Have you heard of Think Central? Or Soar to Success? Well if not, you should speak with your school or district about adding it to your curriculum. It's a great resource for students to use at home or in class to practice math skills they may need remediation with or for a challenge. It is definitely great for centers!
I never knew how to get access to it my first year. I saw it constantly in our teacher's edition Math Expressions book, but again couldn't log in because I didn't know how to access it. Once I realized I wasn't getting anywhere with learning how to log in and use the resource, I gave up on it (apparently no one knew how to log into it).
It wasn't until my second year (last year) that a Title I Math representative for our district came out to assist me. Once I learned the ropes, I was hooked and so were my students. It was an easy way to assess students on some of the skills taught in class and correlate to students' MAP and Successmaker data in order to help them in areas of difficulty (differentiation). Our district no longer uses MAP, so I now use my observations and Successmaker data to assign different activities on the site for students to complete.
Once I assign students a particular skill to practice, they are able to log in and complete different assignments and tasks that the program has already generated. When students complete the assignments, I receive charts (such as the one below) that allows me to see what skills a student needs during more one on one or small group instruction. It's a great way to collect more data on the students and use during parent conferences or even PLC's (Professional Learning Communities).
After students receive one on one or small group instruction, I allow them to redo the assignment. Now in order for students to get a pass for an assignment they must make at least an 80% or above. In each student's profile, you are able to determine what is passing for each student or assignment. This is definitely a good resource for differentiation because some students may not be able to work at the pace or comprehension level as other students.
So an 80/90 may be passing for one student, whereas a 70 is a better passing grade for another. Now I doubt I accept anything less than a 70 because all of the assignments that I assign are basically 3rd grade (unless I'm assigning a higher level activity for a student who needs a challenge or 2nd grade level for students who are working at a lower level).
The resource also supplies you with a bar graph to represent students data. It easily shows what assignments students have mastered and which assignments need more remediation. There is even a border line that gives a better depiction of the data. The best thing about this bar is that it's broken down by Skill Thread. It doesn't show all the assignments of different skills, but displays one skill thread at a time. So in other words there's a different bar graph for each set assignments under a particular skill! Awesome, right?!
Now unfortunately my district doesn't have the Soar to Success Reading resource. I'm not sure why but we do have several online ELA/reading resources that the district has already purchased. If not, we there are so many other free resources online that I can use as well. So, if you are interested in learning more about the Soar to Success Reading, you should probably look into it and see if it would be a great addition to your curriculum.
So...
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