Study Island Summer and Fall Enhancements Sneak Peek

Over the past year, my teammates and I have had the pleasure of speaking with Study Island educators across the country. We have been able to witness how teachers use Study Island day to day with students and have seen the many ways that the program is used to advance student learning. Through our conversations with educators, we have also learned about your pain points and gained insight into some of the ways that we can improve Study Island to make it more fun for students, easier to use, and even more robust as a classroom tool.

In response to your feedback, we have been releasing a series of enhancements to make sure that Study Island continues to meet and exceed your needs as your go-to practice and formative assessment program. In this post, I'll unpack our most recent updates and also provide a peek at what's to come this summer and fall.

Game-Based Group Sessions – Available Now!

In February of this year, we released one of our most anticipated features, game-based Group Sessions. When we initially launched Group Sessions in 2015, educators quickly embraced it as a way to engage the whole class or a small group of students together in Study Island practice. And soon, educators began requesting a way to make the sessions competitive so that they are even more exciting for students. So, we released game-based Group Sessions with not one, but two different competitive modes.

Video Lessons – Available Now!

In August of 2018, we launched our first batch of Taco the Crab’s video lessons to give students more opportunities for direct instruction in Study Island. These videos reflect instructional best practices, support multiple learning modalities, and follow the guidelines of Universal Design for Learning. Since the initial launch of the video lessons, we've more than doubled our offering with a total of 149 two-part lessons available across grades 2–8 math and ELA. Students can find Taco's video lessons within many of their Study Island lessons, and teachers can access the entire library of videos from the Teacher Toolkit. If you haven’t had a chance to use Taco’s video lessons, watch the example below.

Edmentum Sensei and District Administrator Dashboard Update – Available June 3, 2019

When we updated the Study Island scoring model in the summer of 2017, we introduced the "best score" option, which allows students to earn a Study Island Blue Ribbon once they meet the mastery requirements in a single 10-question session rather than earning Blue Ribbons based on their cumulative scores. Teachers can still see students’ best scores and cumulative scores in reports, and now, we are adding the ability to toggle between best score and cumulative score in Sensei, Edmentum’s data dashboard, so that you have easier access to the data you need to make instructional decisions.

Another enhancement that we are rolling out in early June is the new data table on the district administrator dashboard. With this enhancement, district administrators can more easily track program usage through quick access to key metrics—number of logins, time spent, questions answered, and Blue Ribbons earned.

Content Search Page – Available July 15, 2019

In the conversations we’ve had with teachers over the past year, one question that we always asked was: “What do you want to be able to see and do immediately when you log in to Study Island?” No matter whom we talked to, we usually received a very similar response: “I want to be able to see what my students have been working on and how they have been doing without having to run reports. And, I want to be able to easily find and assign content to them based on that information.”

The new Content Search page, coming in July, makes searching for and assigning content easier than ever. This simplified workflow also comes with a new, highly requested feature: the ability to assign lessons and flash cards, in addition to Study Island topics.

Student Activity Page – Available Fall 2019

The Student Activity page, coming this fall, will gather data about what students are working on and how they are performing into one convenient location. You can view detailed information about assignment and topic performance and drill down for more detailed information, all without running a report.

Content Updates – Available Fall 2019

As we continue to evolve the Study Island platform to address the needs of educators and students, we also strive to make sure that our content stays up to date with the latest standards, state assessments, and pedagogy.

Because of changes to standards or state tests, this fall, we are releasing content updates in New York, Arizona, Tennessee, Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky.

We’re excited about all the updates and enhancements coming to Study Island, and we hope you are too; be sure to check out the What’s New page for the most up-to-date information.

Join us on Wednesday, August 28th, 2019 at 11:30AM CDT for a LIVE webinar where we'll explore these new enhancements! Register here to save your spot.