Fall = Student Success

We are definitely deep into the throes of Fall. The leaves have been changing to beautiful hues of yellow, orange, and red, and falling with greater alacrity, the days are getting progressively shorter, and the nights crisper. ?Halloween has moved into the rearview mirror as people begin to plan for Thanksgiving and the winter fun that is right around the corner.

Schools have had their first reporting period, parent-teacher conferences have either have just occurred or will soon occur, and staff are collectively collaborating on how to maximize success as they move into the next quarter or trimester of their school year.

Synergizing for Success

?For most schools, this is the time where site administrators are meeting with their teacher teams & learning specialists (EL Teachers, Counselors, Speech & Language Therapists, Ed. Specialists, Reading Intervention, and Psychologists) to look at their classes, examine school and district assessment results (both quantitative & qualitative) and discuss and brainstorm goals and strategies for maximizing student progress.?? In my school, we called these days, Student Success Day. Our grade level teams and our specialists would all come prepared with student data (e.g. formative & summative assessments, standardized tests and informal assessments, observations) and we would synergize together to ensure that all of our students were getting what they needed to be successful.

Data Is Critical

While I am the first to say, that students are always more than a test score and that the data we receive from all of our various assessments, are each merely snapshots in time, and they do not provide a complete picture of our students; data does give us objective information that allow us to monitor progress, identify areas of relative strength and weakness, and have consistency when we are speaking about students and their individual needs. Data serves as an important and reliable road map for schools and teachers as they plan what skills to teach next and in what areas students might need extra help.

BrainPOP Can Provide Actionable Data

Most people know that?BrainPOP?makes learning engaging, and effective for students of?all?levels to practice and apply complex, grade-level skills while deepening comprehension alongside content knowledge and domain-specific vocabulary across ELA, social studies, math, and science.

What many do not know, is that BrainPOP offers?Insights Reports, that help teachers and school administrators deliver and monitor meaningful learning experiences to students.

Teachers and administrators can utilize this data to:

These reports give teachers the insights they need to differentiate instruction and support every students' needs. Watch this video on?Tracking with Teacher Reporting?to see how BrainPOP can be used for measurable gains.

Auto-Graded Activities

So how does BrainPOP get this data that monitors how students are learning essential literacy skills?

• Quiz: Multiple choice questions that assess comprehension are a part of every BrainPOP Topic & features questions that prompt higher-order thinking, challenging students to make inferences, apply concepts, & synthesize new understanding with prior knowledge.
• Challenge: Interactive question formats similar to state assessments. This auto-graded interactive activity challenges students to apply critical thinking skills & contains four of the following eight task types: Concept Map, Diagram Label, Fill in the Sentence, Match, Multiple Response, Sequence, Text Highlight, Venn Diagram
• Pause Points: Pause Points are questions & prompts that activate students’ background knowledge, while building subject-specific vocabulary. Every Pause Point scaffolds concepts & skills within a topic that align to grade-level standards. Formats include: Multiple Choice: Check for understanding while practicing standardized test-type questions.??Open-Ended: Type, speak, or draw responses. Reflection Points: Prompts provide additional information or summarize key ideas to support understanding.

Each of these activities are auto-graded (saving teachers countless invaluable hours) and provide teachers with valuable insights and actionable data to drive & personalize instruction.

To Empower Kids to Shape the World Around Them & Within Them

BrainPOP's mission is "To empower kids to shape the world around them and within them." With BrainPOP's Insights Reports, teachers and administrators can drive student success and maximize instructional impact in ways that build?and?measure the skills needed to maximize their success in the classroom & thrive in tomorrow's world.

*The views and opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities within BrainPOP.

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