Exact Path Summer Learning (6-8)

According to Edmentum, “The Exact Path diagnostic assessment development process is highly rigorous and iterative. Scale development adheres to AERA (American Educational Research Association) standards and protocol. The ADA is a valid assessment to determine student placement in the learning progression.”

The diagnostic measures a student’s mathematics, reading and/or language arts ability, including real-time progress and academic growth.

The Exact Path diagnostic assessment does not have a time limit for completion.  However, on average, students spend approximately 45 minutes on the reading diagnostic and 40 minutes on the math diagnostic assessment.

Parents and students can access Exact Path at home. Parents are able to see what lessons and activities their child is currently working on in their learning path. 

The Exact Path Diagnostic is administered as a variable-length computer adaptive test (CAT) exam, which means that students may receive a different number of questions. The reason for selecting the variable-length CAT is the urgency of more efficient testing with uniform precision (reliability) for all learners.  Please view the following video for more information: Making Sense of Computer Adaptive Tests: Click Here Exact Path does not differentiate between types of incorrect responses (whether a minor mistake or a conceptual error).  The program adapts based on incorrect errors.

Throughout all stages of the development process, internal content experts used processes that ensured the following from the Edmentum Fairness, Bias, and Sensitivity Guidelines:

• The content reflects respect and sensitivity toward people in all their diversity of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, culture, age, physical characteristics, and physical and cognitive abilities.

• The content is fair to all learners. Content should not impede a student’s success due to the student’s personal characteristics, experiences, or emotional responses to details that are unnecessary to meet the learning objective.

To meet the bias and sensitivity guidelines, content experts used several internal quality steps. Edmentum provides thorough training to item developers and item reviewers on how to write, review, and edit items for bias and sensitivity. This training includes specific sensitivity examples including, but not limited to race and ethnicity, gender, disabilities, economic status, clothing, images and videos, politics, hand gestures, and stereotypes in gender, people with disabilities, and older people. The training also provides an overview of several topics to avoid. Some examples avoided are accidents, natural disasters, emergencies, advocacy, alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, bullying, mocking, or shaming, gun control, immigration, junk food, and slavery.

During the diagnostic assessment, students do not know if they get a question correct or not.  However, once the assessment is done, via the learning path, students receive personalized lessons and activities on areas where they performed poorly.

Edmentum is a leading provider of e-learning solutions. It completed the initial phase of the beta program in 2017 for Exact Path.  During the 2017-18 academic year, 80,000 to 113,000 students nationwide used Exact Path (depending on the subject).  Exact Path is currently used by almost 1000 districts.

Edmentum states that “learning paths are a series of lessons to cover the skills a learner is ready to learn, displayed in a set of four skills at a time in the learning progression. These lessons can be from one domain or several domains, depending on what level a student is working in each domain area.”

Edmentum’s most recent research study by Century Analytics, Inc., found that when students engage in and show progress through the completion of lessons students do better academically in that subject area than students not using Exact Path.

Students are able to access the learning path at home via a tablet or computer.  They can access the program by using their Clever login.  Parents can see what their child is doing and they are encouraged to speak with their child about the work they are doing on the learning path. 

Edmentum content experts developed the CCSS-aligned Learning Path by sequencing between 282 and 364 skills per subject within each grade-level, based on typical instructional sequencing within a school year.  For each of the three subjects – language arts, mathematics, and reading – the learning progression or “Learning Path” represents an instructional sequence for skills from kindergarten through grade 12.  Progressions of learning are construct maps that serve to ground the assessments in concrete skills that students can learn and demonstrate. 

If the student does not retain information from the most recent 3-4 lessons, it is possible to fail the progress check and be asked to repeat a lesson or complete a lesson at a lower level for remedial instruction on a skill.

There is audio on all K-1 diagnostic items in math and language arts.  Audio settings on the reading diagnostic depend on the skill needs.  For example, if the skill is about reading and comprehension, the “read aloud” option is not available. If the skill is about “metaphors”, for example, the audio is available since the skill is not about reading or comprehension.  In the learning path, not everything is read aloud to students.  Students also have options to click the automatic audio feature off.

We are able to see data on how long a student spends on a specific area of the learning path or any other area of the program.

Students are able to access the learning path at home via a tablet or computer.  They can access the program by using their Clever login.  Parents can see what their child is doing and they are encouraged to speak with their child about the work they are doing on the learning path.  

We are able to see data on how long a student spends on a specific area of the learning path or any other area of the program.

No.

Students with IEPs follow the same participation requirements as all other students for the diagnostic assessment, including students with moderate/severe disabilities.   Exact Path provides skills from grades K-12.  

Edmentum completed the initial phase of the beta program in 2017 for Exact Path. During the initial phase of beta testing, over 6,300 students participated, 24,000 assessments were taken, and over 100,000 instructional content launches occurred.

Exact Path utilizes adaptive diagnostic assessment data to form a competency-based progression of skills for students, and adaptive tools that offer targeted instruction paced to your students’ needs.  Edmentum states that, “Extensive psychometric analysis of our adaptive diagnostic assessments ensures that all students receive a unique testing experience that precisely pinpoints their instructional level, strengths, and needs.”

Students are able to access the learning path at home via a tablet or computer.  They can access the program by using their Clever login.  Parents can see what their child is doing and they are encouraged to speak with their child about the work they are doing on the learning path.