Category: Exact Path

Supporting the African Children’s Feeding Scheme with the Use of Online Learning

by Lindsay Coles

Established in 1945, the ACFS is a registered non-profit organization that has grown immensely over the years. The organization has 13 centers in South Africa and has developed to provide a holistic program to enable children to reach their full potential.

The centers act as community hubs, providing early childhood development programs and a range of support services for families.

Edmentum has been proud to support the African Children’s Feeding Scheme (ACFS) since 2019. We responded to them by giving them free access to our assessment, teaching, and learning tool, EducationCity.

Providing online learning to this center has been of tremendous importance to the core values of Edmentum, one of which is to truly equalize students’ chances of success regardless of their background, location or ability, and to help build the school around each and every student.

Bertha Magoge, Executive Director at the charity, has commented on how online access impacts the children: “Many of our children get to own their own computer when in their first year in university, and they compete with children who have owned computers since four years of age. That catch-up game is the reason why we have over 50% of university dropouts by the first year in this country. In a small way, ACFS is helping to change this gross inequality and empower these children from an early age.”

For the children who attend the center, the charity provides them with an opportunity to spend time using computer technology, including EducationCity; Bertha says:

“The children you see come from severely impoverished households which are food insecure. In their homes, there is no luxury of a computer or even a smart cell phone. To be able to spend an afternoon in our center like this is like a dream for them.

“On behalf of the ACFS Community Education and Feeding Scheme, more especially the less fortunate children, I wanted to take this time to express our sincere thanks and gratitude for Edmentum’s remarkable support to ACFS.”

Account Manager, Tom Moorhouse, at Edmentum has been humbled to be able to support the charity and provide them with help and training: “I personally want to thank Bertha for everything that her and the team do to provide support to vulnerable children. It has filled my heart with gratitude speaking with Bertha, and I wish the African Children’s Feeding Scheme continued success in all that they do. I am in touch with Bertha periodically to gather updates on how EducationCity is supporting the children that she works with, and I feel privileged at hearing about all the wonderful work that they do.”

Edmentum continues to support this charity, and during some of the recent communication, Bertha mentions:

“I am so humbled by your offer to assist our organization in accessing the EducationCity software. I can’t tell you how much this means to us and especially to the children we serve. I am so grateful. It is people like you who make my work here truly worthwhile.”

Bertha recently sent Edmentum a video of the children at the center using EducationCity, which we are incredibly proud to share. You can view this video here. 

Finally, to find out more about the ACFS charity, please visit their website, where you can read about all the fantastic work they do.

ACFS, thank you for allowing us the opportunity to support you and all the fantastic work you do. We are truly humbled to work alongside you.

Five Top Tips for Exact Path for Parents & How They Can Help Encourage Learning

by Lindsay Coles

It’s the start of the new academic year for many of us, so I wanted to give parents some pointers on using Exact Path at home to start the new academic year in the right way and encourage learning with it. As Edmentum’s Head of International Customer Services, I am also a parent and have lots of experience helping schools and parents access Exact Path and encouraging its usage, so I hope these tips are helpful. Plus, you can use some of them at home too.

1. Build a Schedule

My first tip for parents to encourage learning is to create a suitable daily or weekly timetable to use at home, which will support your child in keeping on track of their home learning. This should include time spent on Exact Path (which we recommend using for 30 minutes per week per subject). Writing their learning activity down in a timetable format will help create clarity between yourself and your child with clear expectations. You should ensure this is focused around their out-of-school activities, such as swimming lessons, dancing, or sports activities, and that the time expected isn’t unrealistic, too long for your child, or doesn’t include breaks. 

2. Set Up a Suitable Workspace

It may seem obvious, but it’s worth reiterating; the second tip is creating a suitable environment at home to work in to encourage learning within Exact Path. I suggest having a calm, quiet area with no distractions. It is also essential to check that your child has access to their device during this time. Is it free to them or being shared by another family member? Has this device been charged in preparation? Also, it’s worth making sure your child has enough time to complete the task in hand and that they are feeling energized to finish their work and are refreshed. Your child may work better at different times, such as after dinner, so it’s worth keeping an eye on that and factoring it in. 

3. Get to Know the Online Learning Platform

I also recommend, where possible, to speak to your child’s teacher about Exact Path if you have any questions. Your child’s school may also run parent workshops which would be useful to attend, and it’s also worth mentioning that we have some helpful guides for you to use to learn more about Exact Path too if you need them:

You can also visit my recording to gain more knowledge of using Exact Path – I did this for a school where parents listened in, so it’s worth checking out.

4. Communicate with Your Child’s Teachers

Where possible, another tip is to ensure you are communicating with teachers regarding your child’s development, whether this is to address any challenges they may face or to share their successes (which is equally important, of course!). You can view the Rewards area within Exact Path to understand what areas your child is currently working on, or if it is suitable, you could reach out to your child’s class teacher for advice and support or tips on how to better help with learning at home.

5. Share and Celebrate Your Child’s Successes

Another great point, and as mentioned above, is that your child can review their success within their Rewards area in their Exact Path account, which is worth taking advantage of. This area shows the skills recently mastered, as well as the class challenges that have been completed. You could arrange time each week to look at these together and share any success with your child or other family members. You could also decide on your own reward for your child to work towards once they have completed the expected time or areas within Exact Path that they have chosen to do. Alongside this, there’s also the idea to create a weekly reward chart to keep track of these successes, where you and your child can see the progress towards their chosen reward – a great motivator!

I hope you found my tips useful, and they have given you some ideas into how you can use Exact Path at home to support learning. Remember, Exact Path has numerous features to support home learning and student progression, so it’s well worth checking out.

It’s also worth pointing out that we love hearing about student success, so if you have any success to share, please do! You can tweet us at @Edmentum_INT or email us on international@edmentum.com – we look forward to hearing from you!

If you’re a teacher at a school using Exact Path and need a little more help with parental engagement and the platform itself, we are always welcoming all schools to get in touch with us if they need to by emailing international@edmentum.com. Remember, you can also see our parent guide here, which we did for a school too.

How Summit International School in the UAE Utilizes Exact Path to Support Growth and Attainment with NWEA MAP Skills

by Lindsay Coles

Summit International School in the United Arab Emirates has been using Exact Path for two years to support their teaching and learning. The school has seen impressive results in terms of growth and attainment, and the learning paths within the product were a perfect match for the school. This is echoed in the school’s mission statement; this statement is, “The mission of Summit International School is to create a happy and safe environment that cultivates individualized learning paths through active learning and reflective teaching.”

 

Why Summit International School chose Exact Path

The school serves a large student population where every student is an English language learner. With a large ELL student population and a UAE requirement of using NWEA MAP, Summit International School began searching for a product to support these learners and this new prerequisite. Exact Path quickly became the perfect solution.

Lee Dabagia, Principal at the school, has commented that they were looking for a product that would enable personalized learning linked to MAP. Lee says,

“Other programs couldn’t give us the level of personalization that we were looking for to support our students.”

Lee’s comment on “personalization” also links with the school’s vision: “To be a school that provides every student individualized learning, growth opportunities, and the confidence and creativity to climb higher every day.” Exact Path allows the school to fully personalize learning and address any gaps right at the core.

There were other reasons for implementing Exact Path, however. The school found Exact Path gave teachers insight into their students’ progress, and it also gave them another precise data source that they needed. Alongside these benefits, it could also support test endurance, for which the school was requiring support.

It’s also worth highlighting the impact the product has had on ELL students at the school. Lee comments on this,

“We recognized our students might be the only English speaker at home. The interface has visual cues and icons the students can easily follow. Exact Path offers grade appropriate instructions for auditory and visual learners. This ensures the students can use it without a teacher or parent. They can use Exact Path any time of day, anywhere they want, individually. After two years, we are watching our Grades 2 and 3 students translate for their parents during student-led conferences.”

Using Exact Path in school and at home

Initially, Summit International School used Exact Path with students between the grades of 2 to 8. This year, they have begun using it throughout grades 1 to 9. Students at the school have been receptive to Exact Path; this has been increasingly more so since they started receiving rewards for their work.

Furthermore, the school uses Exact Path as a support for teachers; they deliver the content, and then Exact Path helps students address any gaps. This usage aligns with the school’s ambition to always provide educator support. Lee says, “We do not want Exact Path to be a teacherless experience.”

Recently, there has been a shift at the school in terms of Exact Path usage volume after introducing student rewards for the number of skills completed within the product. With this method, the school hopes to improve student growth even further.

Exact Path is already helping with this, as Ian Power, teacher and Exact Path coach at the school, has said:

“Exact Path is influencing the improvement of students’ MAP skills.”

As this shift has only been implemented, the school has also been rewarding students for their time spent on Exact Path. Impressively, the school celebrated 129 students using Exact Path at home for more than 400 minutes over the summer holidays. This was when students were not required to do any learning and clearly shows the impact Exact Path is having on students’ engagement.

Exact Path helps students exceed grade level too, which was one of the school’s goals. Lee mentions:

“Exact Path, for sure, has helped us get closer to that goal of helping students who are exceeding grade level.”

 

Success with Exact Path

Indeed, Summit International School has used Exact Path exceptionally well. They can see visual improvements in reports from utilizing the many tools and features available. The product has also helped with home and distance learning, as Samar Barakeh, Director of Assessment and Student Services, says:

“It is year-round, and we can offer kids that option to learn. Exact Path also helps with distance learning, especially after the closures and learning loss.”

Also, Exact Path is supporting the school with its latest developments and ways of learning exceptionally well. This is because some students are learning via a fully online or hybrid learning model. Lee, the Principal at the school, echoes this and has commented on the impact Exact Path has had:

“Exact Path is becoming a way of life for us.”

We hosted a webinar with Summit International School, where they explained more about their story and how they implemented Exact Path. You can watch the webinar here.

Maintaining Learning Continuity in Liwa International School for Girls

by Lindsay Coles

Liwa International School for Girls is an American Curriculum school that has invested in digital solutions to improve the quality of teaching and learning that are taking place in all subjects. It is a K-12 school with a predominantly Emirati or Arabic-speaking cohort. English is, therefore, an additional language for the majority of their learners.

 

Liwa International School for Girls Logo

 

Kate Hutchinson, Head of EYFS and Elementary, and Shakila Mohammed, Assistant Principal for Early Years and Elementary, were both looking for a package that would help them improve attainment results in Maths, English, and Language Arts. They decided to invest in Exact Path and it is having a significant impact which has exceeded their original expectations.

Kate explains, “this initiative has been used across the whole school and we are seeing significant improvements in attainment results. It has become the main resource for Maths, Reading and Language Arts and “has improved upon and replaced many pre-existing resources that were being used and the fact that they are all sign-posted and collated within one resource is brilliant and saves preparation time.”

Shakila has been impressed with Exact Path and says “it has helped to improve parental engagement and students are coming into school early to be part of it. It has brought parents, teachers and students together. Parent demonstration videos were created and success challenges for both students and teachers have added competition and driven usage.”

Kate and Shakila have both seen huge improvements in attainment throughout the year. Exact Path uses diagnostic data (which can be your MAP results) to identify learning gaps. It then provides students with engaging lessons by using animated videos to explain skills and knowledge. It reinforces this instruction by enabling students to practise the new skills and knowledge before assessing them with a Mastery Quiz and a Progress Check. At all stages, it gives feedback to the students and provides live reporting to the teacher so that they can monitor progress and intervene where necessary. It provides live formative assessment data which is updated continuously and adapts as your students make progress.

Kate and her staff use Exact Path within lessons to assess new material as part of station rotations and catch-up courses. Some children arrive in school at 7am to use it as part of catch-up programmes, “it is firmly embedded into our schemes of work and lesson plans and has become a key component of our teaching, learning and improvement strategies. We have ‘buddying’ schemes, super users, student and teacher challenges and have created drop-in rooms where students can work on the program.”

It was very effective when ‘normal’ teaching and learning were occurring but Shakila has been very impressed by its use and effectiveness during distance learning, “it has enabled us to transition easily to distance learning and teachers can monitor formative assessments remotely and intervene through Zoom synchronous lessons. We have just set up our student summer challenges within it and hope that this will maintain the growth they have seen and limit any summer learning loss.”

Both Kate and Shakila confirm that Exact Path has enabled them to “personalize learning, improve attainment and maintain learning continuity”.

 

WEBINAR

Join Kate and Shakila on 28th July at 12pm BST as Liwa International School for Girls host a webinar discussing how they have implemented Exact Path and the impacts it has had.

If you would like to learn more, please sign up for the webinar here. 

 

 

Latest Enhancements to Exact Path, Courseware and Study Island

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Our latest enhancements are based on your feedback about how you teach and and how your students learn best and we’re really excited to share them with you!

Take a look at the latest additions to Exact Path and Courseware…

Exact Path

Reporting Changes

We know teachers use Exact Path data to guide high-stakes instructional decisions so we’ve been looking at how to improve data and reporting.

  • Categorizations of assessment by national percentile rank means that a student’s score will fall into one of four percentiles that represent where their score falls in relation to Exact Path US national norms from the spring testing window. This will be available for Exact Path K-8 students to help you understand exactly how your students are performing.

  • Easier-to-understand domain level information will mean you can see the number of items scored correctly or incorrectly by domain and skills for individual students, or aggregated by class, grade, or school level. You can also explore individual performances to understand students’ assessment journeys and skill readiness.
  • Understand where your students should start learning with the new Learning Path Entry Grade (LPEG) metric. You’ll be able to see the lowest grade level skill your student will begin working on when they start their learning path to give you a holistic view of your students’ learning path.
  • Review students’ performance in meaningful ways with five updated diagnostic reports to give you more insight into your students’ performance.

Choose Assessment Starting Grade

We know that you know your students best, so if you’re using the Exact Path diagnostic, you can now set your own starting grades to support differentiation and test more efficiently.

Create Assignments from the Groups Page

Create custom assignments for your groups to provide further differentiation within your lessons, based on assessment, domain or skill performance.

One-Click Assignment Archive

Deactivate or archive assignments with the new one-click deactivate option to remove assignments from student view but retain data for your records.

Increased Flexibility for Students’ Settings

Adapt Exact Path to suit the needs of individual learners…

  • Diagnostic settings allow you to set starting grade levels of the diagnostic for each subject and then turn on or off any text to speech functionality.
  • Learning path settings allow you to adjust the content style students see to ensure it’s relevant to their age. You can choose to add all skills to a learning path for 7-12 grade remediation, or let the solution deliver key skills. You can also hide calculators for students in math.

Over 1,000 Additional Teacher Resources!

We know your time is precious, so to save you time searching for high-quality resources, we’re adding more than 1,100 printable worksheets in addition to our lesson ideas, teacher videos and worksheets. We’re also adding interactive lessons and videos for you to assign to students away from their learning paths, or for you to use in mini lessons as a group – great for extra skill reinforcement and intervention.

Study Island

Search and Assign Content

Simply type in the concept or standard, pick the activities and assign them directly to your students. You can even assign lessons and flash cards which students must complete before they can start on the Study Island topic.

Content Search and Assign Page

One-Click Clean Up

You now have more time to focus on preparing for the new year! Now you can ‘reset’ your classes for the new academic year (if you plan to reuse them) by selecting one or multiple classes and then unenrolling all the students in them and/or deactivating all the assignments in those classes – this makes it much quicker for you than having to unenroll/deactivate for each and every student.

Streamlined Class Clean-up

New Student Activity Page

See where students are logged in, and what they are working on, as well as viewing how they’ve done on activities and assignments in one place. You can also assign content from here if you notice they need some additional practice.

Student Activity Data Page

Courseware

Enhanced Reporting 

Save yourself time putting reports together with single or bundled reports for:

  • Course Progress Report
  • Gradebook Report Card

If you want to see any of our new updates in detail and speak to one of our friendly team, just give us a call on +44 (0)1572 492576 or email international@edmentum.com.

What’s New at Edmentum International?

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Solutions

 

We’re super pleased to say that we’ve recently uploaded a whole host of new updates to Exact Path (with an update added recently for Courseware too!).

We’re always listening to educators and teachers, to enhance and adapt our solutions to meet your needs and best support you in strengthening your innovative teaching techniques.

Take a look at all our updates below!

Exact Path

Provides personalized learning pathways for students aged 5-14.

Plan Assignments More Easily with the Expanded Assignments Feature

What Is the Update?

Exact Path enables educators and teachers to quickly and easily plan, build and set assignments. However, we’ve made this process even easier. On Exact Path, you’ll now be able to create assignments from the Current Learning Activities and Knowledge Map data views.

You will also be able to build a new assignment in the Assignments page, which is where teachers can see completed assignments and those that are in progress.

How Will This Help Me?

This is great as it means you can identify who needs support and assign resources all in one place – perfect for additional remediation or spiraled support in the same area.

Courseware Assignments Page

Keep Track of Assignments with Active, Past and Archived Categories

What Is the Update?

To help you keep up to date with assignments, we have added clarification to our teacher-created assignments feature. So with the ability to see current active assignments, you’ll now see past assignments as a new category. The past assignments category will include any assignment that has passed its due date but still has students assigned to it.

Alongside this, if students have been removed from an assignment, these will appear in an Archived option (previously noted as Inactive).

How Will This Help Me?

This is going to be ideal for keeping track of where students are with assignments, which will help you provide remediation or support where you need to. It also means you’ll have no worries about losing any assignments and can reuse them for different students at any time, so it’s a huge time-saver!

Courseware Assignment Categories

Navigate Exact Path More Easily with Homepage Quick Links

What Is the Update?

The homepage, formerly the Notifications page on the My Classes tab, now makes locating items on Exact Path easier. Alongside the adjustments to help teachers act on Exact Path’s notifications, you can also now see a Quick Links to key areas of the solution.

How Will This Help Me?

This means teachers can start reviewing data and enhancing instruction as soon as they log in, with navigation to diagnostic, learning path, assignments and class areas being done within one click – simple!

Courseware Homepage Quick Links

Math Skills with the New Calculator Tool

What Is the Update?

Often provided as a support for assessments and an important tool, we’ve partnered with Desmos to offer the Desmos calculator on Exact Path within math Mastery Quizzes. A calculator is available for those skills that require it. There are three different calculators – basic, scientific, and graphic – and depending on the question, the correct calculator will now show.

How Will This Help Me?

The Desmos calculator makes sure students have the supports they need as they complete math skills in their learning path, so it’s great for giving students the maximum opportunity for success.

Find Your Way Around Exact Path Quickly with Streamlined Educator Subject Pages

What Is the Update?

There will be a slight refresh when navigating between different subjects from the teacher view of Exact Path, with adjustments to colors, labels and section descriptions. Sections are now organized differently to help you navigate your way around Exact Path quickly to suit your needs.

How Will This Help Me?

Get to where you want to go quickly. It’s much more intuitive and personalized to your teaching needs to support you day to day.

Courseware Streamlined Educator Subject Pages

Courseware

Expand and enhance your course offerings for students aged 12-18.

Measure Workplace Skills with Added ACT® WorkKeys Prep Courses

What Is the Update?

We’ve also released a batch of new ACT® WorkKeys prep courses recently on Courseware, with content aligned to two new ACT® assessments.

The courses include Applied Mathematics (which has been updated), Business Writing, Comprehensive, Locating Information, Teamwork, Listening and Applied Tech, and Reading for Information.

We’ve also recently added a Graphic Literacy and Workplace Documents course too.

How Will This Help Me?

You can support your students preparing for the workplace better and it means you can offer them more to support their needs.

Keep in touch for any new updates in future with our solutions – and remember, should you have any questions or need any advice at all, give us a call on +44 (0)1572 492576, or email international@edmentum.com.

Common Challenges with NWEA Map® Assessments and How Exact Path Can Help

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In my last blog post “How Exact Path Can Maximize the Value You Gain from Your NWEA Map® Assessments”, we explored how Edmentum International’s Exact Path individualized learning solution could harness the power within the NWEA Map® Rasch unit (RIT) scores. In this blog, we will delve deeper and look at specific questions which are often asked by schools:

1. What does the NWEA Map Assessment and Exact Path partnership mean for schools?

Uploading your school’s NWEA Map Assessment results to Exact Path is easy to do and removes all elements of manual analysis that you’d need to do to understand what the scores mean for your class. In a matter of minutes (which is how long the upload takes), it will help you easily distill the information that each student’s Rasch unit (RIT) scores contains, and gives you a system-generated learning path per student to take their learning forward from whatever starting point they are at.

From a student perspective, Exact Path delivers truly personalized learning. A student’s learning path delivers the next four skills that that student has to master. For each skill, it provides instructional material, practice tasks and quizzes, and when all four skills have been completed, there’s a Progress Check for the student to take to ensure subject mastery.

In summary, Exact Path takes the RIT score and lets you, as the teacher, understand what it means in real terms. It takes the static score as a starting point, and from it, creates a dynamic, individualized learning plan, complete with instructional content, to drive learning forward, based on mastery, from thereon in.

2. Do schools have to wait for the next NWEA Map® Assessment window to start using Exact Path?

Exact Path can only create its individualized learning paths from an assessment, be that from NWEA Map®, from Renaissance Star, or from its own diagnostic assessment.

To avoid waiting for the next assessment window, however, your latest assessment results can be uploaded. Whilst this is not ideal as there could be some difference in where your students were then and where they are now, this will allow you to use the solution meaningfully immediately.

3. From uploading my NWEA Map RIT scores to Exact Path, I can see my students are working at different levels. How can Exact Path help me teach all these students with very differing needs?

As a teacher, you’ll be able to see where individual students are with their learning. If they are struggling, you can group similar students together to target in-class re-teaching and intervention exercises. If they are progressing strongly, you can provide additional challenges from within Exact Path for their enrichment.

As time moves on and students master the skills, you will see progress in real time via Exact Path. A lot of change can take place between one NWEA Map® Assessment and the next – the windows most schools opt for are the new academic year window, the one in January and the one in Spring – but Exact Path constantly adapts with progress made, ensuring each lesson is targeted to the student’s learning needs.

4. Can I upload assessment data several times each year, or am I restricted to the NWEA Map® Assessment windows?

Schools can upload assessment data up to 4 times per year. The main upload is limited to the NWEA Map® Assessment windows, however, amendments, i.e. adding in a missing student, can be undertaken as and when required.

5. How many hours per week do you recommend using Exact Path for to see results?

As a general rule, we recommend students to use Exact Path for a minimum of 30 minutes per subject per week in order to see academic improvement. If students are working below grade, we would encourage them to use it for longer periods of time to catch up.

I hope the answers above have helped you understand how Exact Path can give you the real-time tools and resources to offer every child in your class the right lesson, at the right level at just the right time. If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact us by phone on +44 (0)1572 492576 or by email: internationals@edmentum.com.

What’s New at Edmentum International?

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At Edmentum International, we spend countless hours speaking and working with teachers and students to improve our solutions from user feedback gained. We like to use your user feedback to make sure our solutions are being developed in a way that meets the unique needs of people like you. We focus everything we do on our educator partners here and work to develop our solutions to support your challenges.

That’s exactly why we’re excited to tell you about the new feature upgrades and updates we have implemented for Exact Path and Courseware. Find out what’s new for these solutions.

What’s New… Exact Path

Student Feature Update

Auto-Saving in Practice Activities

Alongside the Progress Checks and Mastery Quiz items being bookmarked in Exact Path, now, many additional activities are bookmarked too. This feature will be ideal for making sure students are able to continue their lessons in Exact Path after exiting, so they won’t have to start them again.

With this, when a student takes an activity, they will now return to where they left off when they next log in, which is ideal for making sure progress is saved and learning is continued.

Exact Path Student Page

Educator Feature Updates

We’ve also made small changes to make your Exact Path experience more simple as a teacher, and make your day-to-day life that little bit easier.

Review Quizzes in Supplemental Assignments

You can already review Progress Check and Mastery Quiz answers in the learning path, but teachers will now be able to review Mastery Quiz answers in supplemental assignments too, making it more simple view students’ progress.

Location Filter Updates

So you can view the data you need fast, you can now use a filter to see only the students in your own location when managing classes, making it easier for you to view what you need.

What’s New… Courseware

New Weekly Progress View

We’re excited to say that you can now gain weekly insight into how a student is doing with launched/completed course activities by viewing progress in a weekly view. With a more sophisticated, easier way of viewing data, the report includes:

  • Summary overview
  • Interactive weekly trend graphs
  • Weekly details

Courseware Weekly Progress View

Enhanced Section Curriculum Page

When viewing and modifying course curriculum, workflow improvements have been made which has increased modification visibility, making Courseware more flexible to your needs. Changes include:

  • Easy settings access to lock and hide activities
  • Timestamps to confirm any curriculum changes
  • The global menu now includes end of semester test

Courseware Section Curriculum Page

Easy Access and Identification Updates

To help with overall identification and workflow, updates have been made and they include:

  • The course catalog can now be printed
  • Unprovisioned courses now have a new flag with active sections assigned
  • An “inactive” label is now included in the Courseware Audit Report for inactive sections
  • The reorganization of report layouts and print versions for ease of reading

Have any questions on the updates? Or would you like to find out more information about the solutions we offer to help schools? Just get in touch by calling +44 (0)1572 492576, contacting us on WhatsApp on +44 (0)7832 971396 or emailing international@edmentum.com and one of our friendly team will be in touch!

How Exact Path Can Maximize the Value You Gain from Your NWEA Map® Assessments

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Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA) Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) Growth Assessments are used by schools all over the world. The adaptive tests are fantastic for helping teachers understand the level students have reached in their learning, regardless of the academic grade they are in, and provide teachers with the data necessary to produce individual or group instructional plans.

Even with their support, however, developing a meaningful individualized plan for each student involves a considerable amount of work when the average class may contain up to 25 children. Which is where, we at Edmentum International can help, with our award-winning solution, Exact Path, for students aged 3-14.

In this blog, we’ll look at exactly what Exact Path is, explain how our partnership with NWEA Map® works and, most importantly, outline the benefits for students and teachers.

What is Exact Path?

Exact Path’s an individualized learning solution, covering reading, language arts and math, which enables teachers to deliver the right lesson at the right level at exactly the right time to meet the needs of all their students in one classroom.

No matter whether students are working below, on, or above grade, Exact Path will deliver carefully created content, developed by our in-house subject matter experts, to meet each student’s needs and help them progress.

How do Exact Path and NWEA Map® Assessments work together?

By uploading MAP® Growth assessment Rasch unit (RIT) scores to Exact Path, students receive an individualized pathway of content just right for them. The illustration below shows how no more than four skills are selected at once, and the curriculum components each lesson module might include.

Example of individualized learning pathway

Student Benefits

Exact Path enables students to take ownership of their learning and control when, where and the pace at which they learn. Focusing on no more than four skills at one time keeps them motivated and focused, and having to access to a full mix of curriculum-aligned, instructional material, mastery quizzes and teacher-graded activities helps them fully engage in their learning.

After completing their set of four skills, students are given a Progress Check to check they’ve understood what’s been covered, and ensure they are ready to receive additional skills. As students demonstrate mastery, learning is propelled forward; if additional remediation is required, automated Building Blocks allow students to address any gaps that exist.

Teacher Benefits

Uploading your class’s NWEA Map® Growth results to Exact Path, gives you a definitive starting point for each of your students, and provides a structured learning pathway to ensure subsequent instruction is focused where it is most needed for them to progress.

Harnessing the information from the assessment, it puts you in control, enabling you to:

  1. Monitor class performance by skill – You can view learning path progress by skill to make real-time instructional decisions.
  2. Evaluate individual progress – Student summary reports detail all learning path activity for a specific student, they help you track progress, plan for instruction, and are great to use when talking with parents and other stakeholders.
  3. Create data-driven small groups – Grouping students of similar ability can require a lot of time. But Exact Path does it for you, allowing you to focus on student instruction.
  4. Assign targeted content – You can search for standards or skills-aligned content within Exact Path, and build individualized assignments to ensure your students receive the just-in-time instruction, remediation, and enrichment they need.

Want to know more about how NWEA Map® and Exact Path work hand in hand to power individualized learning? Our team is on hand to provide you with more information. Just call us on +44 (01572) 492576 or email us on international@edmentum.com.

What’s New at Edmentum International?

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After spending countless hours speaking and collaborating with teachers and students, and reviewing user feedback, we’ve used your experiences to ensure we’ve adapted our solutions to meet the unique needs of the people who matter to us the most – you. Our educator partners are at the forefront of everything we create here at Edmentum International and we continue to evolve our solutions to support your challenges.

So that’s why we’ve recently had a whole host of feature upgrades and updates, and we’re going to discuss the updates for three of our solutions – those being Exact Path, Courseware, and EducationCity. So what’s new at Edmentum International? Let’s discover our updates.

What’s New… Exact Path

Educator Feature Updates

  • Hide Subjects for Faster Navigation

If your school has multiple subjects in Exact Path, great news, because teachers can now customize their interface to show only the subjects they teach or want to monitor. You can easily update your profile by going to your My Profile page and then hiding any subjects. Just to note, by default, every subject you have on Exact Path is displayed.

Exact Path

  • Print Progress Check Trophy and Challenge Certificates

With printable Certificates and Trophies, you can celebrate your students’ achievements and keep them motivated towards reaching their academic goals. Teachers can now easily print individual Progress Check trophy certificates from the Student Summary Report, and Challenge certificates from the Challenges area for students too.

Exact Path

Student Summary Report

  • Retrieve the Data You Need Easily

We’ve issued another update to help make Exact Path reports more meaningful and easier to read, helping you save time and get the data you need quicker.

So, the Student Summary report now shows how a learning path was generated in the instance the learning path was not generated by taking the Exact Path diagnostic. Educators will see either “Path-Based Off Renaissance Star Score” if they are Renaissance users, or “Manually Generated Path” in the instance the path was auto-generated.

What’s New… Courseware

User Interface Enhancements

  • Educator Review

Courseware now includes further detailed summary information to help you visualize data. There is also a new icon/flag for courses not included in the program course catalog (you’ll see these as they are designated by a hazard sign), which makes it a lot easier to manage what you are able to see.

  • Browser Instructor Delivery

When creating sections, administrators will now be able to browse for instructors by name, adding more flexibility and making it easier to find what you need to see.

Reporting Enhancements

  • Course Audit Report

A new Gender data point has been added to this report so you can see these particular students’ performance.

Courseware

Customized Instruction with Gradebook

  • Approve Credit Enhancement

Within the Gradebook Report Card, instructors can now approve credit for multiple learners with the new multiselect/select all functionality, which makes it much easier and quicker to do this task.

  • Optional Activities

Users can now create and assign optional activities to students, making the platform more adaptable for your use.

  • Drop & Reset Scores

You can now easily drop and reset scores for students, which helps you by making Courseware more flexible and adaptable to your needs.

Courseware

What’s New… EducationCity

Dashboard News Feed

  • Homepage Update for Admins/Teachers

A news feed feature has been added to the EducationCity dashboard. Admins and Teachers will find the latest blog posts from Edmentum International here. Blogs will consider new and existing product features and resources, topical resources and more, so you can be sure you’re always up-to-date with the latest and greatest content.

EducationCity

If you have any questions about any of these updates or would like to find out more information about any of our solutions, get in touch with us on +44 (0)1572 492576 or by emailing international@edmentum.com.