Formative assessments give both students and teachers meaningful, actionable feedback to help with the learning process. With Level Up, a new formative assessment tool from Speak Agent, students can now quickly check their content and language knowledge at the end of each lesson to continuously inform instruction throughout the year.
“Level Up is not a test; it’s an instructional tool,” said Speak Agent CEO and Co-Founder, Ben Grimley. “Once learners master the content and language of a Speak Agent math or science lesson, they can move up to the next lesson. The idea of ‘leveling up’ places the emphasis on mastery.” Watch Ben Grimley provide a brief overview of the Level Up Formative Assessment Tool.
Level Up is now included in every lesson in Speak Agent’s middle school and high school math and science courses. Speak Agent is a digital platform that integrates academic language with math and science content through its unique, research-based Content+LanguageSM programs. Each program, available for grades K through 12, boosts outcomes by improving content vocabulary, knowledge of key academic concepts, and STEM communication and reasoning skills. Large-scale research has found that Speak Agent significantly impacts math, science, and English language development outcomes for historically marginalized and multilingual learners.
Each Level Up formative assessment typically includes five to ten items that align with each partnering district’s curriculum. Students may redo the activity as many times as they wish, and teachers can see the results of each attempt and which answers were correct on the first try. If an answer is incorrect, contextual hints guide students toward a correct answer.
“As students practice retrieving the information they have acquired during a unit, they reconsolidate and strengthen long-term memory,” Grimley added. “This enables more enduring retention of learning.”
Data from each Level Up are integrated into student and class reports. With this data, teachers can evaluate whether students are acquiring content knowledge as they gain academic language unit by unit. The data is also saved to the student’s digital portfolio so teachers can see the specific answers that each student recorded.
To support diverse learners, Level Up integrates a variety of learning supports. It can narrate at five speeds, magnify text to seven different sizes, and translate text into 135 languages. Students can also access a Word Gallery for visual aids.
For information, visit speakagent.com.
The American Consortium for Equity in Education, publisher of the "Equity & Access" journal, celebrates and connects the educators, associations, community partners and industry leaders who are working to solve problems and create a more equitable environment for historically underserved pre K-12 students throughout the United States.
