Study Island Back-to-School Planning Guide

Whether you’re planning to kickstart a new implementation or reigniting an existing program for the new school year, we want to make sure that you have what you need to get off on the right foot, and set up your students for success. With Study Island in your toolbox, you can help students to succeed everywhere learning occurs. We’ve assembled our top resources to help you set up things for the new school year, explore all of the features your program has to offer, and learn best practices from successful implementations.

Prepare Your Account for the New Year

There are a few initial steps you should follow to get your implementation off the ground. Our wonderful consultants and on-call support representatives, can guide you through the process, but with the help of the Study Island Getting Started Page and some how-to resources, you can also do it yourself. While you may have had it all figured it out by last spring, chances are you’ve forgotten a step or two. Or, you may be brand new to the process entirely! Start by taking the following actions using the how-to tours and tutorials found in the Study Island Help Center.

1. Head over to the Study Island Getting Started Page: This "how to" page is a great place to begin your process. It's full of valuable resources to jumpstart your implementation, and even includes a step-by-step process with guides and videos to walk you through everything!
2. Enroll your users or update your users:Each new school year ushers in new educators and new students. Make sure that your account is up to date by reviewing your Study Island roster. Administrators can head to the Roster Management section to add new users, remove old ones, and update student grade levels. If you're just starting your Study Island implementation as a teacher, you'll want to create a class! If you're a teacher who's already been using the program, you'll simply want to make sure your classes are up to date and any old assignments are deactivated. 
3. Dive in to the teacher page: Start getting comfortable with the teacher page, and adjust any student settings you'll want for the school year. This page connects you to all of your data and the features you'll spend the most time on in Study Island! 
4. Familiarize your students and start practicing: Once you've either reacclimated your students to Study Island or introduced them, you'll want to dive in and start practicing! Head back over to the Getting Started page to to learn more about creating assignments to get the most out of Study Island.

Explore Our Favorite Features

While you may have used Study Island to prepare students for the high stakes assessments, or to provide additional classroom practice, did you maximize your implementations to benefit from all Study Island has to offer? Check out the resources below to learn about some of our favorite features available in the program.

Group Sessions: Group sessions are a fun and engaging way to assess your class to gather actionable student data in real time, providing insight on what they know, and where they may need additional support.

Test Builder: Looking for a way to create unit tests, interim assessments, and custom quizzes that you don’t have to write questions for or grade? Look no further than Test Builder.

Teacher Toolkit: Full of lesson plans, videos, and more, the Teacher Toolkit is a one-stop shop for instructional resources you can use to take your virtual lesson plans to the next level.

Printable Worksheets: Whether your students do not have access to technology at home, or you just want to provide an additional resource, there’s value and power in providing an analog resource in a digital world. Study Island offers printable worksheets for every subject and topic, allowing teachers to use the question banks to provide a pen-to-paper, physical assignment for their learners. Learn how to use Printable Worksheets and discover Three Ways Educators are Using Printable Worksheets!

Parent Notifications: Keep parents informed about their students’ academic progress by setting up one-time or recurring notifications in which designated parents and/or guardians automatically receive an email when a certain criterion is met. Streamlining communication with parents in today's learning environment is more important than ever!

Lessons: Perfect for independent work or when students are working at home, these short review lessons contain animated, guided practice, or even Khan Academy videos, along with practice items and detailed explanations.

Want to hear what educators love most about Study Island’s features? Check out this blog post!

Gather Implementation Ideas and Best Practices

With a robust set of features, Study Island gives educators the opportunity to implement the program in a variety of ways. Here are just a few implementation ideas and best practices to guide you as you choose the model that works best for you.

Acing Your Formative Assessment Strategy with Study Island in 3 Easy Steps: Setting a solid formative assessment strategy with Study Island allows educators to rest easy knowing that they have a trusted formative assessment tool at their fingertips. Check out these three easy steps for a successful formative assessment strategy with Study Island.

Setting a Benchmark Strategy That Meets Your Needs: Check out how you can use Study Island to executed a benchmark strategy, and how it can be useful in your classroom.

3 Creative Ways Educators Are Building Study Island Contests: How can you ensure students are working in Study Island and staying engaged? Run a Study Island contest! Check out some of the creative ways educators across the nation ran their own contests. You can also dive even deeper into the winners of our “Design Your Own Contest” plans here.

Learn from Others’ Success

We frequently have the honor of hearing from our terrific customers across the United States, and they’re all too eager to share the ways they’ve implemented Study Island and the success they’ve experienced.

Striving for Success and Supporting a Transient Population in Halifax, North Carolina: No matter the odds, leaders in Halifax County Schools are still fiercely committed to their district initiative: Strive for Five. The key components of this strategic plan ensure that educators are preparing students to become ready, resilient, respectful, triumphant, and proficient. But, putting this plan into action required partnering with a digital provider who understood the district’s needs.

“Using Study Island, we can build on those common skill deficits and go into the program to strengthen students in those particular parts. It can also give students additional practice and reinforcement.” — Dr. Tyrana Battle, Assistant Superintendent 

Increased Rigor, Targeted Intervention, and Meaningful Practice result in Improved School Ratings in Kingman, Arizona (Kingman Unified School District #20 - AZ): When Jeri Wolsey, assistant superintendent at Kingman United School District #20 (KUSD) in Kingman, Arizona, was looking for a program to help boost student achievement, she chose Study Island because she had experienced success using the program as both a teacher and a principal. As the district’s needs expanded, so did its partnership with Edmentum as it added Exact Path and Courseware. As a result of using Edmentum programs, two elementary schools in KUSD have improved their school ratings one letter grade, and high school students are successfully completing coursework that is much more rigorous, requiring a deeper understanding than ever before.

“As a teacher, I used [Study Island],” explained Mrs. Wolsey. “As a principal, I dictated that they would take Study Island grades every week. So, that school became an A. I would say that's largely due to Study Island and the effect it has when you use it consistently and with fidelity.” — Jeri Wolsey, Assistant Superintendent 

Check out some of our favorite Study Island success stories here.

Looking for more information to jump-start your back-to-school planning with Study Island? Be sure to check out our Study Island page on Edmentum.com for all of the most up to date information and resources. You can also visit our What’s New section to check for any state specific content updates! If you don’t currently have Study Island, but want to experience these features hands-on, sign up for a free trial today!

This blog was originally published on July 24, 2019 by Regina Waddell and has been updated.