Learning Made Fun!

Kinesthetic & Visual Learning Using Smartboards-

Students can interactively become proficient and master standards using Study Island on Smartboards. The teacher projects Study Island on the smartboard for all to view and allows students to take turns coming up to the board and physically touching the answer choices. They can discuss the mini lessons, go over questions, discuss the process of problem solving (metacognition), and enjoy the various writing prompts on the interactive board. How does this look in the lab? I’ve witnessed teachers reviewing standards, whole group direct instruction as multiple choice questions or with games on the smartboard and then having students logon later and assess what they just learned on individual computers.

Here’s a little addition to the Smart Board idea – the smart boards have “pens” in different colors that you can use to “write” with on the smart boards – I have seen teachers let their kids work the math problems out to the side of the answer choices and then click on the choice once they have “worked out the problem” - As most teachers do, I often used the following quote with my 4th graders: “Show me your work!” – plus the kids love getting to write on the board!

Great for kinesthetic and visual learners!

Ideas for using Study Island for Special Ed students

One key for Special Education & NCLB / IDEA is that students must be assessed against grade level standards-- this particularly applies to Learning Disabled or Behavior Disabled students. Study Island is a grade way for special educators to make sure that IEP students are linked to the general education curriculum and standards.

The “Individual Student Summary” report is terrific for individualizing (differentiating) instruction for Spec Ed students; also great to include in IEPs.

Teachers can pull up the results of an assignment and drill down to “view missed” so she can work individually with a student to analyze the student’s thinking in answering the missed questions. This allows the opportunity for the teacher to re-teach the topic/standard by using a different example or explanation.

The building block questions allow students to work at lower levels, and still be compared to grade level standards. Great data source for IEP meetings too.

The default passing percentage can be lowered, to allow special needs students the ability to compete for a blue ribbon with the rest of the students. This can be accomplished so that no one can notice this accommodation.

The grade level at which the student is working can be lowered if deemed necessary. This can be accomplished so that no one can notice this accommodation.

Teachers can create “Printable Worksheets” of standards-based questions, save them as Microsoft Word documents and, edit the questions as they see fit including by limiting the number of distractors from the multiple choice answers.

Special Ed teachers have a lot of documenting! They also have to track the minutes they service each child. That is easily done with SI. They can print out and/or view the reports to log their minutes.

The IEP (Individualized Education Plan) is very detailed and child specific. Our reports can track progress of each child for each state standard.

The “Compare With Others” report is terrific to show during Parent-Teacher conferences and/or IEP conferences and for including in IEPs. This report provides a graphic that show how this student compares standard-by-standard with all other students at that school in that grade AND with all other students in that state in that grade level.

Many third party software downloads (listed on the Admin Page) work smoothly with Study Island to allow students to highlight text passages and to hear the text read aloud to them.

Response to Intervention Strategies with Study Island

The Study Island Kentucky Core Content Standards Mastery program offers a variety of real-time reports. Each comprehensive report offered can be customized to your specific needs. Study Island can generate reports by student, subject, class, grade and school. Study Island’s detailed diagnostic reports can provide valuable longitudinal data to track students from year to year and school to school.


Tier I: Screening & Group Interventions

Study Island collects progress monitoring data reflected in real-time reports to quickly display achievement areas where students are succeeding or falling behind. Study Island’s “Comparison Report” shows the targeted student’s progressive performance against their school grade level, and the other Study Island students in Kentucky at the same grade level.

Tier II: Targeted Interventions

Study Island teachers can easily match instructional content to any student’s most adaptive learning mode. Students can accomplish work in electronic multiple choice or one of 11 game formats. Kentucky teachers use Study Island in small group instruction online or utilize the printable worksheet, both designed to offer differentiated instruction for struggling students, while teachers provide regular, corrective feedback. Kinesthetic students can interactively become proficient and master standards using Study Island on Smartboards. The teacher projects Study Island on the smartboard for all to view and allows students to take turns coming up to the board and physically touching the answer choices.

Tier III – Monitor Progress More Frequently

Study Island reporting tools allow teachers to narrow the focus on specific skill deficiencies. The Study Island “Individual Student Report” displays real-time data reflecting a student’s strengths and weaknesses. Teachers can easily pre-set report updates for recurring e-mail delivery to themselves, their administrators, or even a student’s parents in order to continually track student progress towards AYP goals.

Study Island’s “Suggested Topics” option categorizes a student’s work into priority tiers according to their weaknesses and strengths and allows teachers to differentiate instruction by efficiently developing a more targeted and individualized interventional instructional path.

Tier III – Progress Monitor More Frequently (Continued)

Study Island helps with remediation 3 ways. The automatic, self-leveling building block question process allows students to gain proficiency at lower levels and work their way back up to grade level. Teachers can also adjust passing parameters or force students into alternative grade-level work without anyone being able to detect the changes.

New Study Island Application

A Belated Earth Week Idea:

**Go Green- We all know there is a big push on “going green” and cleaning up the environment. Study Island fits this initiative by providing web-based learning. If you are in a state that is pushing for “less paper” then by all means talk about us being clean and on the Web. No books, no paper, no disks, no fuss!