual field trips, lesson plans, and other interactive teaching resources in topics ranging from STEM to English and history.
Inspired by and formerly owned by Discovery, Inc., Discovery Education reaches approximately 4.5 million educators and 45 million students worldwide living in more than 100 countries and territories.
Lance Rougeux, Discovery Education’s Senior Vice President of Curriculum, Instruction and Student Engagement, discusses the Discovery Education platform and shares its most popular features.
What is Education by Discovery?
Discovery Education is a multimedia platform that offers educators and students a wide variety of video content, lesson plans, quiz generation features, and other standards-aligned educational tools, including virtual labs and interactive simulations.
Discovery Education started out as an educational video streaming service, but based on feedback from teachers over the last 20 years, the platform has expanded much further, according to Rougeux. He hosted hundreds of professional development events each year and always heard the same story from educators in the field. “Teachers were like, ‘I love that video. I love that, you piece of media. What do I do with it other than press play?’” says Rougeux. “So we quickly started to evolve in large part because of our community of teachers.”
This evolution led Discovery Education to offer more lesson plans and activities that could complement the videos or stand alone, as well as deeper immersive experiences that allow students and educators to create and adapt content to suit their needs.
Of course, video is still a big part of what Discovery Education offers, and the platform features thousands of full-length videos and tens of thousands of short clips. This content is created by Discovery Education and a host of partners including NASA, NBA, MLB, and others.
Discovery Education also features more than 100 field trips and several thousand educational activities that allow educators to embed questions and polls into the video or choose from pre-made video and quiz templates.
How does discovery education work?
In Discovery Education, teachers have access to a personalized landing page. On this page, educators can browse content organized by topic activity type, grade level, and more. They’ll also get personalized suggestions based on past content they’ve used.
Educators can also subscribe to channels like “news and current events,” “virtual field trips,” and “cells,” which provide a landing page for curated content in those areas, organized by specific grade levels.
Once you’ve found the content you want to use, Discovery Education is designed to customize it to fit each instructor’s needs. Rougeux says this customization ability was built into the system based on user feedback. “’Can you package it for me into a lesson, activity or assignment that I can edit?’” says Rougeux, educators used to ask. “I still want the ability to edit. I still want to add my art, but if you can get it 80 percent of the way there, that’s a great value add.’”
What are the most popular educational discovery features?
Beyond video, Discovery Education features a variety of tools that have become increasingly popular since the pandemic began. One such tool is virtual choice boards, which allow students to explore topics at their own pace with interactive slides featuring short videos and multiple options to explore a topic.
A variation of this feature that has become one of the platforms’ most popular offerings is Daily Fix It, which shows students a faulty sentence and gives them the opportunity to move the words around to fix it. Rougeux says this gives teachers a fun 10-minute activity they can do with students every day.
Another category of offerings are interactive ones, which include virtual labs and other interactive simulations. It is the most assigned content within the platform, says Rougeux.
The quiz feature, which allows teachers to choose from pre-set quizzes and surveys and/or insert their own questions or surveys into video content, is also among the most popular new features on the platform.
How much does Discovery Education cost?
Discovery Education list price is $4,000 per building and that includes access for all staff and students who require access. However, there is a variance within that fee based on larger state contracts, etc.
Discovery Education can be purchased with ESSER funds, and the platform has created a ESSER expense guide (opens in a new tab) for school officials.
The best tips and tricks from Discovery Education
Interactive tools for differentiation
Many of Discovery’s interactive tools can be individually assigned to students to help them get up to speed on a topic or dig deeper. For example, Rougeux says many educators assign virtual field trips to students who finish other class assignments early.
Use the choice boards all together in class
Choice boards can be used individually by students, however, Rougeux says many educators find it a fun activity to do in class. This can encourage student participation as each child votes on which option to explore next.
Discovery Education monthly calendars can help choose activities
Discovery Education creates a calendar of activities each month separated by grade. These activities are based on accumulated data about the types of lessons educators seek at different times of the year. For example, a lesson on energy transfer was recently suggested, as it is a topic often covered in classes during this period.
“Then you also offer content that is based on timely events, holidays, celebrations,” says Rougeux.
