Benefits of participating in the PAL Study

Three big benefits to joining the study are:

  • Teachers will gain access to the MathSpring learning environment
  • Teachers will receive professional development training that not only covers MathSpring use, but also includes sessions on integrating classroom and student analytics with instruction. Teachers will be compensated for professional development time
  • Teachers will receive a stipend for their participation the research activities

Additionally, your district will receive a study report on what we learn about changes in student achievement outcomes and their attitude towards math from using MathSpring.

Benefits of using MathSpring

MathSpring is a free learning environment and prior research has demonstrated its effectiveness and helpfulness for both teachers and students. All of the teachers’ desired mathematics content will be uploaded automatically. We will make the integration of MathSpring as easy and seamless as possible and will provide ongoing support to teachers.

Teacher benefits:

  • High quality professional development
  • Automatic grading and daily diagnostic reports that save time and improve instructional focus
  • A vast problem bank of Common Core– and MA Curriculum Framework–aligned content

Student benefits:

  • Immediate feedback as they work
  • Automated support through hints and examples
  • Personalized instruction
  • Socio-emotional messages designed to support a growth mindset.

Eligibility

All 6th grade math teachers in New England who are not currently using MathSpring and who can provide their students with online access can participate!

Activities

Participating teachers will include MathSpring activities in the classroom about 20 minutes/week. Teachers may choose to use their existing textbooks or worksheets. The MathSpring team will place teachers' math content into the environment so their students can benefit from immediate feedback. Teachers will benefit from immediate feedback about the performance of students and classes.

Examples of immediate feedback to teachers

Teachers receive instant feedback on the effort of a single student into all problems attempted. Student effort includes: skip a problem, not read a problem, give up, solve on first attempt, guess, solve after a hint was given, solve after hint (video, similar problem) was given. In this example, the student guessed for nearly 50% of the problems (pink bar) and solved on first attempt for nearly 20% of the problems (red bar).

Teachers receive a record of the performance of all students in the class (vertical axis) on all the topics explored (horizontal axis). Many students did well (green cells) on “Fractions Review” and “Expressions with Variables”. One student needs assistance (red cells) on “XY Linear Functions” and “Expressions with Variables (red cells).

Teachers receive a mastery chart for each student and for every problem. This student worked on 22 problems about one topic, listed as a number on the horizontal axis. The student’s effort (hints requested, quit, solved on first) for each problem can also be viewed.

What students are saying about MathSpring

I didn't like it, I loved it! It helped me learn more than I thought. The progress page helped me because I now know where I am now, in math.

You learn new things. If you don't get an answer you can watch a video, click the hint button. MathSpring helps you learn things you don't really know.