Study Island's New Features

Go Tigers!
Summer Greetings from Study Island! With the start of school around the corner, Study Island has made many enhancements to the program and many other exciting features will be added in the coming months.

Study Island updates will include:
• Custom assessment builder
• Text-to-speech for all grade levels
• Detailed lesson plans for teachers
• Exploratory topics for students who master standards (GLCE)
• New interactive games

Reminder we have also added:
• Programs for High School and grades K-1
• GED Preparation Program
• Clickers compatible - eInstruction, Turning Point, Promethean
• District Level reporting - This allows you see reports in all school across your district that use Study Island.
• Support - Check out the expanded help tab on your page for great implementation ideas and our new video training. Also, our Live Support continues as the fastest way to get an answer regarding Study Island

Please let me know how we can help you to best use your Study Island subscription. I am always available to visit your school to show you what’s new or to refresh your teachers on using Study Island.

Feel free to contact me by phone at 800-419-3191 ext. 7626 or email kathleen.bendernagel@studyisland.com with any questions or to set up a time to meet.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Thank you,
Kathleen Bendernagel

Summertime and Study Island

Many schools are looking at how they can use Study Island this summer. There are three popular models that schools and districts have utilized in the past, so I thought this might be of use as you think about how to implement Study Island this summer.

1. Integrating Study Island into the traditional summer school curriculum. If your school or district runs a summer school program, Study Island is a great fit. Quite often, teachers are teaching a subject that may be different from what they normally teach so Study Island can help them with standards they are not used to. The web-based format of Study Island means that students can login all summer to practice the topics that they need help in.

2. Open lab model. Maybe your school is not offering summer school, but there will be adults in the building for part of the summer. Keeping a lab open for drop in sessions is a nice way for parents and students to utilize the program if they do not have the Internet available at home.

3. Home use. Students who have access to the Internet at home can practice Study Island all summer long! Parents can login to see a math and reading report to identify which area their child needs the most assistance. The engaging game format is sure to keep students motivated throughout the summer.

Important features of Study Island for summer use:

Online reporting makes it easy for teachers and administrators to login over the summer to see how students are doing. In September, teachers can run a report to access the results of their students’ summer use. The "Suggest Topics Report" allows teachers to see what areas their class needs the most help in!

Automatic remediation is a terrific feature that encourages student self-direction. Students can work on the building block topics provided by the program in order to get their skills to grade level.

Feel free to contact me if you would like additional information about Study Island.

Learning made fun!

Kinesthetic & Visual Learning Using Smartboards

Students can interactively become proficient, master standards and review for the MEAP 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!