Back-to-School Tips: 4 Steps to Accelerate Learning with Exact Path
School is back in session, and educators everywhere are determining their instructional approach by assessing their students to see just where they are academically. This year educators are faced with evidence that many students need tremendous, targeted support to make the academic recovery they need. Between reteaching previous grade-level skills and addressing on-grade learning, the thought of getting students up to speed can be an overwhelming one, which is why many educators are turning to an accelerated learning approach.
An accelerated learning approach is when teachers lead the entire class in lessons appropriate for their grade level and, if needed, carve out time at critical junctions to focus only on those specific prerequisite skills and tasks necessary to understand the new content. This method can help propel students and also ensure that they are not deepening the skill gaps left over from previous years. The question is: now that accelerated learning is making waves in the education system, how can schools achieve success with this model?
Enter Exact Path, Edmentum’s award-winning, individualized learning program, to act as your partner when addressing educational gaps. Pairing the adaptive diagnostic assessment with individualized learning paths and the new Standards Mastery add-on, Exact Path has you covered no matter where in their journey students are. Check out these four steps to jump-start your students’ accelerated learning goals.
1. Diagnose specific strengths and needs with valid, reliable, beginning-of-year assessments that give you access to immediate data
The Exact Path adaptive diagnostic is the perfect spot to start when implementing an accelerated learning model. The evidence-based assessment identifies specific skill gaps that students may have in order to determine both the floor and the ceiling of where each learner’s needs may lie. Knowing where students are at right now allows educators to pinpoint student abilities and focus on core knowledge for the academic year to accelerate learning recovery.
Having this information at your fingertips is imperative to creating a solid instructional plan for your students. Looking for more information on the best way to administer the Exact Path diagnostic? Check out this blog post, 5 Tips for Administering the Exact Path Diagnostic!
2. Grant students access to individualized learning paths in math, reading, and language arts that deliver instruction where they are ready to learn
To make the most out of students’ accelerated learning journeys, it’s important that they’re equipped with a personalized learning experience. While accelerated learning requires teaching content that is appropriate for students’ grade levels, it also entails tailoring learning to meet students where they currently are—including remediation if needed.
With Exact Path’s automated, individualized learning path, instructional reinforcement is provided, supporting students who are ahead of their grade level, as well as offering remediation for those who may have struggled grasping content. With Edmentum’s philosophy of meeting students where they are ready to learn, Exact Path ensures that growth is achieved in your classroom. Take a closer look at the Exact Path learning path in this blog post.
3. Ease instructional planning with built-in digital assignments, grouping tools, and motivational challenges
Once students are well on their way to accelerated learning through their learning paths, it’s time to kick your Exact Path implementation up a notch! With Assignments, educators can provide just-in-time practice focused on a specific skill or remediation and acceleration, depending on student need. In addition to Assignments, educators can utilize Exact Path’s grouping feature to automatically group their students according to their learning path performance. The grouping tool, paired with Assignments, is the perfect solution to ensuring that you’re identifying the students who need targeted support while continuing to power forward with whole-group accelerated learning.
Keeping students engaged is another key factor when it comes to learning recovery. Exact Path offers meaningful engagement features that can help crank up student motivation and make learning stick. With Trophies, Challenges, and contests, students can track their progress, understand their growth, and set individualized goals for future success—keeping all students motivated and empowered to achieve growth.
4. Measure growth and track grade-level proficiency
To effectively integrate accelerated learning in your classroom, it takes a one-two punch of a combined focus on growth and proficiency. We’ve touched on several ways that Exact Path supports growth and closes learning gaps within the classroom, but how do you ensure that students are receiving instruction and practice that includes grade-level proficiency? Lucky for Exact Path users, the program is even sweeter this fall with the addition of the newest program feature—Standards Mastery.
This feature allows teachers to focus on specific prerequisite skills and tasks necessary to understand new content, and it also ensured that students are ready for grade-level content. What’s even better is that educators can review student growth and standards-proficiency data side by side in one program for a comprehensive picture of student success. That is yet another reason to choose Exact Path when searching for an accelerated learning partner! Additionally, if you’re an Exact Path user who’s ready for your students to start mastering standards with the addition of Standards Mastery, from now until November 1, 2022, this add-on is FREE for existing Exact Path customers or for new purchases of an Exact Path Implementation. If you’re looking to add Standards Mastery to your toolkit this school year, you can get a quote here.
By utilizing your Exact Path implementation to the fullest, you can ensure that all students make meaningful progress toward grade-level content with accelerated learning. Want to learn more about how to maximize your Exact Path implementation? Visit our Exact Path Getting Started Resources page.