Another Choice Virtual Charter School (ACVS) in Nampa, ID, seeks to provide individualized standards based education for Idaho’s students, K through 12, to enable them to meet their full potential. She shared with us her decision process around SplashLearn, and how she and her colleagues are using it as a supplemental program to their math curriculum in the elementary grades.

As a lead elementary teacher at ACVS, I make decisions around curriculum and learning programs at the elementary level for the school. We needed a math program that was digital and accessible anywhere, across devices, and that supports our fundamental requirement for individualized learning. Our three key needs, differentiation, personalization, and motivation, were all met by SplashLearn.

Within my own class of 24 students, around 1/3rd of them require reteach and reviews, a few are gifted and talented and need to work ahead with more challenging levels of math, and my special education students need to be working on individualized goals. A differentiated and individualized math program was the only way to go. Also, unlike a regular day-school, my students are usually studying from home, only occasionally coming to lab time with me, so I needed a fun, motivational program that would keep them interested and inspired to work by themselves on math.

I would like to share the experience of working with one of my students, Zack.

Zack was struggling with 2-digit addition and subtraction and hesitant to practice on his own.SplashLearn really helped him, in a non-intimidating way, to practice without feeling judged, to work at his own pace without bothering if anyone else was working at that level. He was very motivated by the aquarium and other rewards - sharing it with his parents every time he learned something new.

More importantly, he’s much more confident about math. His mother said to me, “Zack now talks about math, instead of avoiding the subject, and in fact math time on his everyday calendar is no longer dreaded, he looks forward to it.”

It was extremely easy. My biggest consideration was curriculum fit, and the Common Core Curriculum alignment of SplashLearn was perfect. Not just is the curriculum aligned, the way the program is laid out by strand, it is really simple to align the strand with my lesson plans. Students are given the ability to pick their level which can benefit some students and families. I also found the process of setting up my class on SplashLearn very easy. Our students have universal login and passwords, and assigning the same credentials on SplashLearn was simple.

It has been a great experience for me.

As a first step I follow up my direct instruction and lesson plan with a practice and review session on SplashLearn. Typically I assign 15-20 minutes a day of SplashLearn to each of my students, of course each of them doing it at a different level and progressing at their own pace. I like that I can use it for drills and practice as well.

With the teacher dashboard and reports I am able to determine the standards that students have completed and how many more need to be completed by the end of the school year. During lab time, my students are able to use the iPads to complete SplashLearn so I can observe them while they get some extra practice.

They enjoy it! I think for this age group, the aquarium, and earning and buying things for it, is a big motivation. The design and characters in SplashLearn add greatly to the fun element of it.

In all, I am glad we adopted SplashLearn for math learning.