As the year draws to a close (already?!) and you begin planning for the upcoming semester, we have some tips on how to get started with IXL’s new science content. IXL is designed for a variety of classroom models and teaching methods, so we’d like to share a few ideas for how to use our new science skills with your class!

To begin a unit

Start off a unit with IXL science! Before you dive into a new topic in class, have students practice the relevant skills on IXL so they can build context and the necessary vocabulary to be fully engaged during instructional or lab time. You can also use IXL to probe for student understanding and then tailor your lessons based on what they already know. Alternatively, start a new topic by going over an IXL skill as a whole class, drawing on the variety of photos, examples, and diagrams to keep students immersed in the material.

In a flipped classroom

Use IXL to support the labs and activities you have planned for class time; IXL science is perfect for both pre- and post-work. Through interactive questions, our skills provide background knowledge and vocabulary to prime students for hands-on experiments and projects. And, afterwards, students can use IXL to solidify their understanding of the scientific concepts they just saw in action.

To differentiate learning

Students often arrive in a classroom with varying levels of background knowledge, especially when it comes to science. With IXL science, you can help all of your students move ahead: a wide range of carefully scaffolded skills helps students fill in gaps or tackle more advanced topics. You can even take advantage of skills in lower grade levels to support English language learners and students with lower reading levels.

To develop vocabulary and interdisciplinary skills

On IXL, students learn and practice scientific vocabulary in context, which also helps them transfer this vocabulary to other disciplines, such as reading comprehension or writing activities. You can use IXL science to develop other interdisciplinary skills too, as students will practice logic, reasoning, and data analysis throughout. And IXL science pairs nicely with social studies lessons because many of the skills feature climates, plants, animals, and geological formations from around the world, giving students exposure to different regions and cultures.

How have you used IXL science in your class? What other ideas do you have for science lessons?

    

‘Tis the season to be jolly, so IXL volunteers hosted a holiday breakfast at Haven Family House on Saturday, December 7th. The Haven House is part of the InnVision Shelter Network, which provides transitional housing for formerly homeless families.

We started the morning by taking a tour of the facility, including an apartment unit, the food pantry, and the preschool. It was great to learn more about the work that Haven House does to support families while they live in transitional housing.

During our event, we hosted a festive breakfast and led holiday games and crafts. Both kids and adults enjoyed donuts and fruit, as well as steaming hot chocolate and coffee. IXL volunteers led holiday bingo, helped children make snow globes and ornaments, read stories, and had a great time mingling with and getting to know the families at Haven House. Several volunteers spent the morning sorting donated clothes so they would be ready for families. The families were very appreciative of the event and our support. Overall, the biggest hit for both children and adults was the festive snow globes craft. Kids grinned ear to ear as they proudly showed off their snow globes while parents talked excitedly about giving snow globes to their own children as holiday gifts. We ended the morning with a raffle where families won prizes. All in all, it was a wonderful event and definitely put all of us in the holiday spirit!

Learn more about InnVision Shelter Network and volunteer opportunities here: http://www.ivsn.org/.

By Ellen Teel, Educational Sales Consultant

    

No matter what your style of teaching, IXL fits with your lesson plans! We previously shared some ideas for implementing IXL science in your classroom, and now we’d like to suggest some ways to engage students with social studies using IXL.

For an in-class lesson

Project an IXL history skill on the board to jumpstart a lesson! As you go through the skill as a whole class, the portraits, first hand accounts, and drawings from the time period will supplement your instruction and keep students’ interest piqued in what history looked like.

To reinforce instruction

IXL also works after you’ve already taught a lesson! Expose your students to the relevant content first and then have them practice on IXL for homework or in the computer lab. This will help students strengthen their understanding of the topic and give them ample opportunities to recall the facts and knowledge you covered with them.

In a flipped classroom

If you teach in a flipped classroom, IXL social studies complements instruction well. Rather than having your students read a textbook to gain the necessary background knowledge, students can learn from IXL. Since many of our questions are based on reasoning rather than memorization, students can take a first pass through a skill and read explanations as they go. And, students are able to retry variations of the questions they’ve missed, so they can succeed the second time through, if not the first.

To improve reading comprehension

Many of the social studies questions are also good practice for reading! Through IXL, students are asked to read, analyze, and interpret primary sources. As they learn about history, students will develop greater reading comprehension and critical thinking skills—skills they can apply across disciplines.

Do you have other ideas for teaching social studies? How have you used IXL social studies with your class?

    

Congratulations to the winners of IXL’s More Than Math referral contest!

Last month, we invited teachers already using IXL Math to refer their colleagues to try out IXL Language Arts. Referring teachers were entered into a raffle to win $100, while referred teachers were entered to win a yearlong IXL Language arts subscription for their classroom.

The winners are listed below. We’d also like to thank everyone who participated in the contest! And remember, teachers can start a free 30-day classroom trial of all of IXL’s subjects at any time by visiting www.ixl.com/trial.

Winners—Referring teachers:

• Jonathan Bruneau, Connecticut
• Brandon Suever , Michigan
• Kristin Theve, Massachusetts

Winners—Referred teachers:

• Sheila Burkett, Georgia
• Kristina Collins, Maryland
• J. Geurts, Oregon

    

The latest version of the IXL app is packed with fun new features that create an immersive, engaging, can’t-get-enough learning experience.  Download or update the IXL app today on the App Store to play with our captivating math and English language arts skills, or keep reading to learn more about what’s new!

Here’s how the latest version of the IXL app takes on-the-go learning to a whole new level of interactivity:

• Celebrate achievements with an enhanced practice screen, featuring a real-time progress bar that tracks milestones at every step of your learning journey.
• Handwriting recognition puts learning right your fingertips – enter answers to math questions by simply writing on the screen!
• Seamless transitions from questions to explanations enable students to quickly grasp new concepts and master skills.
• Improved content navigation and search functionality invite students to explore new skills and view their status on every skill at a glance.

Plus, everything you love about IXL that makes learning a multi-sensory experience!

• Engaging, interactive skills that make practice feel like play.
• Earn awards and fill up your gameboard as you master skills!
• Work through problems on the screen with our scratchpad feature.
• Audio support that helps kids practice at their reading level.*

 *Available for math skills in grades 2-5

The IXL iPad app is a free download for all and features 20 practice questions each day for students not subscribed to IXL. Subscribers can log in through the app and practice unlimited questions across all subjects and grade levels. Download today on the App Store!

IXL Releases New Version of iPad App with Unprecedented Coverage of Pre-K to 12th Grade Math and Language Arts

Education app by edtech leader offers 14 grade levels of learning in a single download

SAN MATEO, Calif. – December 16, 2015 – IXL today released the latest version of its iPad app, which covers 14 years’ worth of math and English language arts instruction. The app features a complete progression of more than 4,500 skills from pre-K to 12th grade, covering addition to algebra, basic grammar to advanced writing skills, and everything in between. The app can be downloaded for free on the App Store.

“IXL’s app offers an immersive educational experience that can’t be found anywhere else,” said Paul Mishkin, CEO of IXL Learning. “Kids can learn and practice almost any math or language arts topic imaginable and continually be delighted along the way by creative visuals, challenges, and interactions.”

Learning on the go that’s exciting and joyful

IXL’s app features interactive question types that heighten curiosity and put learning at children’s fingertips. Kids can learn to count by placing stickers on colorful backgrounds, build their vocabulary as they sort words by their roots, grasp geometry concepts by using interactive graphing tools and more. Each grade level features a game board of awards to collect, each with a different theme, such as a jungle adventure or the Wild West. With more than 1,000 awards to discover and win, learners never run out of surprises. There are even more opportunities for children (and their parents and teachers) to celebrate accomplishments with IXL’s weekly e-mail updates and printable certificates honoring noteworthy achievements.

Enhancements for more engaging learning

The newest version of the IXL app includes enhanced functionality designed to make learning on the iPad more engaging and interactive. With handwriting recognition, math practice is more intuitive than ever:  kids simply draw answers with their fingers and the app recognizes what they’ve written, from simple integers to more complex entries like fractions and algebraic expressions. Another captivating new feature is a dynamic progress bar that shows students how close they are to their next milestone, motivating them to keep practicing and striving for mastery and making for a can’t-put-it-down learning experience.

Personalized instruction

IXL is carefully designed to guide and teach students at just the right pace. Each of IXL’s 4,500 skills adapts to the individual student, offering scaffolded questions that become progressively harder or easier based on how well the learner is understanding the material. Questions on IXL are algorithmically generated rather than pulled from a static question bank, ensuring that students never see the same question twice and always have something new to practice.

Availability and information

The IXL iPad app is a free download and features 20 practice questions each day for students not subscribed to IXL. IXL subscribers can log in through the app and practice unlimited questions across all subjects and grade levels. Download the IXL iPad app today for free here. For more information and to subscribe to IXL, please visit www.IXL.com.

Media, please note: Screenshots of the IXL iPad app may be downloaded at www.ixl.com/press. Demos and access to IXL are available upon request by contacting ixl@triplepointpr.com.

About IXL Learning

IXL Learning is an educational technology company that delivers an immersive learning experience — for all students, in all grades, across all subjects. With one in 10 students already using it in the U.S., and over 20 billion questions asked and answered around the world, IXL is helping schools successfully use technology to improve teaching and learning. Our team of PhDs, teachers, and technologists crafts unique high-quality content and uses strategically mapped progressions to provide unprecedented depth, breadth and challenge for each specific skill. From pre-K to 12th grade, IXL’s content and technology enable fresh, engaging and personalized experiences that spark curiosity and build confidence. To learn more about IXL, visit www.ixl.com, facebook.com/IXL and twitter.com/IXLLearning.

    

Have you tried out IXL’s newest subject, science? (If not, go for it—you can practice 20 questions a day for free!) Today, we’re getting to know the team of content developers that created our science skills. Find out why they think learning science is important, what they’d take with them on a deep-sea adventure, and more!

Jeremy Murphy, Senior Curriculum Designer and Science Team Lead

• What is your role on the team? My role is to marshal the forces of the curriculum designers to build all the content that you see on the science side of the site. I’m responsible for developing best practices for how we build things. A major part of my job is reviewing all of the content, so I step in at various points along the development cycle to redirect, correct, and answer questions.
• What do you hope students gain from IXL science? Most people that will be on IXL science will not become scientists. But I think there’s a real shortage of scientific reasoning and scientific understanding in the world at large. So I’m really hoping that students, while they may not pursue a career in science, leave with an appreciation for what it means to do science.
• Why is it important to have a strong foundation in science? I think we all have a tendency to make decisions based on what we think or how we feel about a situation. And that’s fine if you’re falling in love or picking out a dog, but for many other aspects of your life, that’s not a good way to approach things, like making decisions about where to buy a house, where to send your kids to school, what a figure about the pollution rate in your city really means. Making day-to-day decisions requires a very objective approach, like a dispassionate, “This is what the data says.”

Adam Green, Curriculum Designer

• If you could start a colony on any planet, which would you choose? I know Mars seems like a cop-out, but that seems like a nice planet. It’s not too far, there’s a little bit of an atmosphere there. I mean, Saturn is beautiful and has the rings, but that just seems like that would be a problem when flying in and out of there.
• If you were taking a trip to the Mariana Trench [the deepest part of the world’s oceans], what three things would you pack in your suitcase? A Kindle, a notebook or an audio recorder, and a camera. So a little bit of recording and a little bit of entertainment. I really like jelly beans too. Or Reese’s Cups, one of the two. If there’s a melting issue, then the jelly beans. If there’s no heat issue, then probably the Reese’s Cups.

Kelly Rayome, Curriculum Designer

• What do you do at IXL? What I like about working at IXL is that each day is very different. Right now, I’m working on brainstorming for some questions about weather hazards and how we can help to prevent them. But other days, I’m reviewing other people’s work. They might have huge documents with all of these possible questions to think about and then I get to read through those. It’s not just me trying to teach people things; I also get to learn.
• If you could have any animal or plant adaptation, what would you choose and why? The first thing that pops to my head is elephants, and this is probably because my toddler is obsessed with them right now. I just love how they have that prehensile trunk and can pick stuff up and do things with their trunk. So I feel like having something like that might be interesting. That’s something that could come in very handy, especially wrangling a toddler.

Laura Welsh, Curriculum Designer

• What do you want students to take away from IXL science? One of the reasons I love the way that students interact with our content is that it’s active. So often mistakes are seen as such a negative thing, but when students get a question wrong on IXL, they have an opportunity to learn from that. It’s immediately presented to them what they need to remember in order to do better next time and they get to try again. I’m hoping they’ll get that sense of learning from mistakes.
• Who’s your favorite scientist? I have a lot of admiration for Marie Curie because she’s a pioneering woman in the field. Also, she literally gave her life to making these advances that we owe her so much for.

    

We recently launched IXL social studies, which we hope you’ve had a chance to try out, and now we’d love for you to get to know some of the people who helped create it! We asked our social studies content developers why it’s important for students to have a strong foundation in social studies, what historical figure they’d like to dine with, and more!

Dana Fenson, Senior Curriculum Designer and Social Studies Team Lead

• What is your role on the team? I oversee the team of curriculum designers who develop the content for IXL social studies. The bulk of what I do is to help review content and make decisions about the kind of content we’re going to be covering and what we want the product to be like.
• What do you want students to gain from IXL social studies? Our main goal is to make social studies education fun. It’s really common for kids to get turned off of social studies at an early age if they think it’s just about memorizing facts or dates. As people who love history, we wanted to inspire curiosity and help students see that history is actually really fun. It’s about trying to make sense of the past and being mini-detectives by trying to piece together information to come to conclusions.
• Why is it important to have a strong foundation in social studies? The goal of social studies education, in elementary school in particular, is to transform students into engaged, informed citizens and voters. It’s about understanding the history surrounding different issues, being able to articulate your thoughts, being able to think critically about the positions that others hold and the things politicians tell you, and being able to make critical decisions on your own based on the factual knowledge that you build in social studies.

Glen Olson, Curriculum Designer

• What do you hope students take away from IXL social studies? We’re trying to show the messiness of history, of people trying to do their best in different situations. And we want to show how historians don’t always know for sure the answer. So I want them to take away both the uncertainty of history and how we use different sources to come up with conclusions. It goes beyond just the list of facts and dates: there’s human motivations there and hopefully students will find something they can grab onto from that.
• What first sparked your interest in social studies? My dad is a military history buff. So we would go to Civil War battlefields and historic sites, and for a long time, I found it boring. But for some reason, when we visited the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana, it just clicked. The museum was really well set up and there was a big map with lights on it. All of a sudden, I became obsessed with learning every little part of that battlefield.

Spencer Fleury, Curriculum Designer

• What do you do at IXL? I am the lone economist on the social studies team, so my days are basically filled with trying to come up with ways to explain, say, supply and demand curves to third graders, which may not sound challenging right off the bat. But once you think about the breadth of knowledge that is often contained within these kinds of graphs, you start to see how it’s a different kind of challenge than, say, teaching this stuff to college freshmen. [laughs]
• Do you have a favorite branch of the US political system? I would probably have to say judicial. I like the fact that we’re going to take these words on a page, we’re going to take all the legal history that has come before this moment, and we’re going to figure out where this bit of legislation fits into the overall fabric of American jurisprudence and law and order.

Adam Cowden, Curriculum Designer

• Is there a time period in US history you’d be really interested in going back to study? We understand so little about the economies of pre-Columbian societies in North America—what the trade relationships were, how they produced and got the things they needed to survive. I think it’d be really fascinating to learn more.

Alyssa Bivins, Curriculum Designer

• Which historical figure would you choose to have dinner with? I have a not-so-unique love of Napoleon Bonaparte. I think he was visionary, and he conquered so much territory. He came from a very lowly background yet united an entire country behind him. And then more importantly, he was exiled to a tiny island and still managed to come back in full force and start taking the whole country back. So I’d love to just sit with him and ask: “If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?” “What were you thinking when you went into Russia?” “What did you do on the island?”

    

Traveling can be stressful at the best of times, not to mention during the frenetic holiday season. But never fear—with a bit of preparation and a positive attitude, you can enjoy the trip to Grandma’s house as a little extra time to spend with the family. Just remember, above all else, to be flexible and make the best of any unexpected detours or delays.

Check out some more travel tips below!

Take it slow

Regardless of your transportation method, remember to plan for extra time. This will take much of the stress out of an unimaginably long security line or major traffic delays. Make sure to build in time for rest and bathroom breaks; giving kids frequent opportunities to run around and burn off energy will make them that much quieter for the seated portions of the flight or car ride. On a related note, keep to a reasonable itinerary when you arrive at your destination. A lower-key trip is often more enjoyable than one where you’re herding grumpy kids from place to place.

Come prepared with snacks and water

Having edible treats on hand helps prevent hunger-related tantrums during unexpected traffic jams or extra long layovers. And, don’t forget to pack some for yourself! Your food stash can also come in handy if your kids turn up their noses at the airplane food or the offerings at a holiday party. In order to keep emergency bathroom breaks to a minimum, just bring water for your kids to drink while en route—they’ll drink when they’re thirsty rather than for the flavor.

Bring hassle-free entertainment

When selecting what toys and entertainment to bring, consider how easy it is to pack. Books or tablets with movies or games (or IXL!) are less prone to disaster than small toys or pieces with many parts. But if you’re bringing electronics, don’t forget to charge them ahead of time and/or bring a portable USB charger. For car trips, audio books that the whole family can listen to are a great way to keep everyone happy. Some possibilities include classics like The Little Prince, Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia, A Series of Unfortunate Events, or Little House on the Prairie.

Empower your kids to entertain themselves

By allowing kids to pack their own travel bag, filled with the books, toys, or games they want, they’ll likely be happier with their selections. Give budding photographers a camera to document the trip, which will both keep them occupied and may even provide some stellar snaps of your family’s trip. Fun road activities include letting older kids help navigate either via GPS or a paper map (added bonus: they’ll learn map-reading skills!) or playing classic games like spying license plates from all the states (made even more fun with a map to mark off the ones they’ve spotted).

Tap into kids’ love for novelty

Kids love new things, so pack a few surprises like new markers or crayons, coloring books, or sticker books to strategically alleviate boredom. You could even keep a bag full of special items like stickers, figurines, or magnetic puzzles that are only used for trips so they remain fresh and exciting.

Happy Holidays and safe travels! Let us know below if you have other tips for traveling with kids.

    

We’re ringing in the new year with a new grade level – language arts for 1st grade! Plus, more language arts and math skills in other grades – keep reading to learn more.

1^st Grade Language Arts

We’ve launched language arts for 1^st grade with nearly 90 skills that introduce budding readers and writers to grammar and vocabulary.  And to provide support for these young learners, all skills include audio support and larger text size. We’ve also designed the skills to engage students and help them develop an early curiosity about language, using more than 900 images and interactive problem types.

Check out some of our favorite new skills below, and visit IXL to try them out for yourself!

P.1 Compare pictures using adjectives

Colorful images introduce students to adjectives in this interactive skill.

I.4: Place sentences on a timeline

An interactive skill that helps kids learn about verb tenses by arranging sentences in the correct order.

BB.1: What am I?

This word game presents students with a riddle, helping them build their vocabulary and reading comprehension in the process!

New Language Arts Skills for 2^nd Grade

We’re continuing to build out our 2^nd grade content with new skills and interaction types to help students learn about language arts in fun new ways, and to support alignment to state and Common Core standards. Visit IXL to explore!

New Math Skills

Almost all grade levels have gotten new skills to kick off 2016! These include identifying objects as above or below, telling time using digital clocks, factoring linear expressions, identifying equivalent expressions, and more.

We’ve also refreshed some of our existing skills with new questions, images, or improved explanations to make the learning experience more engaging for students. And, we’ve increased text size for pre-K through 1^st grade! Head over to IXL to try out the new skills!

Skill code changes

With all these great new additions come some changes to our skill codes – download PDFs of the changes for your edition below!

Australia

Canada

Europe

Ireland

India

New Zealand

Singapore

South Africa

United Kingdom

United States – Math

United States – Language arts

    

MLK Day is almost here, and aside from relishing the prospect of a day off, we want to take time to remember the extraordinary man who inspired this holiday. So, we’ve gathered up some ideas for exploring Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy with students of all grades in the coming week.

Elementary school

“I have a dream today.” Introduce younger students to King’s most famous speech with this activity where, after listening to the audio recording, students use a fill-in-the-blank worksheet to write their own speeches that imitate King’s. Students can recite their finished speeches to the class and share their own dreams for the future. You can read about the full lesson plan here and download the worksheet here. For another active learning opportunity, try out IXL’s skills about King for grades 2 and 3, which you can use as a flipped learning lesson or to test students’ knowledge after they’ve learned about King.

Middle school

“We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.” King was a prolific writer and speaker, with many inspiring and thought-provoking quotes. Let your students flex their own literary muscles with this lesson plan where students create found poems based on King’s 1968 obituary published in The New York Times. You could also give students a collection of King’s quotes (examples here or here) and ask them to analyze the quotes for literary and rhetorical devices.

High school

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” High school students can examine the impact of King’s policy of nonviolence with this lesson plan on how rapper Common and writer Walter Dean Myers have reinterpreted the concept of nonviolence in their own works. Students connect King’s ideas for conflict-resolution with Common’s song “A Dream” and Myers’s short story “Monkeyman.”

Also, check out this fabulous resource from PBS NewsHour Extra, which has compiled 9 civil rights lesson plans, as well as resources like this interactive timeline of the Civil Rights Movement, for middle and high school students.

What suggestions do you have for teaching the Civil Rights Movement?

    

Math fluency is a nagging problem in our schools nationwide, but there are some surprisingly tangible actions we can take to close the gap. Kevin Baird, the Chairman at the Center for College & Career Readiness, shared his insights previously in a webinar in partnership with IXL. We’re highlighting some of his points here, but also keep an eye on our upcoming webinars page to attend future sessions!

What’s Holding Students Back?

The math fluency gap is a broad, complex problem with a scope that’s far too large to cover in one blog post. So, we’ve prioritized one specific issue that teachers can target effectively.

Word problems. The phrase alone is enough to strike terror into the hearts of students everywhere. And they are a struggle for many students because they demand an ability to fluently apply math concepts to complex, real-world problems. When the Center for College & Career Readiness examined data from a variety of standardized tests, including the Smarter Balanced and PARCC Field Tests, they found that over 60% of students considered the math problems on the test more difficult than their school work. In particular, text-based and multi-step problems posed major challenges. Furthermore, roughly 30% of students stated that either most or all of the math questions on the test were completely new to them. Such statistics indicate that students are having trouble recognizing the math concepts embedded in the word problems.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Given that word problems are causing students such difficulty on tests, they clearly need more practice with these types of problems, on a regular basis.

Teachers can start by helping students learn how to read and interpret the math-specific vocabulary of word problems. Present a word problem (as part of whole-class or small-group instruction) and ask students to discuss questions, such as:

• What do we know about the problem?
• What do we need to solve?
• What math strategies should we use?
• How can we solve the problem?

It may also help students to highlight or underline key words in the problem or to write out their strategies for and definitions of math concepts they encounter.

Then, make sure to expose students to progressively difficult word problems, preferably broken into discrete skills at first. As students practice on easier problems focused on specific math components, they’ll start to recognize connections between text and math equations, enabling them to translate words into mathematical expressions. Once students demonstrate mastery of each level of word problem, gradually ratchet up the difficulty and begin incorporating broader math concepts and multi-step problems. Adaptive programs like IXL provide these features. On IXL, for example, each math concept is broken into MicroSkills, which act like building blocks for students to master individually. Additionally, IXL automatically adjusts the difficulty level of problems based on a student’s demonstrated ability.

Through this process, students will develop the fluency and confidence necessary to identify the math concepts in unfamiliar word problems, setting them up for a future of math success.

What steps have you taken to help your school or district’s students achieve math fluency? Let us know in the comments below! And, stay tuned over the next few weeks for more posts in our administrator blog series, where we’ll address strategies to help your teachers and students excel this school year.

    

February is Black History Month, a perfect time to highlight the contributions and achievements of African Americans throughout our nation’s history. Bobbi Bear, an IXL Training Specialist, has put together materials and suggested resources for four 45-minute lesson plans for second and third grades, available for download here!

These lesson plans weave language arts skills with social studies content, enabling your students to practice their reading comprehension and writing skills while learning about important historical figures.

Through the course of these four lessons, students will write a narrative from the point-of-view of an important African-American in U.S. history after exploring text sources and IXL’s social studies content.

Day 1

On the first day, you’ll introduce students to the topic of segregation, and then students will read a text selection, either as a class or individually, about one of the following historical figures: Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, or Martin Luther King, Jr. Following a group discussion, students will complete an exit ticket, listing what they learned about the selected historical figure.

Day 2

For the second day, students will further explore their assigned historical figure through the provided websites and will complete the investigation organizer with new information and interesting facts not covered in the text selection. Next, students will practice on the corresponding IXL skill, aiming for a SmartScore of 90.

Day 3

Then, students will begin planning a short narrative written from the point-of-view of their historical figure. As students put themselves in their person’s shoes, they’ll connect with their struggles and triumphs and gain a greater understanding of history. After completing the diary entry organizer, they’ll flex their creative writing muscles and begin a rough draft on composition paper.

Day 4

For the last day, students will continue drafting their diary entries. After completing the draft, they will revise and edit, and then, neatly handwrite their final drafts in the provided template, as well as include an image of their historical figure. To close, students can share their entries with the class to show off what they’ve learned!

The full lesson plans and related materials are available for download below:

Black History Month Lesson Plan

Day 1 Exit Ticket

Day 2 Investigation Organizer

Diary Entry Organizer

Diary Entry Rubric

Final Draft Template

Let us know if these resources were helpful and if there are any other topics you’d like to see covered in the future!

    

We’re back with another entry in our Administrator Blog Series! If you haven’t yet, make sure to check out last week’s post on word problems and the math fluency gap. This week, we’re talking about RTI/MTSS, and specifically, how easy it is to incorporate IXL into an RTI model. From Tier I to Tier III, IXL supports many of the RTI model recommendations. Read on to find out how to leverage IXL’s features in new ways.

In-depth, tailored content

IXL breaks every concept into critical MicroSkills, which serve as the building blocks for larger topics. This provides an unprecedented level of differentiation as you can have students practice exactly the skills they need to solidify foundational concepts. And, with access to all grades, as well as an ability to hide grade levels, learners working below grade level can focus on the skills they need.

Guided practice and extensive feedback

IXL skills are adaptive, automatically adjusting to a student’s individual skill level. Each and every IXL skill provides in-depth corrective feedback, allowing students to see why they missed a question and ensuring they have the tools to improve. IXL also provides positive reinforcement with every correct answer, motivating students to keep going.

Varied problem types

IXL offers a huge variety of ways to practice each math and language arts topic. For example, students can learn about fractions by ordering fractions on a number line, solving word problems, matching fractions to area models, and more. Plus, IXL uses an algorithm to generate new questions for students, ensuring they’re always working on something they’ve never seen before—and helping them build procedural fluency. 

Visual representation of ideas

IXL provides multiple item types that help students visualize math and language concepts. From creating graphs to adding with pictures, students can see the equations they’re working on, better cementing the math concept in their minds. Similarly, IXL offers language arts skills which ask students to visualize sentences with misplaced modifiers or incorrect homophones.

Progress monitoring

With IXL Analytics, teachers get an inside look at their students’ progress through an intuitive set of reports. IXL Analytics identifies trouble spots, enabling teachers to create instructional groups for students who are struggling with similar problem types. IXL even provides a questions log with specific questions and answers from students’ practice sessions, making it easy for teachers to reuse problems for remediation instruction. And, the Progress and Improvement report helps you visualize cumulative student achievement for the year—great for tracking progress for IEPs and communicating with parents.

What strategies do you use in your school or district to support RTI/MTSS?

    

Snowstorms are in full force, and so are snow days! While it’s important for everyone to stay safe and off the roads, the interruptions to the regular school schedule can make keeping on track with learning a little more challenging. Thankfully, IXL Training Specialist Bobbi Bear is here to the rescue with ideas for both teachers and parents on how to make the best of school closures!

As a teacher, you can…

1) Devise a plan with students letting them know to expect an announcement on their class’s course page in the learning management system of choice (e.g., Schoology, Google Classroom). The announcement will tell them which IXL skills should be completed at home. [See example 1]

Example 1

Example 2

2) Plan early for snow days by using one of IXL’s skill alignment checklists, which provide students with a list of skills to be practiced at home in the event of a snow cancellation. You can find these checklists under the “Resources” tab of the IXL Community page. [See example 2 and download the template here.]

Example 3a

3) Challenge students to use the Progress report from the student Analytics tab to identify their current weaknesses and improve on them. [See example 3a] From the teacher Analytics Dashboard, establish a goal for the number of questions your classes should answer. Make the contest fun by providing a simple award or prize to students if the goal is achieved. [See example 3b]

Example 3b

Example 4

4) Assign K–12 students snow day skills to practice that are focused on the core math fluencies. [See example 4]

Example 5

5) Encourage students to review skills on snow days by having them revisit skills where they achieved a SmartScore of 90 or higher earlier in the year. Consistently returning to skills from the beginning of the year will help cement students’ confidence and lay a more solid foundation to tackle new concepts during the second part of the school year. [See example 5]

As a parent, you can…

Example 6

1) Sign into your child’s IXL account to view his or her progress under the Analytics tab. [See example 3a] After discussing any areas of weakness, you can encourage your child to work towards a higher SmartScore.

2) Turn IXL skill practice into a competition with kid-friendly rewards and incentives. [See example 6 and download the template here.]

    

Do you use EngageNY math in your classroom? Are you struggling to complete all the necessary lesson components during your instructional time? We’ve enlisted the help of IXL Training Specialist Lauri Susi to break down the intended philosophy behind EngageNY and to show how using IXL with this curriculum can actually save you time! And, we even have two EngageNY/IXL lesson alignments available for download.

To start off, let’s take a brief look at what EngageNY is actually meant to be. Many teachers are unaware that EngageNY is designed to be “adopted and adapted” rather than used as a prescriptive curriculum and that the curriculum is designed around a “time frame,” not a “task frame.” What this means is that you shouldn’t expect every student working on the problem set within a lesson to complete all of the problems. In fact, teachers are encouraged to customize the lesson by selecting the “must do” and “can do” problems of a problem set.

The curriculum contains a three-step process for planning each lesson (which you can find here), with the expectation that teachers will study the teaching sequences of the curriculum and, when necessary, customize lessons to meet their students’ needs. For example, creating “zero problems” for student who are not ready for the first problem in the problem set or creating “Extra D’s” by developing a set of problems that create a bridge between two problem types. But don’t panic at the thought of this extra work! IXL can support you in both achieving the lesson objectives and in customization.

IXL grade level skills are aligned to the Common Core, as well as other standards, so don’t be afraid to look in a different grade level for skills that support your lesson customization. Sometimes a skill in a previous grade may match the models or strategies in the practice set, and often, skills in lower grade levels can help students who need remediation.

To help you get started, we have two lesson alignments, available for download below, that will give you some ideas on how IXL can help you customize and deliver your EngageNY lessons! Be sure to also check out our EngageNY alignment documents located on our Community page.

EngageNY and IXL Gr 1 Module 4

EngageNY and IXL Gr 2 Module 5 Topic B

Do you have any other tips for using the EngageNY curriculum? Are there other IXL lesson plans you’d like to see?

    

As you prepare for the festivities this weekend, it can be tough to think of ways to keep kids happy and entertained during the long game. Whether you’re rooting for the Panthers or the Broncos, or just want to watch the commercials, check out these activities to help everyone enjoy the party, kids included.

Mine the Commercials for Fun

The Super Bowl is famous for its commercials for good reason: companies put tons of money and thought into being funny or telling a powerful story. And they can be a great base for lots of fun games! Try “Commercial Bingo,” a version of bingo where everyone tries to fill their card with commonly occurring scenes or characters. You can either make your own or use these printable cards with squares for horses, nachos, and talking babies.

In a similar vein, you could also play “Commercial I Spy.” Assign each child a letter and have them hunt for items that start with their particular letter in the commercials or even within the game itself. For another variation, split the alphabet into four segments (e.g., A–F, G–L, M–R, S–Z) and have the whole family look for items that start with the letters of the first group. Then, in the next quarter, move on to the second group, and so on.

Get moving during halftime

You’ve watched examples of extreme athleticism, and now it’s your chance to get your blood flowing. Get everyone together during halftime for a few rounds of games that are fun for all ages, like Pictionary or charades. Kids and adults alike will get to show off their creative thinking and imagination!

For another family friendly game, try the Name Game! Stick Post-it notes to everyone’s forehead or pin slips of paper on their backs, each with a famous person or character’s name on it. (Check out our historical figures for some good ideas!) Then, everyone roams around, asking each other “yes” or “no” questions until you figure out your identity.

Provide alternative activities

For those kids who would rather not watch the Super Bowl, or at least not the whole thing, provide another space where they can play games. Games like Scrabble and Boggle are great for building vocabulary and are also relatively quiet and neat. Another option is the Anagram Challenge, a game where children solve anagrams (a word formed from scrambled letters) from letter tiles. If your kids are old enough, they can even create their own puzzles and then give them to their friends and siblings.

How do you plan on spending Super Bowl Sunday? Do you have other ideas for kids’ games?

    

January 30^th was just a typical Saturday for some, but not for a group from the IXL Raleigh office! Clad in bright teal shirts, our group of 5 was accompanied by several other groups from local colleges and churches for a total of 60 helping hands at the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina. The Food Bank receives donations from local farmers and grocery stores, but it relies on volunteers to sort and distribute the inventory so that the donations can get where they need to go.

Working in a 40,000 square foot warehouse, the IXL group was put in charge of sorting 10,000 pounds of potatoes to remove any that were mushy or moldy. We learned that there is no such thing as a perfect potato and that they come in all different sizes and shapes!

Next, we created produce bags to give out to families. These bags included potatoes, sweet potatoes, bananas, and green peppers. We made 54 of these bags and managed to get a good upper body workout at the same time.

We rounded off the day with some sweet potato sorting. At the end, we felt so accomplished that we asked the volunteer coordinator about future opportunities, so we can volunteer again soon.

After all of the sorting and lifting we did, our group had worked up an appetite and a craving for potatoes (obviously). We wrapped up our outing with a trip to local restaurant Cowfish for some sushi burgers and lots of French fries!

Learn more about the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina and volunteer opportunities here: http://www.foodbankcenc.org/

By AJ Iadanza, Subscription Renewal Specialist

    

Did you know IXL provides textbook alignments for the EnVision Math series? We talked with IXL Training Specialist Kelly Oh to get the inside scoop on how easy it is to incorporate IXL into your lesson plans! Read on to find out more about our alignments to each topic and lesson in EnVision Math and to download a sample lesson plan.

If you’re looking to mix things up in your math lessons, IXL can help you add variety by replacing some or all of the textbook exercises and worksheets throughout your lesson. Simply view IXL’s textbook alignments to find skills that match up with the EnVision Math lesson you’re teaching and have students sign in to IXL to practice. The best part is, because IXL is adaptive, each student will receive questions at the difficulty level that suits him or her best.

Another benefit of using IXL with EnVision Math is that IXL can help you refine guided and independent practice sessions. Typically, EnVision Math practice incorporates a variety of problem types into the same lesson. While this can serve as a spiral review, at times you may prefer to reinforce students’ understanding of the current lesson and the problem types covered that day. With IXL skill alignments, you can preview and target specific types of questions, which helps you create consistency between the practice session and classroom instruction.

Overall, IXL alignments to EnVision Math can save you valuable time and energy in creating meaningful activities that maximize your dedicated math instruction time.

To see how you can use IXL and EnVision Math together, download our sample third grade lesson plans on arrays and multiplication here. To see all of our IXL/EnVision textbook alignments, click here.

Are there other grades or IXL-aligned lessons you’d like to see?

    

We’ve got some exciting news for you! In our efforts to make IXL the most comprehensive and fun learning experience around, we’ve added over 200 new skills across all our subjects. Read on to find out more about our new skills and to see examples of brand new question types!

New Language Arts Skills

We’ve added roughly 140 new skills for grades 2–5! With all these new skills comes coverage of the Common Core writing strand for grades 3–5 and skills that are carefully designed to introduce students to key writing and analytical concepts. In addition, we’ve added new interaction types and illustrations to these grades to introduce rigorous topics in an approachable way.

Check out some of our favorite skills below and visit IXL to try them all for yourself!

FF.1 Which book title goes with the picture?

Students infer the main premise of a book cover and select an appropriate title.

III.1 Similes and metaphors with pictures

Playful images help students develop an understanding of figurative language.

ZZ.4 Determine the meaning of domain-specific words with pictures

Students learn technical vocabulary through longer, more complex texts, with the aid of illustrative photos.

New Math Skills

Not only have we added new skills to math, but we’ve also refreshed existing skills, leading to a total of almost 70 new or updated skills! These additions range across all grade levels, but the majority can be found in pre-K through second grade. See a sampling of our new skills below and check out the rest on IXL!

D.1 Learn to count (up to 10)

Vibrant illustrations make counting fun! A brand new interaction type counts along with students as they tally up the number of fun objects (like cats!).

New Social Studies Skills

We’re rounding out our social studies coverage for grades 2–5 with over 60 new skills! Examples include new skills on the historical figures of John Deere, Theodore Roosevelt, and Bill Gates and on the cultural celebrations of Thanksgiving and Lunar New Year, as well as broadening our coverage of geography, history, civics, and economics. See a sample below and find all the new skills here!

H.2 Producers and consumers

Students will practice economics-specific vocabulary and then engage with the concepts on a deeper level.

New Science Skills

New science skills will focus on adaptations, ecosystems, and traits and heredity. Using real-life imagery to draw students in, these skills also support alignment to Next Generation Science Standards. Look at the example below and then head to IXL to explore the rest!

L.4 Match offspring to parents using inherited traits

Students will learn how traits are inherited from parent to offspring with the aid of a wide variety of example photos.

Skill Code Changes

These exciting new additions mean that some skill codes have changed. You can now view all of the updates on this page, so discovering new skills and finding old favorites is just a click away!

What do you think of our new skills? Do you have any favorites?

    

Algebra teacher Tammy Rhymer has high expectations for her students. “You don’t get a pass just for attending in my room,” she says. But how do you teach algebra to every student when many of them didn’t master elementary school math? For Tammy, IXL was the answer—and the proof is in the results.

High Expectations, With Many Challenges

Horizon Science Academy High School is an urban public charter school in Columbus, Ohio, serving a diverse population of economically disadvantaged students. They are a Blue Medal School of Excellence with a strong focus on preparing students for college. Because they aim to send 100 percent of their students on to higher education, Horizon Science expects all freshmen to take Algebra I and does not offer a pre-algebra course.

However, students come to Horizon Science with a wide range of skills, especially in math. “Many of my freshman students are operating at the 3^rd grade level or below,” explains Tammy. “I’m supposed to teach them algebra, but they aren’t coming to me with even basic math skills.” On top of these challenges, some of Tammy’s students come to her with limited English proficiency and little prior math instruction even in their own language. “Many of my ELL girls in particular were not given even basic education in their home countries,” she says. “They are some of my hardest working students, but they are coming in really behind. One of my girls could only count to 100 in her native language.”

Meeting Students Where They Are

In spite of these challenges, Tammy is expected to teach algebra to all of her students. But how do you differentiate instruction when your students range from first grade level to advanced? In 2013, Tammy turned to IXL for help.

At first, she assigned IXL to her students for simple practice and review. But she quickly saw the advantages for differentiation. “IXL differentiates automatically. If students are struggling, the problems are easier. As they start to get it, the problems get more challenging,” she says. IXL also allows students who are not on grade level to work on the skills they need to catch up. “For some of my ELL students, I may have to start them at 1^st or 2^nd grade, but now at least I have work they can do at their level, and they are able to build mastery on skills they missed when they were younger.”

Tammy especially appreciates how easy IXL makes differentiation. “When we write our lesson plans, we have to explain how we will differentiate instruction. Now I can just write ‘IXL.’ It does it for you, without the hours of work needed to create and grade different assignments at different levels.”

“Kids are doing way more problems on their own on IXL than I ever would have dreamed of assigning. Before, I was making worksheets with 20 problems and begging them to try five. Now I have kids doing dozens of problems on their own until they get the mastery score they want.”

- Tammy Rhymer, Teacher, Algebra I

Motivated by Mastery

Tammy now uses IXL either in the classroom or for homework four or five days a week. “Ninety-eight percent of the homework is on IXL,” she says. And while she appreciates the time saved on grading, the biggest benefit she sees in switching from paper worksheets to IXL is in student motivation. “On paper, they didn’t do it, or they cheated. Now, they are actually doing the problems, because they want to see their scores go up. It’s like a video game for them.” Students are required to achieve a SmartScore (IXL’s proprietary scoring system that measures how well a student understands a skill) of 80 to get credit on the homework (70 for her lower-level students), but many students work as long as it takes to get their scores to 90 or above. “I see students doing 50, 60, even 100 problems to try to raise that score. And since IXL problems get harder when your mastery goes up, I know they are really working to get those last few points. That represents real learning.”

Tammy believes that the instant feedback students get in IXL is the secret to the motivation. On paper, students have no idea if they are on the right track or not. But with IXL, students get instant gratification when they get a problem right, and immediate help if they get it wrong. This allows students to work more independently. “Once, we didn’t finish covering a lesson in class, and I forgot to cancel the homework. But most of my students completed it anyway. When I asked them how, they said ‘Ms. Rhymer, IXL tells you how to get the answer if you get it wrong, so we figured it out.’”

All that learning is making a difference. Not every student passes Tammy’s Algebra I class—some are too far behind to catch up in one year, and some face outside challenges that impact their ability to be successful in school. But Tammy sees noticeable growth in the number of students getting A’s in her class. “It’s really pushed up the overall mastery level for my kids,” she says. That success has been noted. For the 2015/2016 school year, all of the math teachers at Horizon Science are using IXL.

A copy of this case study is available for download here.