6 Education Platforms That Are Giving Students More Individual Attention Than Ever Before

Mike Gecawich
Aug 22, 2017 · 5 min read

Did you ever play whack-a-mole at your local arcade growing up?

It seems so simple at first. The mole pops out of a hole and you just have to bop it on the head.

Remember this?

But then the speed picks up. It gets faster and faster and soon there’s no way to way get them all.

For me, this is what it felt like to be a teacher.

With thirty students in a classroom, each with a variety of skills, questions, and needs, it felt like I was constantly racing to help as many of them as possible, but was always falling short.

I wanted to make sure that every student got plenty of personal attention, but most of the time it just wasn’t possible.

Thanks to new technology, teachers may not have to play this impossible game any longer.

With a new approach called Adaptive Learning, a number of teaching tools are being created to make sure that every student gets the individualized instruction that he or she needs.

Individual student needs

What is Adaptive Learning?

Adaptive learning is a teaching approach that uses technology to customize instruction. Through adaptive learning programs students are able to work at their own pace and get instant feedback on what they do.

These programs may even track a student’s progress and ability, and provide customized lessons that suit their particular needs.

In a traditional classroom, if a teacher teaches a new math skill or a science concept to the whole class at once, some students might get it right away, while others might not.

But unless the teacher goes around and works with each student individually, or a student is bold enough to ask for help, the teacher won’t know where students are at until assessment.

Instead, with adaptive learning, students can learn new concepts reading, listening, or watching at their own pace. If they didn’t get it the first time they can go back and repeat it.

When completing exercises, the program can give students instant feedback on what they’re doing correctly and what they’re not. And if students need extra practice, the program will either ask them to repeat the lesson or create customized additional practice for them.

Meanwhile, all of this is being tracked. So a teacher can see daily where each student is at, rather than just after a test or at the end of the term.

Adaptive learning does everything a teacher wishes they were able to do, but physically can’t.

Read on for a list of adaptive learning resources that teachers across the country are using to customize learning and drive results for kids.

Adaptive Learning Resources

Dreambox Learning

DreamBox Learning is an adaptive, online K-8 math program designed to complement classroom instruction and help students master math concepts.

By meeting students where they are and altering the curriculum pace and specifications based on individual student performance, Dreambox Learning allows a classroom teacher to help each and every student become a math superstar.

Smart Sparrow

Smart Sparrow allows teachers to create customized coursework for students at the touch of a button.

Through this interactive platform, students will participate in lessons that are tailored just for them to address misconceptions. There’s also a teacher dashboard that makes it easy for teachers to analyze student data and decide how to best support students face-to-face.

Snapwiz

Snapwiz is already used by over 20,000 schools and colleges to bring adaptive learning into classrooms across the country.

Edulastic (the Snapwiz program geared towards K-12 schools) includes thousands of questions that teachers can use to create customized and standards aligned assessments. Edulastic even links with Google Classroom to where teachers can deliver assignments and share grades with students.

Scoot Pad

Scoot Pad features a dynamic K-8 curriculum that is aligned to Common Core State Standards. By spiraling skills, this platform ensures that students really are mastering content, and are constantly being pushed to practice the skills that are most difficult for them.

Systems such as coins, rewards, and a leaderboard build investment and motivate students to be invested in the program.

Brightspace LeaP

Brightspace’s adaptive learning platform is specially designed to be used at home and school. Teachers can engage parents in the learning process by a student’s portfolio or the class activity feed.

Students get real-time feedback as they work, helping them identify what areas they need to practice more while highlighting their strengths as well.

Typing.com

As typing is the new literacy in the digital world, more and more schools are making keyboarding a part of their standardized curriculum.

Typing.com is used by over 14 million students and 250,000 teachers and provides a fun interface and sequential lessons to teach students touch typing, give them personalized feedback and track their progress as they go.

The platform tracks which keys students tend to have trouble with and creates customized lessons for them to work on them. Meanwhile, the teacher platform enables teachers to monitor students progress in real-time, which would normally be impossible without running around the classroom non-stop.

Typing, the new literacy

The Future of Learning

As technology becomes increasingly prevalent in classes across the country, I’m sure that we will see many more adaptive learning programs emerge.

And when used together with teacher guidance and instruction, students will both gain better mastery of subjects and still develop personal relationships.

There’s no doubt that adaptive learning is here to stay and will help students to get more individualized attention than ever before.

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Mike Gecawich

Written by

Mike is co-founder of Teaching.com, which creates engaging, real-world courses that are being used in 4,000+ schools by 1.8 million students across the country.

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