Last year, the school I was at had a subscription for ST Math. I am a believer in the effectiveness and usefulness of the ST Math program by Mind Research! It was not my teaching curriculum, but it was a tool in my tool belt that allowed me to give my students the time and chance to apply the skills that I taught. The program gives immediate feedback to the students and amazing visualizations of the major skills that they are expected to know. I used the following spreadsheet to track all 4th grade students at my school last year. I used the data to show me who needed more time on the program and to project where they would most likely be at the time of our high stakes testing, the DC CAS. The goal was for students to reach 75% syllabus progress in the game by the time of the test. I taught all but 11 of these students in math, and for those that needed more time on the program, I would tailor their instruction time. That being said, I would ensure that they received a math lesson each day, as well as some time to apply the new skill. Then, I would send them to the computers or iPads, and have the other students work on an advanced lesson. I would even have the students that were further along on ST Math to coach their peers, helping them think to get to the answer, rather than just telling them the answer. I would also send this spreadsheet to my colleagues each week, so that they could see who also needed more time on the computer program and allow them to log on to the program when appropriate.
This was the final ST Math wall at the end of the school year. The majority of the 4th graders had reached 100% completion. Even more exciting was the fact that all but one of the students on my roster reached 100% completion.
