Tabtor Math Releases Results of South Brunswick School District Pilot Program to Measure Elementary School Math Performance
Kendall Park, NJ (PRWEB) May 20, 2014 -- Tabtor Math, an iPad-based personalized learning program, today announced that students participating in the pilot program at Greenbrook Elementary School, part of South Brunswick School District, improved their math test scores by an average of 70 percent. As a result of the success, two additional South Brunswick School District elementary schools – Brunswick Acres Elementary and Cambridge Elementary – are adopting the Tabor Math program.
“Our use of Tabtor Math with students receiving Instruction Support Services at Greenbrook Elementary School has produced exceptional results,” said Dr. Gary P. McCartney, Ed. D., Superintendent of Schools for South Brunswick School District. “Student academic growth, as measured from pre-test through post-test, has increased significantly. When compared to the progress of non-Instructional Support students, students engaged with the Tabtor Math platform experienced a growth rate almost equal to all other grade level students. My sense is that the Tabtor approach is responsible for this student performance.” McCartney went on to state, “We are hopeful that this break-through for some of our least-able math students in first and second grade will transform their thinking about math and create an enthusiasm for even greater future academic successes.”
The pilot program started in May of 2013 with about 6 students in the Instructional Support program who needed additional help in learning math. By the end of summer, the program had over 97 students across multiple grade levels with everyone, including teachers and administrators, agreeing that the Tabtor program had begun to have a lasting impact on them.
During May and June of 2013 students participating in the Tabtor pilot answered a total of 26,000 questions with a 93 percent accuracy. In October through December of 2013, students continued to show improvement and answered 46,420 math problems and their accuracy went up to 96 percent.
The built in repetition of problems, immediacy of feedback and gamification in the form of reward points made the program very appealing to the students. The curriculum also helped build analytical and critical thinking that corresponded to the conceptual problems the teachers taught in the classroom. The ability to personalize the assignments enabled the teachers to address areas of weakness of every student.
District post-test results validated the efficacy of the Tabtor program to influence student performance outcomes. As an example, in the post-test, Instructional Support (Tier II) students in Grade 1 improved their performance levels to 91%, almost on par with the students in the general population (Tier I) who scored 96%. By using Tabtor, students also showed a ten-fold increase in productivity by solving more problems than they had ever done before the use of Tabtor.
Lori Woods, the Instructional Support Teacher at Greenbrook Elementary said, “It's the efficacy. If you are an educator who really has done this and understands how children learn, all you have to do is look at it and you see that it works. Teachers are able to provide the human touch at the point of learning. The ability for teachers to determine student misconceptions/errors by reviewing scribbles on the assignments and the ability to respond to the student directly on the math assignment is terrific.”
She added, “By far this is the best math teaching tool I have ever used in my 20 year career. Now that I have seen the results and the level of enthusiasm and engagement of my students when they use Tabtor, I cannot imagine teaching math without this resource. All the teachers felt that their productivity increased by 60%-70% by using Tabtor enabling them to focus on improving student results.”
Not only did students improve their total percentage of correct answers, they also accelerated their answer speed by approximately 30 percent. This represents a 70 percent reduction in math errors. Tabtor also recorded a 50 percent increase in student math engagement as scores improved and student motivation soared. The pilot program, which included kindergarten, first, second, third, and fourth-grade students, succeeded in improving the students’ ability to recognize number sense and place values.
“We see a strong correlation between students adopting the Tabtor platform and improved math performance – both in problem solving accuracy and in overall time spent solving problems” said Raj Valli, CEO of Tabtor. “The evidence of student success is simply overwhelming. We are seeing similar results across all student populations including gifted students, across the U.S. and internationally.”
Helping Students Succeed
Greenbrook Elementary uses the Response to Intervention (RTI) Action Network to ensure that each child has access to quality instruction and that struggling students – including those with learning disabilities – are identified early and receive the support necessary to succeed. Students in the Tier II instructional level needed conceptually oriented instruction, more practice and cumulative review. Tabtor is a perfect cost-effective program which helps in identifying the individual level of each student, providing personalized lessons and eventually helping move the students back to Tier I.
Common Core Ready
A major challenge for teachers implementing Common Core standards (CCSS) is about transitioning students from state standards to the Common Core. While fluency and skills are given importance, there is a paradigm shift in the instruction. Tabtor allows the students to get a personalized study plan from their teacher and watch the instruction on how to solve a problem based on common core. Teachers appreciate the program because it complements their math lessons perfectly and helps prepare for standardized Common Core testing. Given the adoption of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) across 44 states in the U.S. this year, the demand for a math program that supports a strong foundation of math literacy is at an all-time high.
Tabtor’s content authoring tool allows teachers to upload their own content and administer it for their students. “By the 2014-15 academic year, public schools in 44 states and the District of Columbia will administer Common Core tests to students of all ages,” said Raj. “With class sizes continuing to trend towards one teacher for every 25 students, digital technology solutions are needed to enhance student performance while providing capacity expansion for time-constrained teachers.
Available without Charge
Tabtor is available without charge to any school district interested in adopting or piloting the platform for elementary and middle school for up to 90 days including for use in summer programs. Tabtor is used on iPads which makes learning fun and engaging for students while giving teachers insights into how students navigate problem solving. An Android version of the Tabtor program will be available by August 2014.
About Tabtor
Tabtor is a flagship educational technology platform from PrazAs Learning Inc and is designed to completely transform the way the world looks at learning. The patent pending platform provides teachers and students with a highly personalized learning experience, which focuses on the Point of Learning for each student. Currently available on iPads and soon on Android, Tabtor is an innovative digital offering that combines best of personalized teaching with a fun and engaging learning program that supports multiple subjects. It is tailored to every student using a combination of patent-pending Digital-paper technology that allows sharing and review of handwritten work, automatic grading, video tutorials and adaptive analytics. For additional information, visit: http://tabtor.com/schools.html
Raj Valli, Tabtor, https://tabtor.com/, +1 7329860216, [email protected]
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