Sneak Peek! Exact Path 2021–22 Enhancements

The official start of summer is just around the corner, and here at Edmentum, that means that our teams are in the thick of designing, vetting, and producing exciting and powerful instructional content and feature updates to address unfinished learning and accelerate growth in the upcoming 2021–22 school year.

For our K–12 diagnostic-driven, direct instruction program, Exact Path, exciting features and functionality are not in short supply! Join us as we unpack new and improved data-rich reports, dig into exciting updates in support of our earliest K–2 learners, and even introduce a new offering focused on executive function, a foundational skill for social-emotional learning and academic achievement.

Improving Administrator Dashboard Reporting

The admin dashboard has long been the go-to launch point for all administrators coming into their Exact Path program—a chance to peek into testing insights and usage data for an overall temperature check on the implementation. This summer, we’re reimagining the admin dashboard for a more intuitive experience that centralizes the most critical data points.

Knowing which data to elevate is informed by understanding the metrics most indicative of a successful implementation. Research confirms that students who complete at least eight skills in their learning paths show significant learning gains! Per Edmentum’s recommendations, an investment of at least 20 minutes per session and 40–60 minutes per week, per subject will set up students for success.

On the newly redesigned admin dashboard, two impactful widgets will help unpack critical information that drives successful outcomes. Additional disaggregated reports will be available later this fall.

Do students have learning paths? The first widget aims at answering this question by clearly unpacking which students have completed their Exact Path diagnostic, have existing data from a partner assessment, or have had a learning path auto-generated to kickstart the learning process.

Are students using learning paths? The second widget goes a step further by exploring what percentage of students are working in their learning paths for given ranges of time.

With Edmentum Exact Path dosage recommendations as your compass, these new reports will empower administrators to ensure that those goals are being met.

Reporting Grade-Level Proficiency

In ongoing conversations with our educator partners, one question continues to come up—are my students performing below, on, or above grade level? While we have sought opportunities to evolve and refine our approach to this very question, this year, we’re employing both our own in-house research team and external experts to meet this direct request in a new and exciting way!

This July, we are introducing reporting to classify each student’s grade-level proficiency using friendly color-coding to indicate classifications of grade-level proficiency—below, approaching, meets, and exceeds—based on seasonal expectations.

For partners using the Exact Path diagnostic to support K–8 students, this is achieved using a trusted, research-based method called “standard setting” to set valid and reliable cut scores for proficiency. Details will be available on the Class Results page via a class distribution, as well as a detailed class breakdown to answer critical questions like:

• Fall: Are students ready for grade-level instruction?
   
• Winter: Are students progressing as expected toward grade-level expectations?
   
• Spring: Have students met grade-level expectations?

Now, even as the school year progresses, there won’t be a moment where you’re left wondering if students are tracking at pace to achieve grade-level expectations by the end of the year.

Reimagining Exact Path for Our Earliest Learners

Meeting the needs of our youngest students requires frequently checking in with the evolving needs of the primary teachers and K-2 students using our programs firsthand—and these budding and brilliant minds weren’t shy to give us their latest feedback this past year! This summer, we’re working hard to launch 50 new lesson modules, address common device and accessibility needs, remove guesswork in navigation, and reduce the clicks involved for five- to seven-year-olds for a smarter, better learner experience.

We’re utilizing a fully responsive design for a beautiful and uncompromised experience on any device, including iPad tablets, and these release updates meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA standards for accessibility. For the design, we started by removing the left navigation menu for a more simplified look and feel and created oversized dynamic buttons. Once learners navigate to their learning path, they’re greeted with one “play” button, creating zero guesswork on where they’re supposed to go next. Learners will start working on their personalized paths with one click, and when one tutorial ends, the next practice session automatically begins. Following a Progress Check, students are taken back to their main learning path screen to receive an updated dynamic path, and then, the streamlined process begins again.

This summer, you can also expect 50 new elementary lessons and aligned assessment items covering essential skills in kindergarten through 2nd grade reading and math. Our new content investments focus primarily on reading foundations following a research-based progression through phonological awareness to phonemic awareness to phonics and finally to word analysis skills. Phonics lessons introduce strategic sets of high-frequency words for recognition practice and decodable e-readers allow learners to apply, in context, the phonics skills and high-frequency words learned in the lesson.

Inside of these enhancements, we continue the release of K–2 modules that include tutorials and practice modules with no mastery quizzes. These younger learners will benefit from a more purposeful assessment approach. We’re also elevating best practices in our teaching methods and strategies to ensure that common manipulatives, audio exemplars, and multiple models and representations are employed to intentionally unpack each skill. Students learn best when they can connect with the material and feel that they are a part of their own learning—our renewed approach to content development ensures just that.

Introducing Executive Function to Support the Whole Learner

Exact Path is expanding to address a set of skills that extend beyond academics, bringing to life assessment and aligned activities to address executive function (EF), a foundation for social-emotional learning, designed specifically for our earliest K–2 learners! This school year has shown us how essential supporting the whole learner can be, and in partnership with the organization, Reflection Sciences, our new EF skills will address just that.

EF skills are the mental processes that enable us to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and manage multiple tasks successfully—in simpler terms, EF skills are the air traffic control system of the brain, and acquiring these skills is essential for school achievement.

With the addition of executive function, Exact Path will deliver measurement and instruction of these skills for K–2 learners. Beginning in July, Reflection Science’s EFgoPRO™ assessment will measure EF skills with an age-appropriate game-like assessment in under five minutes, providing immediate results to inform next steps for support and intervention. New Edmentum activity cards, available later this September, then can be used to deliver targeted instruction during whole-group transitions or via tier 2 and tier 3 intervention in small-group learning. Combined, our new executive function offering is designed to impact whole-learner success.

Managing Classes with Bulk Archive

In anticipation of the back-to-school season, we’re making it easier to freshen up your class organization in Exact Path. From the My Classes page, under Manage Classes, educators will soon be able to search for classes by location, teacher, or specific class name. Then, they can select multiple classes all at once and archive them to remove the class from view without deleting any of the associated student data. A slick, clean class page to kick off the new school year will be only a few clicks away!

Interested in learning even more about our exciting plans for this summer? Keep an eye on our What’s New page, and access the latest guidance on implementation in the Exact Path Help Center.