Welcome back to a brand-new school year, educators! We hope you had a fun and refreshing summer and your school year is already off to an amazing start.
Over the summer, the Freckle team has been working hard to make our differentiation platform the best it can be for students, teachers, and administrators. Here's a rundown of all of the updates to Freckle from the summer!
Improvements to the student dashboard
Student login is easier than ever
Students will now enter their class code before their name when they log into the Freckle student dashboard. After logging in for the first time, they will have an option to select a recently used class code instead of typing their code the next time they log in. This reduces the need for typing and allows students to start practicing in Freckle more quickly!
K-1 student login is more visual and kid-friendly
Kindergarten and 1st grade students (regardless of level) will now log in by clicking on the image of their Freckle avatar with their name instead of having to type their name and class code. We hope this makes login faster and easier (and more similar to other apps) for your younger students!
If you're concerned about your students logging in under the wrong name, you can always set password protection by clicking "Class options" in the Roster page of your teacher dashboard.
6th graders now see the middle school dashboard
6th grade students will now see the more grown-up version of the Freckle student dashboard. They will still have access to all of the same practice modes and content that they usually do—only the appearance is different.
More instructional supports
Hints in K-5 math domains
When a student answers a math question incorrectly the first time, they will see a helpful "hint" which reminds them of how to solve the problem. This is currently available for all K-5 math domains in the Common Core states and will be rolling out to other areas in the future.
Improved video experience
Instructional videos within Freckle are now larger and easier for students to view. Additionally, when multiple videos are available for a particular skill or question, the student can switch back and forth between the videos more easily.
New math content
Many more math questions
You'll never have to worry about your students running out of problems to solve in Freckle math! We've added over 1,800 new math questions, which means a greater variety of questions in both Adaptive and Targeted Math Practice.
Depth of Knowledge (DOK) questions
Students working on Adaptive Practice in the 1st through 7th grade Geometry levels will now be prompted to complete a DOK challenge when they pass a level. This adds an extra dimension of rigor to help students more fully grasp a mathematical concept—and to help teachers check for in-depth understanding.
Stay tuned as we roll this feature out to more domains and grade levels in the future!
Greater teacher controls over the student experience
Get ready for a whole new level of differentiation! Freckle Premium teachers can now customize what practice modes their students can access, regardless of their rostered grade level. For example, a teacher can activate the Kindergarten-level practice mode Number Basics for an older student who is working far below grade level. This can be done on an individual basis or for an entire class with a click.
Additionally, teachers can view which subjects are enabled for each class, including what's available in those subjects based on their school's license.
Tons of improvements to the administrator dashboard
Robust rostering abilities
Administrators can now see pertinent information about all the students, teachers, and classes associated with their schools directly from the home screen of school.freckle.com. You can search for specific records, filter, click, and drill down into the data in these lists.
This helps answer questions such as:
- Which teachers share Student X?
- What are Teacher X's courses?
- What are Student X's courses?
With our new Bulk Rostering Tool, school and district administrators can now sync, update, and clean up their Freckle rosters straight from their dashboard.
Finally, administrators can now see when their roster was last synced and who synced it. This will help verify that any applicable Clever or Classlink syncs are running nightly as expected, and it will also ensure that multiple admins are not attempting to sync rosters for the same schools.
Improved Growth Reports
It's now easier than ever for administrators to check in on all students' progress in a school or district.
You can now filter the data in the Growth Reports by school, grade, or domain, and you can double click into the report to drill down into a particular set of data.
Plus, the data has been optimized for your specific state standards system, better accuracy, and faster loading times. This means you can instantly see the information you need at a glance and get back to the important work of increasing student growth!
Ready to jump in and explore the latest in Freckle?