We consistently ask the teachers and administrators at our Ascend Math partner schools to tell us how to make Ascend better so we can help students have more success.
This has resulted in important improvements including adding interactivity to all video lessons, new conceptual lessons and virtual explorations, plus the dashboards for school, teacher, class and student. Their most recent suggestions were the impetus for the valuable enhancements found in the 6.0 version of Ascend Math.
These include:
- Live Student Tracker providing real time data on progress. The Live Student Tracker provides an at-a-glance look at critical data on student’s progress including the current level, unit, and objective as well as the next skill gap for each student. The Tracker provides an enormous time saving advantage in planning for whole or small group instruction and/or a blended learning model.
- A completely new and exciting student motivational component. Students really like Ascend Math but tell their teachers they want an occasional fun break from the grind. Base Camp is an all-new virtual world with fun games and activities for students. After spending time on task in Ascend and completing post-assessments, a student gains access to explore Base Camp for three minute increments. Base Camp will continue to see enhancements throughout this year.
- New Teacher Guides aid in group instruction most commonly in a blended learning application. Forty Compasses, Teacher Guides for Ascend Math Explorations have been added to Ascend Math. The Compasses contain helpful information about the Explorations with questions to check for understanding and additional activities.
- New and improved classroom management tools The Six Things You Need to Know offers teachers the fastest and most efficient access to help and advice. “Six Things” answers the most common questions and leverages the best tools in the Ascend Math program.
- New School Dashboard completes the lineup of dashboard reporting. For school administrators, the School Dashboard provides quick one-click access to view Ascend Math data grouped by teacher. Best of all, the School Dashboard links directly to the Teacher Dashboard and from there to the Class Dashboard and the Live Student Tracker making progress monitoring with Ascend easier than ever.
The best news is we’re not done. New later this year, teachers will be able to assign lessons outside of the student’s prescriptive plan, including on level assignments and Math Level Equivalency (MLE) scores will also be available for each student on Ascend Math reporting. We’re also adding more than 40 new virtual explorations this fall to the objectives students find most challenging.
This is the most important and most valuable release of Ascend Math to date.