[Program Update] Check Out What’s New in Exact Path for the 2017–18 School Year

As the product manager for Edmentum's Exact Path solution for individualized learning, I’ve been able to visit some of our outstanding partner schools and districts this past spring, learning from educators and planning for exciting enhancements that we’ll be rolling out in the program this summer, just in time for the start of the 2017–18 school year. Throughout these visits, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with educators who are using the results of the Exact Path diagnostic assessments to plan intervention programs and taking advantage of the learning paths during class time to individualize learning for students of varying abilities. Following these conversations and observations, I’m confident that this summer’s updates will help Exact Path users strengthen their program implementations and take full advantage of all of its rich new and existing features and functionality. Today, we’ll take a closer look at all of the parts and pieces that make up this summer’s release—and there’s quite a lot to get through, so let’s dive in!

But first, I want to start by saying that all of us at Edmentum really do pride ourselves on listening to the needs and feedback of our customers. The ways in which we look to grow and expand our programs are a direct result of our efforts to meet your needs through our commitments to simplified technology, high-quality content, actionable data, and customer success. With diverse offerings, such as a new in-program help center, student engagement features, and more robust reporting, I’m excited to share some of the ways that we are responding to what we’ve been hearing from all of you!

See what’s new in Exact Path! Join us for a live webinar for a firsthand look at updated features and program enhancements!

Expanding Grade Availability

I don’t think we can go any further without taking a minute to celebrate our upcoming expansion of Exact Path for 7th and 8th grade! Later this summer, middle school students will be able to leverage this program to individualize their learning experience. As a part of this expansion, content will extend through the high school level, giving accelerated students a meaningful progression of lessons to continue their learning journey. Watch for additional details about how we’re supporting middle school learners in the coming weeks!

Actionable Data

Actionable Data is one of the core tenants of our partnership with you! And, based on discussions I’ve had with administrators this year, we’ve made some meaningful additions to reporting in Exact Path. First, teachers will now have access to the Reporting Area, giving them valuable insights into aggregated data for their classes! Demographic selections will also be added to reports to give teachers and administrators the ability to see how scores compare across different subgroups.

A Learning Path Progress Report will soon be available in the Reporting area under Skills Reports. Here, teachers can track time-on-task in learning paths, the number of activities completed, and the number of skills mastered/not mastered for individual learners over a specified time period. Additionally, just in time for fall, student scores will include a percentiles norm, and assessment results can now be exported.

Student Engagement

To support student engagement, we’re also introducing Trophies and Challenges, both of which are designed to make using Exact Path motivating and fun. Students earn trophies automatically based on Progress Check results, while Challenges allow teachers to define and set customized goals (that could even be used to promote in-class prizes). Learners can check their Trophy Case to watch their collection grow and even see what trophies and challenges they have in progress. Teachers will also find educator-facing reports to track these motivational metrics that will support ongoing progress monitoring and intervention tracking at the same time. This is another area where we will have a best practices video to provide educators with ideas on how to get the most value from these tools.

Simplified Technology

Exact Path’s grouping feature to support your small-group lesson planning will also be seeing some improvements later this summer. An auto-grouping option will be made available, allowing you to build groups even faster based on real-time diagnostic and learning path data.

A new ability to search for specific content will open up access to our learning progression curriculum and resources and will be a feature that evolves over time to allow you to use content in different ways. With this initial release, you will be able to preview lessons on a whiteboard, easily search for a specific teacher resource, and find worksheets to print out.  

And, as a reminder, all of our Exact Path lessons and resources will be Flash-free at the end of this month! That means you and your students can use an iPad, Chromebook, or any other device without experiencing any problems with loading and viewing learning path content. We know this was a major pain point for many of our first Exact Path customers, so we’re excited to be able to assure you that there shouldn’t be any more trouble from the animation technology (although we still can’t help you with copy machine breakdowns!).

Family Involvement

One of the big asks we’ve heard from our customers has been for a letter to send home to parents and families to introduce them to Exact Path and help their children log in to the system. You’ll soon find this Parent Letter, available in both English and Spanish, inside the Help Center. Print this out, staple on the Login Cards (also now available for all classes—using Easy Login or Traditional Login)—and send it home with students!

Customer Success

Part of ensuring our customers’ success is understanding your specific needs. For those leveraging NWEA™ to administer MAP® Growth™ and MAP Growth K–2 assessments, their need was a program that could answer the question of “what’s next?” after their students completed those assessments. This summer, we’re pleased to announce that we’ll be introducing a powerful NWEA integration that will allow customers to upload their K–8 assessment scores to automate meaningful, adaptive Exact Path learning paths.

And, have I mentioned the Help Center? The parent letter and helpful student how-to videos are just a few of the many resources you’ll find housed here. Our promise to you is to have one how-to tour for each major area of the product and then find areas where we can add in best practices videos for how to leverage new tools or Quick Reference Guides that might be needed. There’s also a spot to send me feedback directly from the product—I would love to hear from you as you come across additional opportunities to make our program even better!

Partnership with Other Edmentum Solutions

We want to help you take your product implementation even further, so we’re also adding opportunities to connect Exact Path with our practice and classroom assessment program, Study Island. This summer, you will be able to see Study Island topic suggestions directly within Exact Path. Searching for content? You’ll find Study Island topics listed in your results alongside your available Exact Path resources. Reviewing student data? You can find Study Island topics listed in the Knowledge Map to help you determine next steps. We’ll be digging into this topic even more next month, so stay tuned!

Interested in learning more about these enhancements and when you can expect to see these changes in your Exact Path account? Keep an eye on our Edmentum What’s New page for the latest updates! And, while you wait for all of the fun stuff to be released, register for one of our upcoming live webinars this August for a firsthand look at all of the new Exact Path updates and features!

© NWEA 2017. MAP is a registered trademark, and NWEA, MAP Growth, and Measuring What Matters are trademarks, of NWEA in the US and in other countries.