3.

Research/Support

Why did you choose this approach?

This approach was chosen because we will need to have something that will require little to no upgrade/maintenance costs involved. With the restructure of the distribution of funds, it is critical that we leave ourselves the ability to stay current while able to have students use the technology on a regular and consistent basis. According the principals of scientific based research in MobyMax, research shows that the formative-assessment process is so effective that different teachers can use it in diverse ways and still produce great results with their students (MobyMax website). MobyMax continually monitors student progress from the time a student begins the diagnostic test in a subject and continues to formatively assess throughout the process. Teachers have the ability to immediately see every exercise a student has completed and make informed instructional decisions based on the data provided by the dashboards in MobyMax subject areas. Acceleration outperforms enrichment in terms of outcomes for gifted students and some research suggests the same for non-gifted students as well. MobyMax capitalizes on this research by differentiated learning for each student by first filling in any gaps in that may exist in student learning and then allowing the student to move through the curriculum at an individualized pace. When a student does not master the material, they receive remedial instruction and when they are able to show rapid mastery, they are able to advance and move forward more quickly.

Is there research to support this approach with similar students to meet similar goals?

The primary reason that Moby Math is so effective is because students do not waste time practicing material they have already mastered. Instead, Moby targets areas where students are struggling and allows students to progress immediately once mastery is achieved. In addition, the review cycle ensures that students retain concepts.
Moby Math finds missing math skills with a quick, efficient placement test. Perhaps just as important, Moby Math continually updates each student's progress during practice and review to give you a current view of the your students' progress.

Pasted from <http://www.mobymax.com/Curriculum/Math>

Via personal communication with Hayley Kissick who teaches at Bourbon County Middle School (KY), we have made a connection with someone who is using the program and found success with it. They have 8th graders who were 'Novice' students and worked consistently on MobyMax for remediation. On the K-PREP test for the following year, all of the targeted students scored at least 'Apprentice' on the next test. A second account was also assigned to these students to use for grade level curriculum while using remedial practice to close the achievement gap. If this is an innovative approach, why does the team believe in it? SCAPA believes that differentiation is welcomed by students when they don't feel singled out. The team feels that the chosen approach will allow for differentiation for all students without the element of feeling isolated. In order to close the gap of the African-American students at SCAPA, we feel that the everyday practice is a necessity and is very different

from what we are currently doing. By putting a tool such as MobyMax in the hands of every math student every day with a teacher who can also address potential student misconceptions, we will see progress toward our goal of closing the achievement gap for the African -American population at SCAPA. Sources: School for the Creative and Performing Arts, Bluegrass (2013) Comprehensive School Improvement Plan. Retrieved from http://www.fcps.net/media/42763/scapa.pdf MobyMax, Complete K-8 Math and ELA, retrieved from http://www.mobymax.com/