[NWEA MAP Growth Assessments] Answering “What’s Next with Your Data?”
[NWEA MAP Growth Assessments] Answering “What’s Next with Your Data?”

Picture this: It’s the middle of September and you’ve successfully administered your first round of NWEA™ MAP® Growth™ assessments to all students in your building. You’re mentally giving yourself a little pat on the back for making it through round one of your benchmark testing, and with everything officially submitted and the numbers crunched, you have your RIT scores. So, now what?
For many districts, the next steps are ongoing data meetings, sticky note walls, and hours of spreadsheet analysis to tease out themes in skill gaps, identify specific grade levels in need of targeted intervention, and determine what your champion teachers are doing that’s moving the needle. These activities can certainly lead to key insights and data-driven instructional opportunities, but you’re also racing against the clock as those numbers become more and more stale.
What if the “what’s next” step didn’t require this much time and energy? What if technology tools could help you take those RIT scores and immediately turn them into actionable, individualized learning plans for each of your students? This is exactly what Edmentum can help provide, via assessment integrations with two of our powerful online programs, Exact Path and Study Island. Here, we’ll take a look at these two options, and help provide guidance so you can make the decision regarding what will best serve your students’ unique set of needs.
How does the integration work?
Exact Path supports K–12 reading, language arts, and math instruction and integrates with MAP Growth K–2 in addition to MAP Growth for Math and Reading. Simply upload your RIT data file with the support of our Customer Success teams, and students will automatically receive a targeted learning playlist of instruction, practice, and assessment focused on closing specific skill gaps identified by their assessment performance.
What program needs can Exact Path help solve?
As our assessment-driven individualized learning program, Exact Path is focused on identifying where students are ready to start learning and providing the self-paced instruction needed to promote academic growth. Exact Path is ideal for students in need of that first-time instructional component, whether because they are significantly below grade level or because they are on a much more accelerated path. A dedicated intervention block would benefit from the comprehensive lesson module approach that Exact Path provides to ensure that students are able to correct any misconceptions in learning, are allotted time to apply those skills in a low-pressure environment, and are ultimately assessed on discrete skill mastery before moving ahead.
How does the integration work?
Our proven, practice and formative assessment program, Study Island, supports K–12 math, English language arts, science, and social studies. For this digital option, the NWEA MAP Link integration can be added to support targeted practice in math for grades 2–11, in reading for grades 2–12, and in science for grades 3–8 so that NWEA MAP Growth performance automatically drives targeted learning pathways after each simple data upload.
What program needs can Study Island help solve?
Study Island is built to your state’s unique set of standards to help drive focused practice that prepares students for summative exams and also provides ongoing formative assessment to measure academic proficiency. When time is in short supply or a limited schedule doesn’t guarantee regular intervention, short, focused practice topics aligned to assessment results provide the standards-based reinforcement that students need. As students work in the program, simply review reports to evaluate progress toward standards mastery, and plan for data-driven instruction and intervention based on results.
Make sure that your NWEA MAP Growth data is working for you to give students the best chance at achieving success. While just one program might be the right fit for some, many schools and districts are also finding success combining the power of both Study Island and Exact Path to achieve both student proficiency and growth, respectively.
Want to learn more about how Edmentum is collaborating and integrating with other education partners? Check out additional details about Edmentum partnerships on our website.