| State: Massachusetts | Number of Students: 25,479 |
| School Type: Public School District | Free and Reduced Lunch: 57.2% |
| Grade Level: PK-12 | English Language Learners: 34.2% |
School Context
This model school within a large district serves about 95% low income families. This school is a demonstration site for the district. This school believes that the pathway to student success begins with student engagement and investment in their own learning.
State of Technology
This school is looking to form a streamlined approach to technology integration where there hasn't been one before. They want to use a literacy tool in their computer labs to: engage students; embolden students to take initiative with their own learning; and to track data to inform classroom instruction.
Currently, teachers have been able to use disparate programs to supplement core ELA curriculum. Some will use one program frequently, while others do not have a strategy in place to use technology. This new tool will set the foundation for the Focused Instructional Coach to use to establish an instructional strategy toward ELA that is congruent to what teachers are doing within the classroom.
Tech Needs & Requirements
In order to create a solid strategy to engage, track and support student literacy through technology, the school would like to implement a literacy tool that has the following features. Content: The content of the tool must be age appropriate for k3rd grade students. The tool should be as interactive as possible, not simply multiple choice. The tool should provide questions that support vocabulary in context. The tool should build foundational skills. The tool should contain a variety of fiction and nonfiction selections,similar to those in the PARCC. Opportunities that support writing would be a nice to have. The tool should focus on the main elements of literacy support, such as speaking, listening, speaking and comprehension. The tool needs to be aligned with the CCSS resources. It would be nice to have the tool provide the teacher with instructional resources.
Students will largely be working independently, though the teacher and instructional coach will be in the learning labs. Students should be able to see where they are and have motivating from engaging content and interface.
Teachers, during the use of this tool, will remain an integral part to the learning, but will assign the program for 20 minute intervals where they will facilitate and not directly teach. They will also be responsible for understanding and analyzing the student data to inform instruction.
The tool must: be aligned with CCSS; must have active interface with students to not simply click their way through; provide students with engaging and motivating features (i.e. gamify, badges, etc.); provides actionable data that is easy to read. The school is device agnostic provides Chromebooks and Desktop PCs. Students will be in the lab of 30 computers. The tool should provide: formative data; student progress data by school and by class; reports that are easy to understand; data that is precise, but actionable; and ability to group students based on data collected. It would be nice if the tool provided reports and the dashboard made recommendations for what the student should work on next.