Trophies, Challenges, and Trackers, Oh My: Engaging Students in Exact Path

The idea of cultivating student engagement is a complicated concept, not easily defined. The Glossary of Education Reform has tried (and it’s pretty lengthy). Here’s just a snippet: “In education, student engagement refers to the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.” As we consider the different elements that make up engagement, it’s important to also evaluate the core belief behind this concept—when students are interested or inspired by what and how they learn, learning improves.

For the sake of improving learning, Edmentum Exact Path, our K–12 individualized learning solution, applies many of the latest ideas behind building engagement in order to provide thoughtful features that focus on connecting students to what they’re learning and placing ownership directly on the student. So, how do we do that?—by ensuring that, on each step of the way, students can track their progress, understand their growth, and set individualized goals for future success. Today, let’s take a closer look at a few of the features within Exact Path that do just that.

Mastery Trophies

In Exact Path, students are presented with an individualized learning pathway of skills to complete based on their specific strengths and needs. Each skill is then assessed via a short Progress Check—used to both determine mastery and reward student understanding. As students demonstrate mastery in their Progress Check, they earn a Trophy. Trophies are then added to a dedicated rewards area that students can visit anytime to review their accomplishments and see what’s coming up in their next Progress Check.

Challenge Badges

Challenge Badges take the idea of Mastery Trophies and add a personalized element centered around goal setting. With Challenges, teachers are able to define exactly what success metric students are expected to meet. Educators can choose to create a Challenge for the number of Trophies students are expected to earn within a defined time frame, or Challenges can be set around time-on-task goals instead, encouraging students to show their commitment and grit, even if mastery comes slowly.

After teachers have chosen the Challenge they want to set, they can define the time period, decide on the group of students they will assign that Challenge to, and then select a badge design and prize each challenge will be worth. This last personalized element allows educators to set prizes outside of the program—such as earning a visit to the treasure box, homework pass, or special classroom seat—therefore tying the incentive directly to what the teacher knows about his or her students and what makes them tick.

Just like Trophies, students can view all of the Challenges that have been set for them and also monitor how far along they are in pacing toward their goal in the Rewards area. Similarly, educators have the ability to closely monitor class, group, and individual Challenges from the “My Classes” tab of their educator view, as seen above.

NEW: Printable Student & Class Trackers

Exact Path now offers downloadable student and class trackers that educators can print and hang up in their classrooms or encourage students to hold on to in a data notebook. This extra element of accountability can often be just what students require as they evaluate where they are in their learning journey and where they hope to go next.

This fun and friendly printable feature includes two simple trackers for individual students, one to monitor Mastery Trophies and another for Challenge Badges. Additionally, we heard from our customers that there are times where setting a class goal can be a driving force behind building a strong learning community and keeping academic growth on track. To that end, we offer one gameboard-style class tracker, open-ended enough for you to decide what you want to track and what each piece along the gameboard represents. We also offer a simpler thermometer design, perhaps more suitable for older students, where you can set a class goal and color in each area of the thermometer to track your classes’ accomplishments. Download your copies of our student and class trackers today.