Nurturing Curiosity for All Students
Follow this interactive journey to see how a teacher inspires student learning every day.
A Day in the life
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Ava loves reading and stories, but she struggles with math.
She always feels stumped with long division and fractions. When she’s not reading, Ava enjoys painting and drawing, creating artwork that reflects her love for animals.
Ava
Foster Curiosity for Students
Every student is unique, so she strives to make meaningful learning experiences for all of them.
These are Ms. Tighe’s students
*Data based on results from the Merrimack College Teacher Survey
Spend an average of 11 hours per school week preparing and planning lessons.
Spend 6.5 hours per week evaluating and providing feedback on student work.
Work an average of 54 hours per week, yet only 25 of those hours are spent directly teaching students.
Introduce New, Interesting Content to Students
How does Ms. Tighe manage to connect with her students, cultivate curiosity, and meet all their learning needs?
She is a fifth-grade teacher at Grandview Elementary, and is in her seventh year of teaching.
Ms. Tighe has to juggle so many competing priorities—from lesson planning and tracking student progress to differentiating instruction to meet students where they are.
She is a fifth-grade teacher at Grandview Elementary, and is in her seventh year of teaching.
Although Ms. Tighe loves her job and her students, she still faces new challenges every day.
Ms. Tighe has to juggle so many competing priorities—from lesson planning and tracking student progress to differentiating instruction to meet students where they are.
This is Ms. Tighe
Click on a student to learn more about them.
Erica has been struggling to make it to school every day, and because of this she is a bit behind in her reading and needs extra math support.
When she is in class, Erica is always the first to help pass out paper or help clean the classroom. She also loves to sing and dance.
Erica
Lucas likes to play video games and collects rocks. He has been excelling in math this year, but he doesn’t like writing very much.
He has a hard time organizing his thoughts on paper and tends to rush through writing time.
Lucas
Jackson an excellent communicator, skillful in both speaking and writing, but he thinks school is boring and especially dislikes math and science.
Recently he learned about ancient civilizations, and he’s started writing stories about imagining life in different eras.
Jackson
Kaylee loves science and shows true interest in the world around her. She is always asking questions and conducting experiments.
This year, Kaylee has had a hard time making friends and collaborating in class. She prefers to work on her own.
Kaylee
Mateo missed a lot of school last year, but he’s been getting to class most days now. Unfortunately, his absences made it hard for him to feel confident about math and reading, and he’s not always excited about school.
Ms. Tighe has been working especially hard to make sure Mateo knows he can always ask for help and she hopes to transform how he feels about learning.
Mateo
Spend 15 minutes per school day (1.5 total hours per week) preparing reports and tracking data.
Each week Ms. Tighe and
teachers just like her:
Ms. Tighe also spends a lot of time thinking about how she can:
Excite Students about Learning
Empower Students to Feel Confident
Encourage Students to Explore New Things
Help Students Love Learning
Connect with Students
Between managing competing priorities and working to inspire her students, Ms. Tighe has a lot on her plate. Fortunately, she has access to the right tools and support to help her meet these goals.
Click an option to explore each approach >
Ms. Tighe knows that not every student loves every subject, but she always works to engage her class by introducing surprising science topics that give students new ways to think about the world around them.
She often uses Mystery Science to provide phenomena-driven instruction that helps them better understand and communicate about the world through writing, discussion, and exploration.
Introduces New, Interesting Content to Students
See Mystery Science in Action
Today, she has the whole class begin a unit on stars and the solar system with an Anchor Layer lesson. The Anchor Phenomenon introduces students to a mysterious real-world occurrence, in this case, star trails, and asks them to develop an explanation for it before any instruction takes place. It encourages them to think like scientists, wonder why, and inspires them to explore new areas.
In the Anchor Lesson, students create a conceptual model to explain what they see in the sky. They re-visit their model after each lesson in the unit to add new information to it.
Click the arrows to view this sample Anchor Lesson.
Opening up the World of Science to Students
Personalize Instruction for Every Student
Prepare Students for the Future
Immerse Students in Engaging Experiences
Help Students Build Critical Skills
Save Time with an Enhanced Instructional Toolbox
When Ms. Tighe logs into her DreamBox Math dashboard she immediately understands where Mateo is and what he needs to grow.
She can track his usage, monitor growth across standards, and even watch a slide-by-slide recap showing his approach to completing lessons. This insight into his specific progress informs how she can better support his learning and helps her build confidence and competence for every student.
Comprehensive Insights into All Progress
Watch a Student Complete a Lesson
When we met Ms. Tighe’s students earlier, we learned that many of them are working at different levels in math. Some are a bit behind, and some are a little ahead. Fortunately, Ms. Tighe has the right tools to provide her students with the right instruction and support—and that support is always engaging and helps students feel successful.
Every student spends twenty minutes each day practicing their math skills with DreamBox Math.
Personalize Instruction for Every Student
See How Ms. Tighe tracks Mateo’s progress
Mateo is a little behind in math, but he has been making a lot of progress this year. As he uses DreamBox Math, the adaptive software captures information on all his learning behavior, from how long it takes for him to answer a question to why he may have missed a question. Then, the software adjusts the learning path in real time to address his unique learning needs. This ensures that Mateo is always working at the right level and getting the right support, in every moment.
Click play to watch Mateo complete a lesson on fractions >
The Right Instruction at the Right Moment
Ms. Tighe has limited time to learn new programs, plan lessons, and take care of operational tasks for instruction. She uses Discovery Education’s Experience to access hundreds of Need to Know lessons that combine standards-aligned videos and grab-and-go activities to plan high-quality lessons fast.
With these resources, she can deliver impactful instruction with confidence and ease, regardless of how familiar she is with the subject matter.
Saves Time with an Enhanced Instructional Toolbox
When Lucas logs in to Reading Plus, he can see his personalized dashboard where he can track his own goals and progress over time. This visibility motivates Lucas and shows him that he has ownership over his learning.
Click Start Lessons to follow Lucas' lesson today. >
Ms. Tighe Empowers Students to Own their Learning
Lucas’ assessment results showed that he should focus on building and strengthening his comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency skills.
During independent reading time, Ms. Tighe has each student log into Reading Plus. When her students started this year, they took the adaptive Reading Plus assessment, Insight, which measured their motivation, vocabulary, comprehension, and silent reading fluency, and then placed them at the right levels for reading.
This benchmark will help Ms. Tighe track student growth using the program.
Help Students Build Critical Skills
Ms. Tighe reminds students that it’s okay if they don’t know answers yet, because they are going to learn a lot throughout the lessons in this Spaceship Earth unit to help them explain the phenomenon and they'll have an opportunity to change or add to their first model.
This approach empowers her students to stay curious, connect dots, and develop a personal relationship with the natural world.
Engaging NGSS-Aligned Science Curriculum
Data to Inform Classroom Instruction
While Ms. Tighe is in the DreamBox Math dashboard, she takes a step back from granular data at the student level and reviews progress for her entire class. These reports make it easy for her to determine which instructional areas to revisit with all students and identify students working on a similar conceptual path for strategic grouping. From the platform, she can immediately assign targeted lessons based on data across classroom gaps or individual students' needs.
Actionable Data to Inform Instructional Decisions
How do Students Feel About DreamBox Math?
Real Students Describe Real Experiences with DreamBox Math
Return to Ms. Tighe's Goals
See How Reading Plus Guides Lucas Through This Selection
Ms. Tighe knows that if students aren’t interested in what they are reading, they will have a hard time being engaged. Reading Plus provides access to a wide range of informational and literary selections at each student’s “just right” level—texts that are appropriate for both their reading level and their age.
At the start of his reading lesson, Lucas chooses the fiction or non-fiction text that interests him. Today, he chooses “Little Wolf and the Big Storm"
Lucas Practices Reading with the Content He Loves
What's Next?
Lucas is still working to develop fluency, so he reads within the platform’s Guided Window. The patented Guided Window moves at Lucas’ current reading rate to model and develop silent reading behaviors.
As Lucas demonstrates the ability to successfully comprehend what he is reading, the Guided Window gets progressively faster, and is eventually removed once Lucas reaches his grade-level goal and has established strong silent reading fluency.
Support for Silent Reading Fluency
SEE ReportS
After reading his selection, Lucas answers ten comprehension questions. As he demonstrates mastery of key skills, the questions increase in depth and breadth of complexity.
All of his time in the platform and the answers to these questions will inform the rich data reports for Ms. Tighe to review student progress.
Lucas Proves His Understanding
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What's Next?
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See how Reading Plus supports these areas
Follow Along Lucas' Lesson
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Reading Plus provides Lucas with information about how his lesson went and provides Ms. Tighe a complete view of instructional growth per student and across her entire class, including real-time views of what students are working on and projected growth data.
Click the arrows to see sample reports >
Reading Plus Dashboard Reports
Lucas can access immediate feedback about where he is on his learning journey, including scores for his lessons, awards he’s received, and goal-setting tools.
The Overview page allows Ms. Tighe to view data at the class or student level.
With the Real-Time Activity Dashboard, Ms. Tighe can see what each of her students is working on and how far they have progressed each week.
The Projected Growth Report helps Ms. Tighe predict each student’s proficiency level at the end of the school year, based on initial assessment data, program use, and ongoing performance.
Return to Ms.Tighe's Goals
See Ms. Tighe set up a lesson
Click Through to See How Ms. Tighe Sets up a Social Studies Lesson for her Students in Minutes.
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Explore the Discovery Library
Ms. Tighe loves to share resources with her students that offer new perspectives from experts around the world. She knows that the curated content from Discovery Education Experience is a great place to set up engaging lessons and immersive experiences that get students excited to learn more.
From her home page, she can easily find standards-aligned, cross-curricular content and activities.
Immerse students in Engaging Experiences
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Before, during, and after the Virtual Field Trip, Ms. Tighe can pull Ready-to-Use Resources from Discovery Education Experience to build their knowledge about polar bears and the tundra ecosystem. These resources include hands-on activities, student response sheets, engaging projects, quizzes, and more.
Ms. Tighe likes to encourage both collaboration and problem-solving skills, so she can offer these activities to students to complete independently, in small groups, or through whole-group instruction.
Click through to see some sample activities for this Virtual Field Trip.
Fun Lessons and Activities
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See How Students Engage During the Virtual Field Trip
Ms. Tighe likes to use Virtual Field Trips from Discovery Education partners, like Polar Bears International, to connect students with new science experiences beyond the classroom walls.
Her students travel to the cold climate of Churchill, Manitoba to learn about the polar bear’s environment and the people who share it. On this live Virtual Field Trip, they discover what enables polar bears to survive in the arctic tundra, explore different ways to work with this unique species, and identify how students can help protect polar bears and our planet.
Inspire Student Interest in New Ways
Explore STEM Careers Coalition
Ms. Tighe is constantly in awe of her students’ creativity and curiosity. She wants to empower them to use these skills to thrive long after they leave her classroom. She leverages content from Discovery Education’s STEM Careers Coalition™ to help her students learn how to solve problems, seek solutions, and explore careers they never imagined.
She can select content developed in partnership with industry leaders committed to elevating STEM education, like Boeing, Stanley Black and Decker, DuPont, and more.
Prepare Students for the Future
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As Ms. Tighe’s students learn about new careers, they can link their prior knowledge to what they learned in the video. And, as a result, connect what they’ve seen to what they already know about themselves and the world around them.
These videos become more meaningful when students complete the complementary resources available within the lesson. This includes discussing what they’ve learned with a partner, researching further, or writing notes. Today, Ms. Tighe has students discuss how this career could impact themselves and the world, and they complete an impact circle to reflect on the career.
Enrich Learning
The content in STEM Careers Coalition allows students to learn about people who are using the same skills Ms. Tighe's class is learning today to become problem solvers that make a difference in future communities.
Ms. Tighe knows how much her students love art and technology, so she introduces them to a career that weaves the two areas together –robotic choreography.
Watch this short video from STEM Careers Coalition
A Connection Between Classroom & Career
See support resources
Return to Ms. Tighe's Goals
Return to Ms. Tighe's Goals
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Understand Exactly Where Students Need Support
Educators can easily navigate to student reports from their dashboards. In the skills report, teachers can quickly determine which students are mastering concepts, and which students need more support.
This report shows completed lessons and proficiency across all skills.
Educators can filter by skills to see if specific students would benefit from the same small group work.
In just seconds, teachers can review student usage, lesson progress, and identify where students are struggling.
This report is a sample and is subject to change.
SEE ReportS
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Agency = Motivation and Engagement
As students collect rewards, they can choose when to play in the Reading Park Arcade, as well as what to play in the arcade.
By providing students with a choice between two games, they can own their learning experience, and feel agency over how they celebrate success.
Watch a student play Fruit Farmer
Reading Park Provides a Variety of Incentives to Extrinsically Motivate and Encourage Students
When a student completes a lesson, they earn a token, a Monster Friend card, or a sticker. When a student completes a Quest, they earn a Squiggle Page for their Squiggle Book. These rewards empower students to celebrate success, take pride in accomplishments, and motivate them to persevere. Mateo’s backpack contains tokens that can be exchanged to play games in the Reading Park Arcade.
Select the arcade to see sample games.
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Every lesson is designed to maximize each student's ability to practice and master foundational reading skills. This includes multiple interactive formats that systematically allow students to learn and practice a robust standards-based scope and sequence.
New concepts build upon concepts learned in previous Quests, and the gamification of instruction and practice keeps students engaged and focused on learning.
Click play to watch a student complete this lesson.
R-Controlled Vowels
Discover Rewards
Watch a Lesson
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The Squiggle Book is a magic book that teaches friendly monsters in Reading Park how to read. It's up to each student to find the pages by completing Quests. This engagement tool also serves as a companion guide for students. During their journey, students can look at the concepts from completed Quests within their Squiggle Book at any time.
Before students begin each Quest they learn about the new reading concept in their Squiggle Book. In this Quest they will explore R-controlled vowels.
Click play to watch a Squiggle Book concept introduction
The Squiggle Book
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Start Quest
Students can openly explore different areas of Reading Park and select the lessons they’d like to work through first. This agency allows each student to self-direct their learning experience.
Click the flashing Squiggle Sighting to start a Quest at the beach
Students Use Reading Park for 30 Minutes Every Week
See how Reading Park supports these areas
DreamBox Reading Park guides students toward successful and productive reading through a playful, engaging learning environment as they develop critical foundational reading skills.
The adaptive, research-based PreK–2 reading program provides personalized instruction for:
Phonemic awareness
Alphabetic principle
Phonics
Fluency
Comprehension
Build Foundational Reading Skills
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Connect with Students
*Data based on survey from Mckinsey & Company
*Data based on survey from Mckinsey & Company
*Data based on research from The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
