EducationCity Feature Focus: Individualize Learning with MyCities

It’s no secret that students learn at different rates. One learner may require very little direct instruction before they’re ready to work on their own, while others need significant guided practice in application before grasping a new concept. With 20+ buzzing minds digesting information at different paces, technology can often provide a valuable helping hand to keep every student on track. In EducationCity, this kind of targeted learning comes in the form of a MyCity.

MyCities allow you to quickly group, sequence, and assign content to specific students as needed. Each MyCity can contain any combination of video tutorials, graded activities, interactive practice tools, or even competitive games found within the program. By collecting specific content all in one place, MyCities enable you to provide targeted learning for a specific student, small groups, or even your entire class.

Today, we will take a closer look at three MyCity applications that will help you discover new ways to use EducationCity to individualize learning, differentiate instruction, and plan meaningful classroom lessons.

Classroom Assignments

MyCities are most commonly used for creating in-class assignments for independent practice. Take for instance, how this feature can help transform your learning centers. When students rotate to a technology station, they can quickly log in to their EducationCity account and access a specific MyCity that you previously created just for them.

With MyCities, instead of spending Sunday evenings cutting out lamination and organizing copies for next week’s lessons, in a few clicks you can build a week’s worth of practice for your tiered learning groups. Preferences even allow you to differentiate achievement goals and time parameters to fit your students’ unique needs.

Home Reinforcement

MyCities are also a great fit for continued practice at home. Students can log in from a tablet device using the Puffin Academy app or a computer. In this application, short video tutorials that can be paced by the student become a great refresher before your learners dive in to graded practice. With Homework MyCities, differentiated learning can still continue, even when you’re not in the room.

Trying to keep a close eye on who’s doing their homework? Instead of sifting through piles of homework packets and marking down completion in your gradebook, the Tracking tab does the work for you. At a glance, you can see who has started their homework, progress to date, and even those who have completed their assignments and met mastery goals.

Lesson Organization

Perhaps the most overlooked use of MyCities is for you, the classroom educator! In addition to creating assignments for students, MyCities are a nice way to organize all of your lesson components in one place. From Learn Screens used as direct instruction to Topic Tools for guided practice and finally ThinkIts used as exit tickets, any number of EducationCity resources can be arranged to suit the needs of your lesson structure.

Too often, chasing down a lesson plan or stack of copies can steal away precious time. With MyCities, your lesson plan is kept in an online portal that allows you to access resources anywhere you are. Whether you choose to build out a week’s worth of instruction or an entire unit, your MyCity is there waiting for you to quickly launch each component as needed.