White Paper

Next-Generation Assessment for Georgia

Ohio

Georgia

Contents

* Sections of this report first appeared in “Study Island Scientific Research Base” by Magnolia Consulting (September 2011).

Executive Summary ............................................................................................ 3

The Next Generation of Study Island in Georgia ............................................. 4

Study Island Users in Georgia ............................................................................ 4

Key Components of Study Island ....................................................................... 5Rigorous and Engaging Content ...................................................................................................................5

Differentiated Instruction and Real-Time Feedback ....................................................................................5

Web-Based and User Friendly .......................................................................................................................5

Study Island Research Base ................................................................................ 5Standards Alignment* .....................................................................................................................................5

Formative Assessment Feedback Loops* .....................................................................................................6

Benchmark Assessments .................................................................................................................................6

Distributed, Ongoing Practice* .....................................................................................................................7

Student Engagement and Motivation* .........................................................................................................7

Teacher Training and Professional Development .........................................................................................8

Preparing Students for Increasingly Rigorous High-Stakes Assessments ...................................................9

Case Study: Frank Long Elementary Improves Student Performance with Study Island ....................................................................................................... 11Engaging 21st Century Learners and Addressing the Needs of Struggling Learners .............................11

Study Island Implementation ........................................................................................................................11

Standards-based instruction .........................................................................................................................11

Whole-Class Instruction ................................................................................................................................11

Results ............................................................................................................................................................12

Learning Centers ...........................................................................................................................................12

Paperless Writing ...........................................................................................................................................12

Real-Time Student Tracking ..........................................................................................................................12

Student Achievement ....................................................................................................................................12

References .......................................................................................................... 14

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Executive Summary As standards, assessments, and policies in Georgia change, Study Island continues to evolve, tailoring programs and materials to meet the needs of Georgia learners.

Study Island works for schools because it delivers rigorous and engaging content, differentiated instruction, and formative assessment feedback in a Web-based, mobile-ready format. The latest education research supports the design of Study Island. Researchers agree that alignment of content and assessments with standards is crucial for student success, which is why Study Island built its Georgia programs from the ground up to ensure complete alignment and coverage of content standards. Study Island also provides students and teachers with formative and interim assessment solutions, both of which have been shown to increase student achievement. Study Island builds the confidence of students with instruction differentiated to meet them where they are. It also includes the latest motivational tools, such as blue ribbon icons and mobile-ready multiplayer games, to keep students engaged in learning.

Study Island has already demonstrated success in preparing students for next-generation assessments. Many schools and districts in Georgia have found Study Island to be their solution for standards mastery and formative assessment. For example, Frank Long Elementary uses Study Island to help students master grade-level academic standards and prepare for the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT). Through whole-class, small-group, and individualized instruction, students have increased their excitement about learning and are achieving steady gains.

Student Proficiency on the GCRCT

This paper details the latest features of Edmentum’s Study Island program, discusses its updated research base, and shares a recent success story from Georgia schools.

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The Next Generation of Study Island in GeorgiaIn 2012, Georgia joined 44 other states in formally adopting a set of core standards for academic performance in kindergarten through high school known at the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). In addition to the CCSS, Georgia has developed the Georgia Performance Standards, which identify what a student should know and be able to do at varying grade levels.

Currently, Georgia uses the CRCT to measure student mastery of content, provide teachers with diagnostic information, and assist school systems in identifying strengths and weaknesses to establish priorities. Georgia is working to design a new assessment to more accurately reflect the more rigorous CCSS.

The Study Island Georgia CRCT Preparation Program is specifically designed to help K–12 students improve performance in all skill areas tested on the CRCT and master knowledge and skills outlined in the Common Core and Georgia Performance Standards. Study Island’s Georgia Elementary Benchmarking program helps schools and teachers identify where students stand before the CRCT exam, providing valuable diagnostic information to guide classroom instruction.

Study Island Users in Georgia Almost 1,300 schools in Georgia used a Study Island product in 2013. Most schools use Study Island math and reading standards mastery products to help their students prepare for new, more rigorous, state assessments. In addition to these core products, Study Island offers a benchmarking product that provides an interim assessment solution for districts.

In total, 1,091 schools in Georgia used Study Island math products and 1,054 used language arts or reading products, with 1,029 schools using both math and reading products during 2013.

Table 1. Current Georgia Study Island School Installations

Reading1,054 schools

Math1,091 schools

931(88.3%)

123(11.7%)

955(87.5%)

136(12.5%)

Core Only Core & Benchmark Core Only Core & Benchmark

Since 2008, Study Island has successfully delivered almost 100,000 Study Island benchmark assessments to over 33,000 students in Georgia. Students often take multiple benchmark assessments (i.e., different forms) in the same content area through the school year. Study Island provides Georgia schools with a stable connectivity platform, maintaining enough servers and network bandwidth to successfully deliver a very large number of benchmark assessments in an online environment.

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Key Components of Study IslandThe Study Island program was created with student success as its core mission. Users in Georgia have attributed student success to several of the program’s key components: rigorous and engaging content, differentiated instruction and real-time feedback provided to each student, and an easy-to-use Web-based format.

Rigorous and Engaging ContentStudy Island comprises lessons and activities that reinforce and reward learning achievement. Each item and topic is built from the ground up to align with Georgia and Common Core achievement standards. Built-in lessons, animations, and activities keep students engaged as they demonstrate mastery and prepare for high levels of achievement.

Differentiated Instruction and Real-Time FeedbackStudy Island is ideal for self-paced, individualized learning. Teachers can easily guide students through the program, communicate expectations, and create class assignments. Students can work through items using a variety of formats, such as a standard test format, an interactive game format, printable worksheets, and a classroom response system. Study Island gives students and teachers instant feedback on student progress and summative reports to track standards mastery.

Web-Based and User Friendly Study Island’s mobile-optimized interface ensures seamless 24/7 access to its award-winning test preparation and standards mastery solutions. The same great resources, rigorous content, and engaging games that educators and students can access from a Web browser are also readily accessible from any tablet, smartphone, or other mobile device.

Study Island Research BaseStudy Island was designed using proven education methodology, including close alignment with standards, assessment feedback loops, distributed ongoing practice, and motivational features to ensure that students are engaged and mastering Georgia Performance Standards.

Standards Alignment*TTypically, states complete alignment procedures to determine how well an existing state assessment aligns with state standards in an effort to demonstrate the overall strength or predictive validity of the state assessment (Roach, Elliot, and Webb, 2005). Some alignment experts have taken this a step further and have developed procedures to examine the alignment between instructional content and assessments (Porter and Smithson, 2002). Research using these procedures has shown that a strong relationship exists between alignment of instructional content with assessments and student achievement gains: the better instructional content aligns with assessments, the higher student achievement can be (Gamoran, Porter, Smithson, and White, 1997).

Study Island program authors have gone beyond traditional alignment procedures to develop the continuously updated program content from an in-depth analysis of Georgia Performance Standards. The content has been built from the ground up, based specifically on the standards, which ensures complete standards coverage. The instructional practice and progress monitoring tools provide precise methods to track and improve students’ progress toward meeting rigorous academic standards. The alignment process also ensures that teachers can use data from Study Island formative assessments with confidence, knowing that it is completely aligned to the skills that will be tested on Common Core assessments.

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Formative Assessment Feedback Loops*Educational programs, especially technology-based programs such as Study Island, promote ongoing standards mastery by using the results of formative assessments to inform instruction. For illustrative purposes, one can conceptualize the interactive relationship between assessment results and instructional practice as a continual feedback loop, or cycle. For example, poor results on formative assessments can lead to remedial instruction, which automatically adapts the level of future practice within the program and creates new instructional paths designed to promote learning. The cycle is then completed or restarted through further performance evaluation. These cycles are typically of three lengths—long, medium, or short—all of which can operate concurrently. Longer cycles focus on the results of summative assessments and can last an entire school year, while medium and short cycles use formative and interim assessment results. Regardless of the length of the cycle, researchers suggest that the use of feedback is the most critical element (Duke and Pearson, 2002; Wiliam, 2006).

For a formative assessment feedback loop to be successful, the instructional delivery mechanism (whether a teacher or a computer) must be flexible and proactive, adapting the instructional content, the delivery of the instructional content, or both as needed to ensure mastery (Cassarà, 2004). Research shows that when a feedback loop is modified based on student performance, student learning can be accelerated and improved (Jinkins, 2001; Wiliam, Lee, Harrison, and Black, 2004), especially when feedback is given quickly so it impacts instruction on a day-by-day or minute-by-minute basis (Leahy, Lyon, Thompson, and Wiliam, 2005). Shorter-cycle, formative feedback loops, such as those found in Study Island, typically comprise three main functions: ongoing assessment, immediate feedback on results, and quick remediation. Ongoing, continual assessment is critical to the success of a formative assessment feedback loop.

A consensus within the research literature suggests that students who receive frequent assessments have higher achievement scores (Black and Wiliam, 1998a; Fuchs and Fuchs, 1986; Wolf, 2007), especially when that assessment is cumulative (Dempster, 1991; Rohm, Sparzo, and Bennett, 1986) and provides students with opportunities to learn (Kilpatrick, Swafford, and Bradford, 2001). Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (2001) further concluded that feedback that also provides an explanation of the correct answer was the most effective. Through their meta-analysis, they additionally concluded that feedback is best when it encourages students to keep working on a task until they succeed.

Taken together, these results suggest that a cycle of ongoing formative assessment feedback followed by remediation and further assessment contributes to increases in student achievement. Study Island incorporates a formative assessment feedback loop into its design through a system of continual assessment, immediate feedback, and quick remediation. Students will know immediately whether they answered the item correctly or incorrectly, and upon completing each item in Study Island, they are given the option to view an explanation showing how to arrive at the correct answer. Further, when a student struggles with a particular concept, the Study Island system automatically moves the student to a building block that teaches the same concept at a slightly easier level. When educators integrate Study Island into their instructional practices, it acts as a formative, ongoing assessment tool that provides students with a platform to practice, or demonstrate, their knowledge of required standards and provides teachers with valuable information to inform their instruction.

Benchmark AssessmentsIn addition to its core program, Study Island offers a benchmarking program, which serves as a medium-cycle assessment. The benchmarking program provides a set of four benchmark tests designed to be taken periodically throughout the school year. The benchmark tests are typically 30 to 40 items long. Currently, Study Island Georgia benchmarks are fully aligned to the CRCT. The Study Island design team is preparing items to closely match new Common Core assessments. Therefore, the results of each benchmark test will closely reflect how students would perform on high-stakes assessments.

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In The Role of Interim Assessments in a Comprehensive Assessment System (Perie, Marion, and Gong, 2007), a paper sponsored by the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, interim assessment is defined as a medium-cycle, or benchmark, assessment used to (1) evaluate student mastery of specific goals within a specific time frame and (2) provide information to inform decisions both in the classroom and at the school or district level. The timing and administration of interim assessments are typically controlled at the school or district level, and results may be used to evaluate programs, diagnose gaps in student learning, or predict students’ ability to succeed on higher-stakes summative assessments.

The test administration process for Study Island Benchmarks is secure but flexible and can be controlled by program administrators.

Distributed, Ongoing Practice* For instruction or remediation to have a lasting effect on student knowledge and foster further learning, instructors must provide reinforcement through ongoing practice and review of learned material (Dempster, 1991; Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock, 2001). Research shows that review can affect both the quantity and quality of the material that students learn. Mayer (1983) found that after multiple presentations of text, not only did the overall amount of information that students could recall increase, but participants also were able to recall more conceptual information than technical information. This suggests that after repeated presentations, students may process material at cognitively deeper levels. Further, Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (2001) concluded that students may need many practice sessions to reach high levels of competence. For more difficult, multistep skills, students may need to engage in focused practice, allowing students to target specific subskills within a larger skill. This research suggests that teachers should allow time for students to internalize skills through practice so they can apply concepts in unique and conceptually challenging situations.

Distributed practice of material not only affects the amount of information learned but can be a motivating factor as well. Research shows that distributive practice of material is more interesting and enjoyable to students than massed practice (Dempster, 1991; Elmes, Dye, and Herdelin, 1983), indicating that distributed practice could contribute to increased motivation to learn new material. Taken together, these results suggest that the distributed practice of instructional material could significantly impact students’ retention in addition to their understanding and enjoyment of course material.

The flexibility of the instructional framework of the Study Island program allows for ongoing skill practice and review of learned material and provides the ability to space out practice to foster higher rates of recall and retention. Teachers can customize the amount and frequency of practice that each student receives or assign students to review specific standards or learning objectives as needed. Because students do not have to complete the program lessons in any specific order, teachers can distribute the presentation of the skill practice—especially the more complex material—over multiple days. When teachers use Study Island in conjunction with classroom instruction, they can present material and assign practice on that material as needed throughout the year, creating an effective and motivating learning environment for practicing state standards.

Student Engagement and Motivation*AA variety of effective methods can be used to increase student motivation within an instructional environment (Guthrie and Davis, 2003). These strategies have been shown to be effective for increasing student motivation:

n providing students with high-interest, diverse materials (Ivey and Broaddus, 2000; Worthy, Moorman, and Turner, 1999);

n embedding instruction within context (Biancarosa and Snow, 2004; Dole, Sloan, and Trathen, 1995);

n increasing students’ self-efficacy and competence (Ryan and Deci, 2000);

n offering competitive-based rewards for performance (Reeve and Deci, 1996); and

n providing students with choice and autonomy (Patall, Cooper, and Robinson, 2008; Zahorik, 1996).

Research has also shown that offering performance-contingent rewards, such as the chance to play a game after successfully completing a task, is more motivating than positive performance feedback alone (Harackiewicz and Manderlink, 1984). Rewards symbolize competence at an activity (Boggiano and Ruble, 1979; Harackiewicz, 1979), and research shows that in situations where performance-contingent rewards are available, individuals are more concerned

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about their performance and perceived competence than those receiving positive performance feedback alone. Furthermore, the personal importance of doing well at a task enhances subsequent interest in the task. Therefore, performance-contingent rewards can foster task interest via an individual’s drive to do well and thus overcome the negative anxiety-producing effects typically associated with performance evaluation (Boggiano, Harackiewicz, Bessette, and Main, 1986; Harackiewicz and Manderlink, 1984).

Additionally, Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (2001) found that providing students with personalized recognition for their academic accomplishments, especially in the form of concrete symbols, can be a strong motivator to increase student achievement. However, to have a positive impact on students’ intrinsic motivation, recognition should be contingent on the achievement of a specific performance goal, not just for the completion of any one task. Therefore, recognition has the strongest impact on achievement when a student connects the reward to reaching a specified level of performance.

Technology-based instructional programs, such as Study Island, although inherently motivating (Relan, 1992), have a unique capacity to incorporate such motivational strategies concurrently within their instructional environments. In particular, computer programs can easily include both the flexibility and modifiability of instructional sequences. Such open architecture can provide students with a sense of autonomy and ownership in the instructional tasks. Research has shown that presenting students with choices during instruction, especially choices that enhance or affirm autonomy, augments intrinsic motivation, increases effort, improves task performance, and contributes to growth in perceived confidence (Patall et al., 2008). Likewise, Corbalan, Kester, and van Merriënboer (2006) suggest that technology-based environments that allow task personalization promote self-regulated learning and provide the learner with control over his or her environment, which can increase motivation and foster positive learning outcomes.

The Study Island program design and implementation incorporates diverse motivational factors to engage students and further program use. For instance, Study Island includes a wide variety of material covering multiple content areas and subjects within those content areas. Additionally, it builds instructional opportunities into the standards practice to motivate students to apply skills as they are learning them. Study Island aims to build student confidence and self-efficacy by providing students with sufficient practice and learning opportunities that will help them realize positive gains in achievement. Students can monitor their own progress as they complete lessons and feel successful watching their mastery levels rise. When students reach the specified mastery level of an objective, they earn a personalized reward in the form of a blue ribbon icon, which serves as a concrete symbol of recognition for their academic achievements and further motivates them to succeed.

Within the Study Island program, students also have access to a wide variety of simple and short games that they can play when they have answered a question correctly. Students compete with other Study Island users to try to achieve the highest score on the games: this competition is intended to motivate the students to perform well on assessments. One of the most significant motivational factors Study Island provides is its open architecture, which allows students the ability to complete lessons in any order and to switch between tasks as desired. This offers students ownership of their learning environment, allowing them to set their own goals, plan personalized learning experiences, execute their work with flexibility, and regulate their own progress.

Teacher Training and Professional DevelopmentInformation about students’ academic progress and preparedness is of little use if educators lack the tools necessary to access and leverage those data at the school and classroom levels (McCann and Kabaker, 2013). Research demonstrates that data usage is a critical component of instructional planning in the most effective classrooms (James-Ward, Fisher, Frey, and Lapp, 2013). Teachers with a solid working knowledge of academic data can use that information to better understand their students’ progress and tailor their instruction to help meet the needs of individual learners.

McCann and Kabaker (2013) evaluated two statewide efforts to increase data use by classroom teachers and found common themes that made the programs effective. First, few teachers have familiarity with data or the skills

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necessary to use data to inform instruction, so professional development sessions focused on building and maintaining data skills are necessary and important. Second, teachers greatly benefited from high-quality coaching from highly trained professionals who deliver skill-based training, instilling in teachers a strong internal working knowledge of data use and helping to build a ”data-heavy” culture in schools. Finally, administrative support of data-focused efforts and allotting time during the workday for participation in training also factored into increasing data use among teachers.

Study Island helps teachers and administrators leverage student achievement data to improve instruction by providing clear reports and offering professional development. The reports generated by Study Island make data analysis easy and effective for teachers and principals. Users can choose which report(s) they would like to view from an easy-to-use menu, or they can set up reports to be automatically emailed. Reports contain real-time student performance, so users are always seeing the most recent student performance data. To ensure that teachers have the training they need to use student data, Edmentum Services provides customized, skills-based professional development delivered by highly trained professionals.

Efficacy of Study Island The Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) is a state-led effort to define the knowledge and skills that students should attain during their K–12 education so that they will graduate with the ability to succeed in college courses and workforce training programs.

The CCSSI includes an assessment component designed to document whether students are on track to be college- and career-ready by the time they graduate from high school. Therefore, not only will students learn from a more rigorous and relevant set of standards, they will also be introduced to a new type of assessment that is significantly different from current state tests. Gone are the days when states mapped test items to a single standard and multiple-choice items were expected to be a true measure of mastery. The new Common Core assessments measure critical thinking, problem solving, and 21st century skills. They are aligned not only to factual knowledge but also to the requirements of colleges and the workplace.

To address these challenges, Study Island has developed entirely new content and item types to specifically align to the CCSS and individual state standards. Study Island can be used now to familiarize teachers and students with the new standards and assessments, including new technology-enhanced and constructed-response items. Because Study Island provides valid and reliable information on how students are progressing toward the new standards, students will have an advantage when new, more rigorous assessments are put in place.

Preparing Students for Increasingly Rigorous High-Stakes AssessmentsEarly indicators reveal that the transition to the new standards and assessments will be particularly challenging for students, educators, and administrators. During the 2011–12 academic year, Kentucky, the first state to adopt the CCSS, administered statewide tests that were developed explicitly to measure the CCSS. Although the new Kentucky tests are not the actual tests from either assessment consortium, they are closely aligned and are thus seen as a harbinger of the PARCC and SBAC assessments. Compared with the previous academic year (2010–11), the percentage of students scoring “proficient” or better dropped by more than 33 percent in math and reading.

Kentucky’s steep drop in proficiency rates is likely to be repeated in dozens of other states as the CCSS are implemented. The results from Kentucky confirmed what most stakeholders expected: assessments measuring the CCSS are going to result in significant challenges to educators in helping students prepare for college and the workplace. While it’s common to see performance declines when new assessment systems are introduced, a lack of available resources compounds the issue for teachers, schools, districts, and states transitioning to the CCSS. The move to CCSS will require major curriculum changes and new types of assessments. Study

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Island has responded to this need by investing heavily in developing resources that support classroom learning and provide a full spectrum of skills practice and year-round assessments.

Although Kentucky experienced precipitous drops in test scores, students in schools using Study Island outperformed the state average on the new assessments by as much as 14 percent. Figure 1 compares the performance of students who used Study Island benchmark assessment solutions during the 2011–12 academic year with the state average on Kentucky’s Core Content Test, which is based exclusively on CCSS.

Figure 1. Study Island Users’ Proficiency RatesAfter Introduction of New Common Core Assessments

Students will be challenged by the new CCSS and the corresponding assessments to measure those standards. Educational experts have warned that precipitous drops in student performance (as indicated by proficiency when measured against the more rigorous CCSS) are likely. The 2012 assessment results from Kentucky corroborate the challenges that students, educators, and administrators will encounter once the new assessments are administered operationally. Study Island provides the assessment feedback and skills practice that students need to be prepared for these new assessments.

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Frank Long Elementary

XXX students

55% African American22% Caucasian12% Hispanic11% Other race

Judy Hellgrenprincipal

Case Study: Frank Long Elementary Improves Student Performance with Study Island Frank Long Elementary uses Study Island to help students master grade-level academic standards and prepare for the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT). Through whole-class, small-group, and individualized instruction, students have increased their excitement about learning and are achieving steady gains. “Technology is a very important part of the learning process at Frank Long Elementary School,” writes principal Judy Hellgren on the school’s webpage. “All of our teachers have received training on successfully implementing technology into the learning process. We believe the advantages offered by recent technological advances are very beneficial to our students. We use computers and many other forms of technology as tools to aid in student achievement. Our educational programs use technology as a supplement to the learning process and not simply as game stations to be used when other work is finished.” (http://schools.liberty.k12.ga.us/fle/principalspage.asp)

Engaging 21st Century Learners and Addressing the Needs of Struggling LearnersFrank Long Elementary is part of the Liberty County School System in Hinesville, Georgia. Hinesville, the largest city in Liberty County, is the county seat and one of the fastest-growing cities in Georgia. The demographics of Frank Long include a racial and ethnic distribution of 55 percent African American, 22 percent Caucasian, and 12 percent Hispanic, with the remainder a combination of Asian, American Indian, and self-identified multiracial students. In addition, 66 percent of the school’s students are economically disadvantaged and 11 percent are students with disabilities.

Study Island ImplementationFrank Long Elementary rolled out Study Island during the 2005–06 school year. Today, all students in grades 1 through 5 work on the online educational software in the computer lab. The upper grades use Study Island in math, reading, writing, science, and social studies, while the lower grades focus on math and reading. “With struggling students, teachers are able to assign extra help in specific areas. For instance, if a student is struggling in phonics, the teacher can assign content that will help boost phonics skills,” says academic coach Marguerite Andrews. “So it’s a great tool for targeted instruction.” Teachers also use Study Island for whole-class and small-group instruction inside the classroom.

Standards-based instructionBuilt directly from state and core standards, Study Island helps K–12 students master grade-level content and prepare for state assessments in a fun, engaging manner. By combining self-paced instruction with games and rewards that reinforce student accomplishments, Study Island helps students take responsibility for their learning while supporting the school’s culture of academic success. “Study Island gives us a great way to supplement and personalize instruction to prepare students for the CRCT,” said Patrick Heath, a former fourth grade teacher at the school. “It matched our state and core standards and fit in really well with our classroom instruction. Students take what they learn and immediately apply it in the classroom… Kids today need interactivity. They’re 30-second kids; things always need to be moving and changing. We started using Study Island in our afterschool program to provide supplemental instruction for at-risk students. The teachers and students who used Study Island loved it, so we launched it school-wide.”

Whole-Class InstructionTeachers can also conduct whole-class instruction using Study Island. For example, in math, a teacher can project problems onto an interactive whiteboard and read the problems aloud to students. Students individually answer each problem using student response pads or clickers. Together, students review the answers and talk about each choice. Then the teacher selects the answer the class decides upon, and students receive immediate feedback and an explanation in Study Island. Kids really enjoy using the remote control devices, and they like seeing the data about their class. During whole-class instruction, a teacher can also use a wireless pad to interact with Study Island from anywhere in the room.

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ResultsParkview teachers played a vital role in achieving and measuring the success of the Study Buddy program. As the explicit designers of each Study Island assignment, their communication and sharing of data with the Valparaiso students allowed them to track progress and confirm the success of the Study Buddy program.

While passing rates for intervention students had hovered between 20 and 40 percent before the Study Buddy program, the first year saw 81 percent of the participating students pass ISTEP. The following year, when Wodetzki expanded the program to include a more challenged student population, the percentage of passing students held steady at 78 percent.

“This has been a turning point for us. We saw these kids pass, and they didn’t pass the years before,” added Wodetzki. “Even before I came to this school, I really wanted Study Island because everyone was talking about the results they were getting. It has so much potential because there is so much you can do with it. We see this not only in the Study Buddy program, but also in our broader population with students who work on it from home, because it’s not punishment. It’s not like homework; it’s engaging and it’s effective.”

Learning CentersFrank Long teachers have also organized learning centers for small-group work with the teacher, independent computer work, and independent seat work. Students spend approximately 15 to 20 minutes at each center before rotating. For example, in one center, the teacher can use the interactive whiteboard and clickers to deliver targeted instruction to students. In a second center, a computer lab, students can work independently on Study Island to gain additional standards-based instruction and practice. In a third center, students can complete independent seat work, such as paper-and-pencil tasks, to reinforce learning.

Paperless WritingStudy Island can also play an integral role in the writing process in Frank Long’s classrooms. Students particularly enjoy the Writing Assignment module, which provides a paperless way to develop writing skills across the curriculum. Using this module, a teacher can choose from grade-specific writing prompts or create-your-own writing assignments for single students or groups of students. Students can use online graphic organizers to plan their written responses and can create and submit their compositions online. The teacher can then electronically send grades and comments back to a student or ask for revisions. “On certain mornings during the week, I would send kids to the Study Island learning center to work on writing prompts,” said Heath. “Over a three-day period, I can cycle all my students through the center. Students send their compositions to me and I shoot comments back to them online. Not only do I enjoy reading students’ writing assignments on the computer, but I can get their assignments back to them in a timely manner.”

Real-Time Student TrackingAnother feature teachers find helpful is the real-time reporting in Study Island. With these data, a teacher can easily differentiate instruction to address learning gaps and to help students prepare for state assessments. “The reporting is particularly useful for response to intervention (RTI) and special education students,” Heath said. “I could closely monitor what students were working on and make sure they were keeping up. It allowed me to track their skill development and see how their progress correlated to what was happening in the classroom.”

Student AchievementWith the use of Study Island, Frank Long has seen test score gains along with increased student engagement and excitement about learning. Every year since the introduction of Study Island, Frank Long has made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).

In 2009, 88 percent of the students performed at the proficient or advanced level in mathematics, up from 87 percent in 2008. Similarly, in reading and English language arts, 95.3 percent of students performed at the proficient or advanced level, up slightly from 95.2 percent in 2008.

At specific grade levels, even greater increases can be seen. For example, between the 2011 and 2012 school years, the reading results for grade 3 changed from 86 percent to 93 percent proficient or advanced. For math, the results showed an increase from 81 percent to 88 percent proficient and advanced.

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Student Proficiency on the GCRCT

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References