A Teacher’s Perspective: Using Sokikom in a Kindergarten Classroom

By: Katie Gisler

My name is Katie Gisler and I am a kindergarten teacher at Rockford Elementary School in Porterville, California. I have been using Sokikom for three years now. The best part about my job as a kindergarten teacher is challenging myself as well as my students on a daily basis to integrate technology in a way that will be meaningful and useful to them in the future. Sokikom has not only opened doors to media literacy, but also created independent, eager learners.

Integrating Sokikom

Although my school district has a state-adopted math curriculum that I use everyday, I am able to use Sokikom as a supplement to frontload content they have not learned yet and also reiterate the concepts my students have already learned in class.

At the beginning of the year, I start using Sokikom to teach whole class math lessons. My goal is for my students to become familiar with Sokikom’s interface along with all of its awesome features before I let them navigate on their own. After they become accustomed to using it, students play Sokikom while they are in math stations. These stations are 15 minutes long and we do them three times a week.

Results

I have seen tremendous growth in my students by using Sokikom. My students are completely engaged while playing. They are not only learning math skills but also learning 21st century skills and critical thinking strategies that will then turn into lifelong skills. With today’s rapidly growing technology, media literacy is becoming increasingly important and popular for students. It is evident that students learn best when they are able to learn by experience and through observation. Sokikom allows them to do this in more than one way. Apart from the academics Sokikom offers, my students have even mastered basic computer skills such as using the trackpad to drag and drop objects. They have also become familiar with the keyboard and turning the volume up and down.

Top 5 Reasons I Love Sokikom

1. Individualized learning– Students are able to work at their OWN level and pace
2. Critical Thinking Skills– Student manipulate the math problem on their own to see what answer works best
3. Independent learners– Sokikom lets students figure out a problem on their own. If they are struggling, the program will show them a “help” video
4. CCCSS Aligned-Students are working on concepts we learn in class and apply them into their learning while playing Sokikom
5. Learn by Trial and Error- If students get an answer wrong, they are not hard on themselves. They just try a different strategy they have learned in class and apply it to the game

Top 5 Reasons My Students Love Sokikom

1. Interactive Gaming– The game is fun and interactive so students stay engaged
2. Visually appealing– The graphics are fun and it makes it more appealing for kids of all ages
3. Rewards– Students are instantly rewarded with Sokikom coins for passing levels. Then they are able to change their avatars.
4. Own level-Students are working at their own level and pace.
5. FUN!!- Bottom line, they love it because they don’t even realize they are doing math!

 

End of Year Survival Tips

The end of Spring Break marks the race to the finish line. Many teachers find themselves overwhelmed with all they have to do before assessment season begins and the school year ends. With only a few more weeks left in the school year, we want to provide you with a few tips to help you to finish the year strong.

Surround Yourself with Positivity

We’ve all been there, you spill your coffee on the way to the classroom, Damian pours glue over Chloe’s hair, Alex pukes in the computer lab. It’s one of those days when you can’t wait for that dismissal bell to ring. Days like this, especially towards the end of the year, are when you could use positivity and encouragement the most. Seek out friends, family, and fellow teachers who can remind you of why you became a teacher in the first place. Dear Teacher/Love Teacher is a great blog to provide you with your daily dose of encouragement when you don’t have someone to talk to.

Prioritize

Everything in your job is important. And it would be great if your super powers included the ability to write a behavior plan, grade math worksheets AND cut out 500 tissue paper petals for the Mother’s Day project. Unfortunately, you have yet to be bit by that radioactive bug. So, you need to prioritize. Make a to do list, starting with the things most urgent. You’ve made the list now cut it in half. Focus on the top of the list. Those are the things that you are going to focus your super powers on right now. You can revisit the rest of it next week. Don’t be afraid to take things off of your list or ask someone else to take it over. You are a superhero, but even some of the best heroes have sidekicks they delegate to. And that’s okay. Here are some other ideas of how to prioritize that monstrous to do list.

Take Breaks

I can just see the look on your face as you read that header, “Take a break? Are you kidding? My prioritized to do list is SIX pages not two!” You’re right, there are a crazy amount of things to do, and no I’m not suggesting that this is the time to take that trip to Tahiti that you’ve been dreaming about since your first year teaching when you realized what you were really in for.

Instead of pushing yourself to “make it to the end of the year” or even just “make it to recess,” draw from Responsive Classroom’s “Time-Out” Philosophy and give yourself a break.

Let’s say Daisy has refused to take her spelling test for the third week in a row and you’re ready to lose it. Stop, take deep breaths, count to ten, sit down in a chair and close your eyes. Envision the bag of chocolates hidden in your file drawer that you will dive into once the kids go to recess. Literally take a break from that moment and use the time to self-regulate your emotions. Be obvious about it. Tell Daisy that you’re taking a break and the strategy that you’re using, suggest she use it when she feels overwhelmed (especially during her spelling tests). Not only will taking these breaks improve your mental health, they’re excellent lessons for your students to see as they attempt to manage their own emotions. Check out some of these self-regulation tips and posters for the classroom.

Repercussions of a Common Core Repeal

With the race to the White House heating up there has been a lot of talk about education policy including repealing Common Core. Many state and local legislators have been suggesting states repeal Common Core since it was first instated. We wondered, if politicians prevail and Common Core is repealed, what would be the repercussions?

Schools could lose funding

This may be one of the most substantial repercussions of repealing Common Core. Many states initially adopted the standards so that they would be eligible for additional federal funding and if states repeal Common Core but do not find what the federal government calls a “suitable replacement” they can expect to lose control over millions of dollars of federal funds. This is what Oklahoma faced when they repealed the standards in June 2014. To give you some background, federal funding that initially enticed states to adopt the standards has two parts:

Part 1: Schools wanted a waiver for some of the strictest No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requirements. Although adopting the standards was not a requirement for receiving this waiver, a majority of the states that have adopted the standards received one. Why do states want a waiver? With it states receive significant flexibility spending the Title 1 funds and without the waiver states could only use Title 1 funding for public school choice and after school tutoring.

Part 2: Schools wanted Race To The Top (RTTT) grants. To be eligible for RTTT funding, states had to vow to completely adopt college and career ready standards (similar to, if not, the Common Core standards). Not surprisingly, the easiest way for states to receive RTTT grants was to adopt Common Core standards.

When Oklahoma repealed the standards in June 2014, they did not have an alternative program prepared. Thus, they lost their No Child Left Behind waiver the next year because the federal government did not believe they had a suitable replacement.

Curriculum wouldn’t change…much

Indiana was the first state to repeal Common Core in April 2014. They were able to avoid losing their No Child Left Behind Waiver by making small changes to the curriculum. Instead of using Common Core curriculum they began to use College and Career Ready Standards which are strikingly similar to Common Core Standards. Because states have such little wiggle room when it comes to what the federal government considers a suitable replacement to Common Core, teachers often find themselves turning to Common Core material. Even Texas, a state that never adopted Common Core, uses Common Core aligned materials in classrooms.

Aside from the financial aspect, the second reason many states won’t see drastic curriculum changes is because the Common Core standards are just that, they are standards. They outline what a concepts a student should master, grade by grade. Across the country 3rd graders should have a strong understanding of multiplication. How it is taught may vary, but the fact that all 3rd graders are learning it at the same time won’t waver.

Having said this, don’t expect to throw out your Common Core textbooks anytime soon. Repealing Common Core standards is a slow, state by state process which ultimately results in a rebranding of standards. Your best bet is to relax, embrace Common Core, and participate in Professional Development to improve teaching the standards.

3 SBAC Myths and Tips

Testing season is quickly approaching which means many of your students will be taking the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) in the coming weeks. Since the SBAC is a relatively new test we’ve distilled the top 3 SBAC myths and have provided you with tips so that your students can prepare for this year’s assessment.

The SBAC Gives All Students A Fair Chance to Succeed

Since this test is taken on the computer, strong computer skills are imperative. Students who are familiar with technology and computers tend to perform better on the SBAC than those who do not have regular computer access. Students will need to be able to navigate the SBAC platform and have strong typing skills for the English portion of the assessment. There is great inequality amongst technology offered in schools; some schools give each student their own iPad, at other schools students are only allowed to use the computer lab once a week. Since not all students are offered the same opportunities to use technology in school, let alone outside of school, students who aren’t regularly using computers often end up struggling more with this assessment. One way to help your students overcome this disadvantage is to encourage parents to promote technology use outside of school. One idea is to encourage them to schedule time at the local public library or Boys and Girls Club. Strong computer and typing ability are important skills to master in the 21st century and will benefit your students outside of the SBAC.

Every Student Will Be Asked The Same Questions

The SBAC is designed to be adaptive to the student taking the test. What does that mean for your students? Your more advanced students will likely be asked harder questions than your lower achieving students. When a student answers several questions correctly the difficulty level will begin to increase for that student. The test was created this way to give a more comprehensive picture of student performance. With traditional fixed tests, teachers and administrators were only able to see if a student understood or didn’t understand a specific topic. With adaptive testing, teachers and administrators can now see to what degree a student does or doesn’t understand a topic. This is helpful for teaching and reteaching specific Common Core standards.There are many adaptive online math programs, including Sokikom available that can begin to prepare your students for the varying level of difficulty and the types of questions in SBAC.

It’s Impossible To Prepare For The Test

The SBAC is like every other test in that it is a TEST which means teaching students proper test taking skills will benefit them on the SBAC. Making sure students are reading the question thoroughly to understand what it is asking is the key to having success on this test. This test can be tricky so making sure students not only read the question thoroughly but also making sure they are aware that there can be more than one right answer is very important. The purpose of the SBAC is to see how deeply students understand concepts. When preparing your students for this assessment, make sure they can explain why an answer is correct or incorrect. A great resource to familiarize your students with SBAC specific questions and content are practice tests.

Keep in mind you can do a lot to prepare your students for this assessment but the belief, confidence, and motivation in your students is what will ultimately help them succeed.

How to use Sokikom Reports

By Katie Stephens

I am a third grade teacher and I use Sokikom everyday in my classroom. One of the key reasons I have transitioned from occasional use to daily integration is the availability of many different reports to keep track of my student data. The reports that you can access about your students can be a simple overview by standard all the way down to a detailed individual report details about how students answered specific question. In this article I will share the many ways I use and access Sokikom reports in my classroom.

Assignment Reports

Assignment reports are very helpful to check in to see the work your students are doing on the assignments that you assign them as their teacher. Below is a picture of the report that you can see when you click on the assignment tab. This is a list of all of the assignments that you have assigned to this class. You can quickly see how many students have completed this assignment and what the standard was that you assigned.

Overall Report

If you click on the “Students Completed” column, you will see a more specialized report for that assignment. Below is a picture of the individual assignment report for one assignment. In this view you can see which step each student has completed and the percentage they got correctly on that part. You can also see if they have completed the assignment. In this view you can quickly see if your students understand the different parts of the assignment and standard.

Individual Assignment Report

Then if you click on one of the student names you can then see an individual report for that student on that specific part of the assignment. Below is a picture of the individual student report. In this view you can see what the question was, how they answered each time, and how long it took them. This is a great way to get detailed information about a student to help them specifically learn concepts. You can quickly assess any misconceptions and see insights such as whether a student is struggling, or rushed through the assignment and made careless mistakes.

Individual Student Report

Usage Reports

Usage reports are very helpful to check to see an overview of how students are using the program. Below is a picture of the class usage report. In this view you can see each of your students for the class, how many times they have logged in, how many lessons they have completed, how many lessons they have mastered, their average score, the time they have taken to complete it, and the games that they have played. This information is very useful to help guide students in their Sokikom usage.

Class Report

If you click on a student name it will then take you into an individual usage report for that student. In this report you can see the standards, game level played, learning objective of the game, and the performance score. This information is helpful to see what they are practicing and how they did during their practice.

Individual Report

Mastery Reports

Mastery reports are a great way to see what standards and concepts your students have mastered on Sokikom. Below is a picture of the class report that you see when you click on the mastery reports. In this report you can see where each of your students is in their mastery of the different grade level standards. From here you can click in for more information in two different ways that I will discuss below.

Class Report

The first way is when you click on the individual student it takes you to this same report from the usage view for more information on the individual student. This report is a great way to get an overall look at an individual student.

Individual Report

Then if you click on a specific game level played you can go into a detailed report about the game that the student played. This will show you what the question was, how they answered each time, and how long it took them. This is a great way to get detailed information about a student to help them learn how to master this concept and/or game.

Game Level Report for Individual Student

The second way you can look at your mastery report is by clicking on the grade level that you want to look at more closely. Below is a picture of the grade level standard report. This report allows you to see if you students have mastered each math standard in that particular grade level. It is very helpful to give you a quick glance to see mastery across multiple grade levels. It can also help you see where students are when you are about to introduce a new standard.

Grade Level Standard Report

Then if you click on a specific standard within the grade level, you can see the level of mastery for each game level within the standard . This report is helpful to see a more in-depth look at a specific standard and identify specific skills that students may need support in.

Individual Student Standard Report

Sokikom reports are full of important information about your students and their progress using Sokikom. As you can see from the article above, many of these reports overlap when you click on different parts of them. So you can move through and see the information you need easily. I use my Sokikom reports everyday in my classroom for many different reasons. I encourage you to explore the many different features of the Sokikom reports so you can find which ones will help you best understand how to help your students in your classroom. Thank you for reading my post, I hope to share more in the future.

Getting Lean in Mathematics Education Technology

By: Dr. Theodore Chao

Why is it that when you pull up a math game, website, or app, it almost always pushes old and tired ways of teaching math? Flash cards emphasizing memorization over understanding? Quizzes pushing speed rather than thinking? Or worse yet, games using colorful graphics and adventures to hide operation result-unknown number sentences rather than exploring number relationships (e.g., 4+12=? rather than [6+?] = [-3+3]). These games assume you have to fool kids into learning math, rather than connecting to the inherent fun that comes from doing math.

Part of this disconnect comes from who actually gets to create math games. Education is one of unique fields which everyone has some expertise because, hey, we all went to school. I mean, I took at least one math class for 15 years of my life. And when I became a software developer, I believed part of the reason I was good at computer programming was because I was “good” at math. It wasn’t until after I became a middle-school teacher that I realized I didn’t have the first clue about how to teach math. I had good grades because I was good at memorizing, regurgitating, and choosing the answer that was the least wrong. And so, it was people like me who were “good” at math or tracked into upper-level math courses, that helped build math games.

And that won’t fly in today’s world. The field of mathematics education research has helped us understand so much more about how children learn mathematics. Memorization, speed, finding the “correct” answer? These are only a small part of developing deep, overall mathematical thinking. Creating your own strategies, engaging in mathematical discussion, and open-ended mathematical tasks are much better ways to engage students and build mathematical confidence.

So how do we do build math games that connect to this research? Well, to start, we can use the development process as a sort of research in of itself, to help unpack how children actually think mathematically. Let’s start by thinking lean, a business term introduced by Womack and Jones’ (1996) in describing how Toyota constantly switched up their car production techniques to be super-efficient and responsive to customers. Lean thinking embodies a philosophy of keeping things small and focused so that you always learn how people will use your product.

At the heart of Lean Thinking is the Build-Measure-Learn (BML) feedback loop, an ongoing exercise of checking in with the user. In a BML loop, developers’ start with an idea about how a feature might work, then quickly test it to see what happens. Because developers only focus on one feature, they do not have to actually build out the product, which makes the BML loop super fast. Often, a BML loop involves no more than screenshots, with users mimicking the pushing of buttons and telling an interviewer what they would be doing. No time is wasted in developing or building superfluous features. Through this mindset, developers are able to stay lean by focusing their energy on listening and responding to users as opposed to building what they predict a user will want to use.

We’ve used this model here at Sokikom to continually develop our games. Let’s look at two examples of how Lean thinking has helped us create games that connect to how children think mathematically.

One of our first BML loops investigated why our students would suddenly stop playing a game. Students usually started a game with excitement, but when they got stuck on a problem for more than 2 minutes, they’d start visiting other websites. So through a series of BML loop, we experimented with embedding hints into the games, providing help videos, and even providing real on-call mathematics tutors. We found that students remained engaged in a game when they knew instructional support was available from the beginning, and that the system would predict when they needed help. So through these BML loops, the development team designed a system of help videos that were always present, but only popped up after the student submitted two incorrect solutions. Immediately, we noticed much more perseverance in students playing our games. The screenshot above shows how a help video that pops up when a child submits two incorrect answer choices about simplifying 2/8 to ¼.

Another BML loop involved a research project focused on developing Frachine, our fraction machine game. Teachers shared with us their struggles in teaching fractions in a visual way. Through focus groups, we learned that teachers wanted a game targeting fractional thinking to help students develop visual models of numbers smaller than 1. But, they did not want students to rely on number lines or confusing pie charts. So the development team used research on how children’s fractional models often involve breaking objects into two pieces to go through some BML loops with teachers and students. Through this process, the team built a fraction game revolving around repeated halving of blocks. The screenshot shows the final Frachine game, in which students use the machine on the left to partition each whole block into halves, quarters, or eighths. Being able to work with whole blocks and repeatedly halve them into smaller fractional units has helped our students situate fractions as real units that they can create themselves.

Sokikom is not the only mathematics learning platform utilizing lean thinking. We have found it a powerful way to think about our games as responsive to our children’s and our teacher’s needs. And lean thinking reminds us of that good mathematics teaching, essentially, is good listening.

Engaging Young Students in Math [A Student’s Perspective]

By: Karen Kauffmann

Math was my favorite subject in elementary school, but probably not for the most admirable reasons.  Rather than being fascinated by number crunching, math was my favorite subject purely because it was the subject that came most easily to me.  Any subject gets dry quickly when the topics are hard to relate to, and it’s understandable that learning how to plot points on a grid or draw an acute angle can feel very abstract to an elementary school student.

When I was in elementary school, there were far more students than computers available.  As a result, we’d always have classroom “rotations” where everyone would get a set amount of time to play educational games on a computer before returning to standard classroom assignments.  To put into economics terms, the students’ demand for time playing the computer games was far greater than the supply of computers or even the supply of beneficial content available in these games.  This led to many hours spent embarking on the monotonous journey of tearing workbook pages out of a teal workbook and writing answers in thinly outlined boxes to practice multiplication tables and other standards.  Never known for having a particularly great attention span, I spent a significant portion of time allocated to completing these worksheets staring out the window, and it’s safe to assume I wasn’t daydreaming about the product of five and three. Learning math via computer games brought excitement to a subject that otherwise feels repetitive. When trying to learn something that may be challenging and tedious, there’s nothing like flying objects accompanied by a score counter to capture the attention of the learner.

Considering K-12 math is a very linear progression of subjects building off the previous course material, it’s essential to develop a solid base of understanding at a young age. For a long time, I held the assumption that basic math was used frequently in day to day life, but anything beyond simple functions was too abstract to ever have a practical application. Now, I will be starting college in the fall as a computer science undergraduate and am beginning to understand the importance of algorithms and mathematical logic in computing. Considering the increased role of software in the world today, understanding principles of math is essential in many industries.

Looking back on my 13 years of public education, I’m really grateful to have received a solid base of understanding in math. I was fortunate that math was a subject that usually came reasonably easily to me, but I can understand the frustration from my peers who get caught in the mindset that they “just aren’t math people”. When I was in the process of selecting a college major, it was impossible to ignore the prevalence of mathematics courses in many of the major requirement flowcharts. If a student wants to help engineer solutions to the world’s problems, it’s going to take a substantial understanding of mathematical principles. This isn’t meant to diminish the importance of the humanities; those are essential as well, as most issues are cross-disciplinary and ultimately end up in that realm. I just believe a lot of students lose interest in math more easily when concepts start to get more complicated, and in turn, seem more abstract and impractical. Many future opportunities are not available without an interest and appreciation for math, and that interest needs to be sparked at a young age for best results.

I still recall my thought process when seeing the job posting stating that Sokikom was looking to hire an intern to help them “revolutionize K-12 education”. Of course, I was initially intrigued by the opportunity to enhance my own abilities. I wanted to learn more about programming and software development before beginning my formal college education. However, once I was done being self-centered, I became fascinated by the product due to recollections of teaching methods I was exposed to in elementary school. I’ve already touched on my less than stellar attention span, but it’s worth reiterating that I’ve never been a big fan of traditional classroom settings. It’s really challenging to listen to a lecture and sit still for an extended period of time. Knowing that I’m far from the only one in this boat, it means a lot to me to contribute to an effort that should enhance students’ experiences in classrooms across the nation.

For as much as I’ve been focusing on experiences as a student, implementing new techniques in a classroom shouldn’t be a one way street. I may be just a high school graduate with very little point of reference, but I’m still confident that teaching has to be one of the hardest jobs in the world. Developing lesson plans that will keep a room of students focused for hours day in and day out has to be quite grueling. If we can develop effective supplemental classroom tools, perhaps that would allow teachers to focus their energy on some of their many other efforts and responsibilities.

Taking a highly structured curriculum and presenting concepts to students in a way that can hold their attention is an incredibly challenging task.  However, I believe that technology is only going to become more prevalent in classrooms as time marches forward.  Ideally, this will open up unprecedented access to interactive learning experiences to be implemented in classrooms. It’s common to think there are a lot of problems in youth education. I’d like to think Sokikom is part of the solution.