Platform Updates

August 2022

  • 'Enhance Feedback' button We’ve launched a new button on the comment card, 'Enhance Feedback' so that features related to comments, audio comments, cog skill tagging, and attaching a resource, are all consolidated in a single click. This improvement, along with design simplifications to the comment card, make it easier than ever to give rich, targeted feedback. 

April 2022

  • 'Finish' feedback icon We’ve launched a fourth feedback icon, 'Finish' for teachers to tell students to finish incomplete work. The 'Finish' icon will appear as a gray icon next to the current feedback icons: ‘Revise’ (red), ‘Review’ (yellow), or ‘Continue’ (green). 'Finish' will be available in Checkpoints and Cooldowns. 

March 2022

  • New feedback accessibility icons We’ve launched new feedback icons to ensure that our icons are more accessible to students and educators. This makes it easier for people with varying abilities to identify feedback icons.

January 2022

  • New comment feedback in the dashboard This new metric lets school leaders like you see how often students are receiving Notebook comments with cognitive skills. This newest addition in the dashboard gives you a holistic view into the feedback loops happening at your school.

October 2021

  • See recommendations on specific resources to assign, and why
    You'll now see automatic resource recommendations based on students' latest cognitive skills scores, Learners Groups you've created, or students' learning needs identified in their Specialized Support Profiles. You can click on the new information icon to see what recommendations are based on, making it easier for you to use available platform data to differentiate supports.
  • Updates to Rubrics: Insert in comments and new highlight colors
    Now, parts of a rubric can be directly inserted in Notebook comments. Rubric highlight colors are also updated so that they're more accessible. Please note: the color update will be retroactively applied to student work.

August 2021

  • Manage student platform supports for multiple students at once
    Based on school leader feedback, we’ve made it possible for you to add or adjust platform supports (like text-to-speech or Focus Area exemptions) for multiple students at once. We hope this makes it easier to provide students with the specific supports they need.
  • Automatic resource recommendations connected to students’ learning needs You’ll now get automatic recommendations for which resources to assign to students as you're planning and assigning projects. These resources are based on Learners Groups or needs that a Specialist has identified.

  • Improvements to the Specialized Support Profiles and more Now, Specialists will create Specialized Support Profiles before setting up their groups. We hope this change makes it faster to set up profiles so that teachers can get specialists’ insights on how to support students with defined learning needs. We’ve also improved the Setup page, making it more clear to admins how many Specialists are in their school. This update can help admins better understand the Specialist role.

  • An easier way to create customized student data views We heard that the process of creating customized views was tedious. Now, creating these customized views is in just a few clicks. This makes it easier to quickly and directly create customized student views.
  • The new-and-improved School Data Dashboard The School Data Dashboard is redesigned so that metrics stand out and are easier for you to access.

  • A new view to see progress on key back-to-school actions The Instructional Launch Metrics Dashboard lets you see key beginning of the school year metrics. You can use this dashboard to as you collaborate with other teachers in the beginning of the year.
  • Get visibility into overall data trends The new overall tab in the Student Progress Views page gives you visibility into overall student progress trends across grades, courses, and custom student views. This data matches the School Data Dashboard so that you can stay closely aligned with school leaders on important actions to support student learning.

July 2021 

  • You have a new tool to plan differentiated instruction The new "skills growth opportunities" section lets you preview all of the opportunities students have to practice specific skills throughout a project. You can find this table within the project's cognitive skills summary.
  • Attach resources to Notebook comments You can now attach specific learning resources and activities to Notebook comments. We hope this update helps make it clear to students how resources are connected back to feedback.

  • A new Instructional Launch Metrics Dashboard We’ve updated the Launch Metrics Dashboard so that you can get more granular information (such as teacher or student progress) on key back-to-school actions.

June 2021 

  • Platform admins can now reduce content assessment questions
    Platform admins can now reduce a student’s content assessment questions. This new feature was designed so that schools have more control over how they’re supporting students with specialized learning needs.  
  • An easier way of assigning final products
    Now you can select specific final products to assign to students and delete any final products that have not yet been assigned.

  • Leave audio comments in Notebooks
    We heard audio comments would make it easier to leave richer, more authentic feedback. Now, you can leave audio recordings attached to Notebook comments.

April 2021

  • More visibility into exercise sets 
    Students can now turn in exercise sets directly on the platform. You'll get a notification when they’re turned in and see which needs review from the Feedback page.
  • New updates to Specialized Support Profiles
    Teachers can now easily access a Support Profile by clicking the checkmark on the Students Tab and will get notified when Support Profiles for their students are updated.
  • Give feedback when it’s most helpful
    Now you can add comments while students are working on their Notebooks. This makes it easier to give feedback when it’s most helpful to students.
  • Extra visibility into when students are making progress
    Quickly see when students last updated their Notebooks with new statuses and timestamps in the Feedback Tab.

March 2021

  • Time extensions for active Learnosity assessments
    This new update lets teachers extend in-progress Learnosity assessments. We hope it’s helpful when students ask for more time to finish their work.
  • Draw directly in Notebooks
    Now students can draw directly in their Notebook, helping to minimize distractions by centralizing learning tools all in one workspace.
  • Parent/caregiver access to Notebooks comments
    Families can now view the comments that teachers leave in Notebooks. This gives families and caregivers even more visibility into the feedback students receive on their assignments.

February 2021

  • Time extensions for submitted Learnosity assessments
    You can now give students more time to work on Learnosity assessments after they’ve turned them in. This helps if students submitted accidentally, or you’d like them to continue working on the same assessment. 

January 2021

  • A new way to create a Notebook
    You can now create a new Notebook directly in the platform without uploading a template first.

December 2020

  • See real-time edits in Notebooks
    You can now see edits in Notebooks as soon as they’re made, without needing to refresh the page first.

November 2020

  • New-and-improved colors across the platform
    The new platform colors better align with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

October 2020

  • Mark exactly where students need to revise. Know when those revisions have been made
    Now in Notebooks comments, teachers can select “Ask to Revise!” to let students know exactly what needs to be revised. Students will see what needs more attention, and can simply click “I’ve revised this!” at the top of the comment to let teachers know they’ve incorporated the feedback. Learn how. 
  • Print content assessments without requiring students to first request the assessment
    Teachers can now print content assessments for students without requiring students to first request their content assessments. Learn more.
  • Specialized Support Profiles: Collaborate on how to best support students with specialized needs
    Now educators and specialists have Specialized Support Profiles. SSPs lets educators and specialists collaborate and coordinate strategies to drive student growth. See how it works.
  • New adjustable text-to-speech
    Students can now speed up or slow down the text-to-speech on assessments. This gives students more control over how they’re learning and understanding the assessment content. Learn more.

September 2020

  • Let students know why assessments were denied
    Teachers can now help students understand why they've denied a content assessment request. This notification makes it easier for students to know what next steps to take before they should try again. See how the denied message looks. 

August 2020

  • Text-to-Speech on Assessments 
    Text-to-Speech is now available for Diagnostic and Content Assessments. This feature makes it easier for teachers to provide students with required accessibility accommodations—especially within a remote setting—and removes the need for students to rely on external browser extensions to read their diagnostic and content assessments aloud.

  • Complete Focus Area activities directly within Notebooks 
    Focus Area resources are no longer “view only.” Students can now write and edit these resources directly within Notebooks, providing them with a centralized place to complete both Project and Focus Area activities.

  • Instructional Launch Metrics Dashboard in the School Data Dashboard  
    School Leaders will now be able to easily see and monitor the progress of the most important platform actions in the beginning of the year. Learn more about the Instructional Launch Metrics Dashboard.

  • Cognitive Skill Comment Menu in Notebooks
    In order to make it easier for teachers to provide more cognitive skill-aligned feedback to students, we’ve redesigned the comment menu in the toolbar. The comment button now says, “Give feedback on…” and opens a menu of all the skills associated with the checkpoint or final product.

  • Easily restore previous versions of Notebooks
    Instead of needing to manually restore older versions of Notebooks by copy-pasting, teachers and students can simply select a timestamp for the version they’d like to see and restore it. Learn more about how to use Notebooks.

  • Notebooks Indent Tool
    Students can now use Notebooks’ MLA formatting tools to complete their work. This gives students tools and regular opportunities to practice MLA formatting. 

July 2020

  • Plan for Next Year with New Comprehensive Data Reports
    Now more than ever, schools need access to comprehensive data to understand how COVID19 school closures impacted student progress. School leaders can get this data in Data Downloads by exporting new grade-level and subject-matter reports--all from one source, even after academic year rollover--to help teachers plan targeted instruction to address any COVID-related learning gaps.

  • More visibility into how AFAs affect overall course grades
    Previously, students’ scores for an Additional Focus Area (AFA) would not factor into their overall course grades until the blue pacing line passed the AFA. This led to surprising (and frustrating) grade drops on the last day of school when the pacing line passed the final AFA. Now, AFA scores will be factored into students’ grades as soon as the pacing line hits each new AFA.

  • Easily track changes to student work
    Teachers can easily see the changes students have made to their work over the course of multiple feedback cycles. This lets teachers quickly understand how a student’s work has evolved over time, without needing to look at multiple different documents or sources.

  • Ability to embed Youtube videos
    Sometimes students will need to watch educational videos relevant to their assignments. Rather than needing to open up a separate browser and navigate to the Youtube website (which can carry a host of distractions), students can watch these videos directly within their Notebooks workspace.
  • Create Notebooks tables with ease
    Instead of needing to manually add each row and column one-by-one, teachers and students can simply select which table dimensions they’d like to insert.

June 2020

  • Updating the calendar for the following year
    Previously, schools had to roll over to the following academic year before they could edit the calendar. Now, school leaders can set their dates before rolling over, which helps with planning for the next year. These dates also inform Success Managers support plans.
  • Using the Summit Learning platform over the summer
     We know that this year students may be working into the summer to make up course work. To make that easier, courses won’t lock as they have in previous years. This means you can continue to assign and score projects, students can continue to work on Focus Areas, and grades will update even after the last platform date at your school has passed. For more information, please see our Extended Learning FAQ.

May 2020

  • Student notifications for shared plans
    Students can now see when you share plans with them. They’ll get a notification automatically from their avatar from the bottom left of their page.

April 2020

  • In-platform announcements
    Teachers asked for a way to make announcements to students during school closures. We created an announcement feature that will allow teachers to post messages to their students directly on the platform. Learn more.

  • Sound alerts for content assessment requests: Teachers can now enable a sound alert to hear incoming content assessment requests. Learn more.

 

March 2020

  • Learnosity Calculator Settings:  We updated the Learnosity Calculator settings to allow you to turn calculators on and off for specific students. Calculator settings will default to the setting from the Base Curriculum. We hope that this addition allows you to provide more differentiated learning experiences for your students!

  • Select Unmarked Checkbox in Exercise Sets Bulk Feedback: We added the "Select Unmarked" checkbox to help teachers save time by marking students complete/incomplete on exercise sets all at once.
  • Data Downloads Improvements: You can now leave the Data Downloads page while it’s downloading, and then receive a notification when your report is ready. This addresses a previous issue that made it difficult to download very large reports. Learn more. 

  • School Data Dashboard Improvements: To help you better understand the data in your school, we made improvements to the School Data Dashboard— we aligned the metrics to follow our current grading policy and now you can see last sync time, drill further into each data set, and hover over certain metrics for more insight.

February 2020

  • Clever Sync Details Page: For schools that use Clever enrollment, we’ve created a new page for you. This new page, which shows detailed information about your school’s recent Clever to platform sync, gives you more visibility into the accounts and sections coming into the platform. 

January 2020

  • Grade Reports by Specific Dates: We heard your feedback and Grades by Specific Date reports are now exportable in the Data Downloads page. The two reports for currently enrolled and unenrolled students show grades as of any specific day of the current school year and can provide you with more information about your school's progress.grades_by_specific_course_date.png
  • Exportable Mentoring Data for Admins: In August, we launched a new Data Downloads page that allows school leaders to easily export records of student academic data. In this update, school leaders will also have the ability to export data about mentoring through the Data Downloads page. This data will include last check-in date, total number of check-ins, total number of urgent check-ins, and total check-in minutes.
  • Exportable Mentoring Data for Teachers: Teachers will be able to export data directly from the Mentoring page. This data will include check-in dates, agendas, notes, and pre-work for all mentees
  • See all Comments in Notebooks: By design, students can't delete teacher comments in Notebooks. However, they could remove highlighted text associated with any comments. We heard from teachers that it’s important to retain all comments as students revise their work, which is why all comments—even those associated with removed text—are now visible on the Notebooks page. If comments are no longer relevant, teachers can delete them manually.
  • Visual update in Learning Space Sessions: We’ve also refreshed the look of sessions in the Learning Space in addition to exciting new content in the Learning Space. The status of session work is now displayed more clearly on the right hand side, and final products are now at the bottom of the page, below the resources.Visual_update_in_learning_space_sessions_shows_the_status_of_projects_.png

December 2019

  • Cancel button added to Mentoring check-in: The cancel button is useful for teachers who may have accidentally started check-ins, or if there is an unexpected interruption at school causing teachers to need to cancel their check-in. This gives teachers the option to cancel their check-in while maintaining accurate count of their mentoring check-ins.Cancel_option_next_to_Finish_Check-in.png
  • Separate Mentoring pre-work banners: Starting December 2, students will see separate pre-work banners for each of their mentors. This update allows students to have access to all of their upcoming check-ins. Click “Show More Pre-work” to access all of the mentoring banners. Click “Show Less Pre-work” to hide the separate pre-work banners. 

November 2019

  • Updates to Data Download permissions: In August, we launched a new Data Downloads page that allows school leaders to easily export records of students' past grades (including grades from previous school years). The following updates will only affect schools with school-wide student data sharing permissions.
    • Only admins will be able to export grades for all students in their school.
      • Teachers will continue to have the ability to export student grades for the courses they teach. We understand that in some situations, some teachers may need access to all student grades. If that’s the case, please request permission by writing into the Help Desk (support@summitlearning.org).
    • Only admins will be able to export parent information for the whole school.
      • Teachers will still be able to export parent info for the sections they teach. 

October 2019

  • Feedback top bar redesign: After you hit Send, you’ll now see what feedback you sent to the student in the top bar. You can change the sent feedback by clicking Edit. We’ve also changed the Activity and Resource icon to a clipboard to help make these easier to locate.Screen_Shot_2019-10-15_at_1.58.54_PM_copy.png
  • Demo Notebook and Edit NotebookEdit Notebook will make a copy of view-only Notebooks that you can proceed to edit without needing to navigate to the Edit Project page or upload a Google Doc. Demo Notebook will copy the contents of a template into your Demo Notebook so that you can quickly model lessons in front of your class.

September 2019

  • Customizable Mentoring Insights: Teachers can now choose three of ten mentoring insights to show in their mentoring tab! These include data such mentoring activity, student academic progress, and more. 
  • Notebooks Version History: We built version history in response to feedback we heard asking for a quick way to retrieve deleted work. Students and teachers can now access previous saved work under Tools in the upper right. Please visit this help center article to find out more!

August 2019

  • Parent Importer: In the past, admins have had to contact the Help Desk in order to upload parent information to the platform. Now, admins are able to import parent accounts in bulk through the Data Uploads page. This update enables admins to quickly set up parent accounts for the Your Student Snapshot program. Learn how to use the parent importer.
  • Data Download Pages: School leaders can now easily export records of students' past grades (including grades from previous school years). Learn how to export student grades. 
  • Improved Project feedback: We have new features to improve the facilitation of projects. These include:
    • Feedback visualizations – We worked with Summit Learning teachers to design summaries for Checkpoint data. You'll be able to identify how your class is doing at a glance and quickly find students who have requested feedback
    • Horizontal rubric layout – See two rubric levels at once for easy comparison. The rubric has also been updated for clarity.
    • Cognitive skill tagged comments – Powered by Notebooks (mentioned below in our July updates), teachers will now be able to tag comments with relevant Cognitive Skills. This will help students connect feedback to the rubric and understand how to improve their skills!
  • New Math Unit facilitation tools: We've acted on feedback we heard from Math teachers last year with a suite of new improvements to Math Units.
    • Tracking of Exercise Sets and Cool-downs – Cool-downs and Exercise Sets can now be tracked in the platform! Cool-downs will use red, orange, green feedback, and teachers will be able to mark completion on Exercise Sets.
    • Portfolio Problem Scoring – Portfolio problems will now be scored along a 2-point rubric. Your school can choose to include Portfolio Problems as part of Math grades (either worth 0% or 10% of the grade).
    • Learnosity End of Unit Assessments – We've incorporated the Illustrative Mathematics curriculum into grades 6-11 in the Base Curriculum (look for courses marked "IM"). These online assessments contain a mix of auto-scored and teacher scored items, making scoring much more efficient. We'll also provide teachers with actionable data to give students effective feedback and enhance their Math development. Teachers will still have access to paper-based assessments in IM courses.

July 2019

  • Mentor Check-In Scheduler: While the current mentoring tool provides support in scheduling and sending pre-work to students, we learned that teachers need additional tools to mentor effectively and consistently. We will be revamping the current mentoring tool to offer greater flexibility and tools for teachers. The updated mentoring tool includes drag-and-drop rescheduling, detailed views to see your mentees' academic progress, list and weeks toggle views, tools to record past check-ins. 
  • Increased flexibility with grading: We’re giving you the opportunity to customize and own your grading policy, with more control over how much of a student’s grade is based on different inputs such as Cognitive Skills or content knowledge. Summit Learning’s grading policy is based on research that stresses the importance of building Cognitive Skills for student success in school and beyond. In the 2019-2020 school year, schools will be able to decrease how much of a grade is based on a student’s progress in Focus Areas. This way, grades will more accurately reflect the priorities of each school. This will also make it easier for you to communicate grades and student progress with your parents and community. Your mentor can provide guidance and recommendations to help you better understand your options and how you can customize grading in the next school year. For more information, check out this article in the Help Center.
  • Notebook document system within the Platform: As we prepare for the new academic year, we are excited to share more details with you about the work we have done to move student work into the Platform, a set of features we’re currently calling Notebooks. We're committed to achieving strong outcomes for all students, and Notebook is the next step in that direction. Unlike standard document systems, Notebook is built for the sole purpose of supporting teacher, student, and family needs with evidence-based instructional practices. The new system improves teacher ability to provide targeted feedback, increases transparency for parents, leaders, and teachers, and decreases distractions for students. Just like the Platform, Notebooks will be continuously improving based on your feedback. You can preview the new Docs experience here to see a sneak peek of some of the new capabilities and learn more about what to expect. Note: only teachers will have access to this preview, so please make sure you’re not viewing as another user when you access this doc.
  • More content and choice: The 19-20 Base Curriculum introduces new projects and new courses. For example, in addition to the existing high school courses, we’re offering a new math curriculum for all of high school, as well as new high school Science courses aligned to Next Generation Science Standards. The 19-20 curriculum also provides more choices for teachers to customize their curricula and select which projects best fit the needs of their students. For example, we’re adding projects to many English and Language Arts courses, both brand new and ones that offer alternative texts to existing projects. Over the next month, we’ll be sharing more details about the new courses and projects so you can start preparing for next year. As with any changes to the Base Curriculum, you will be able to choose and accept those you want to make for your curriculum.

April 2019

  • Student Course Start/End Date Uploader: This uploader allows admin users to adjust the start and end dates of courses per student. This means students that transfer into a school in the middle of the year can have their courses (specifically their Focus Areas) adjust to start on the day they enrolled in the school. Find more information here about the uploader.

March 2019

  • SBAC Dashboard: The SBAC dashboard is a new feature on the School Data dashboard that gives school leaders insight into how students at their school are performing on state accountability standards. We know that testing information is most valuable when it is presented in the context of other signals on student progress. That is why we are adding SBAC data to the School Data page, where you will be able to analyze it alongside Summit Learning implementation data and MAP data. We hope that bringing these data signals together in one place will give you a broader picture of how your students are doing, help you prioritize how you support students and teachers at your school, and make it easier for you to share student progress with your parents and community. See this article for more information about the SBAC Dashboard.

February 2019

  • Updated Grading Modal: We updated the Progress page Grading modal to make grading easier to understand for students and parents. Most notably, the new modal will display a donut-shape graphic detailing how project and focus area grades contribute to the final course grade. Additionally, we’re including separate tabs for students to see a breakdown of their project and focus area scores. You can see more screenshots around current design ideas here.
  • Accessibility Resource Bank: The new and improved Accessibility Resource Bank  is a curated collection of research-based resources that teachers, mentors, grade-level teams, coaches, specialists, and curriculum designers can use and adapt in order to increase curriculum access for students with Foundations needs.  The bank includes resources for reading, writing, language, mathematics, and self-direction. The new bank has moved out of Google Docs in the Help Center and into Educator Tools on the Platform.  See this article for more information on how to locate and navigate the Accessibility Resource Bank.

January 2019

  • Submitting and Scoring Multiple Final Products: This was one of the top requested feature last year, and we’re very excited to announce that it’s coming soon! Student will be able to submit one final product at a time for projects with more than one final product. Teachers will also be able to score one final product at a time and send those scores back to students.
  • Learning Space ImprovementsWe made improvements to Learning Space to make it easier to find information that you need. Now you’ll see a image preview of learning space resources on your search results page. 
  • Unlimited time window for printed assessments: We removed the 24-hour time limit for printed assessments. We hope this will make printing assessments and inputting answers a smoother process!
  • Regrading Explicit Response questions: We’ve received feedback from teachers that some student-submitted answers deserve credit as being “correct” even if the Platform has not recognized those answers as correct. To address this issue, we have introduced the ability for teachers to mark an answer to an explicit response question as “correct” and then regrade the assessment to generate a new student score. Please note that only explicit response questions can be marked as correct. Find more information here!

December 2018

  • Left menu, contrast, and font updates:  We made design updates to improve information hierarchy and color contrast, especially for complex pages on low quality screens or projectors. Specifically, (1) a condensed left menu gives more screen real estate to the content on the screen, (2) a color background provides more focus on tasks at hand, (3) bolder type styles fit accessibility standards. You can get early access by following the these steps.
  • Improvements to the Mentoring Tool: We made improvements to how the Platform supports mentor check-ins.
    • More information about past check-ins:
      • We added the mentor’s full name, the check-in length, and the time the check-in was completed
      • Notes from your previous check-ins now appear on your mentoring page
      • Scheduled check-ins that did not take place will now look different than completed check-ins to help you see the history of check-ins with each student
    • We simplified the check-in slide out drawer
      • When you begin a mentor check-in, a box appears from the right side of the screen that shows the check-in agenda. If you choose to hide the box, you will still continue to see the timer to help you better manage time and it will turn orange if your conversation is longer than 15 minutes
  • Improvements to the Student Progress Page: We made small visual changes to the Student Progress Page to make it easier to understand. We also added the ability to filter by “Mentoring” to see a record of all mentor check-ins.

November 2018

  • Captioned Videos in the Platform: Students can now play captioned videos without clicking out of the platform to YouTube. Inlining content has has been shown to increase focus in students and limit distractions.  Students who depend on features like following along with complete captions on the side of the video can still click "Show full version" to get the full experience.
  • Course Badging: You can now see updates that Summit’s curriculum team makes to the Base Curriculum. On the curriculum grid page, you will see orange outlines around the courses that have base updates. If your course has an update, you will see an orange ‘Base Update’ notification next to the updated project or focus area on your course page.
  • Force Clever Sync: We heard your feedback that you need to force syncs with Clever. Now, admins can force a sync without writing into the Help Desk. Here's how.

October 2018

  • Improvements to copying Plans: We heard a lot of excellent feedback about how we can enhance the Project and Math Unit plan experience. We added an easier way to recopy plans and switch between your personal plans and shared templates.
  • Diagnostic Scores on Assessments tab: We added diagnostic assessment data to the assessments tab! This displays the student’s highest diagnostic score to help inform assessment approval decisions.
  • Learners MAP data groups: We added NWEA MAP data to the Learners tab of Projects and Math Units. You can use this data to create groups for students who are developing similar foundational skills so that you can assign additional scaffolds and supports. Find out more about viewing MAP data in the Platform and using the Learner’s tab! If you are not seeing MAP data in the Platform yet, please talk to your school leader.

September 2018

  • Your Student Snapshot Message Log: We created a log of the Your Student Snapshot messages that parents have received. Learn how to access them here.
  • MAP Data Dashboard: We have made MAP data more easily available to teachers so that you can use it to inform your instructional decisions. You will be now be able to see MAP data for your students in the Platform. Learn how to access this data here.
  • Updates to the Assigning Projects and Math Units: We made improvements to the assignment process to make assigning work even more effective and efficient! You are now able to more quickly assign sets of activities and resources to students and see assets designated for differentiation.
  • Receiving Base Curriculum Updates for Projects and Math Units: Now you can see notes from our curriculum team on what’s changing and swap out your Project or Math Unit with the newest version. 
  • Parent SMS Alerts: If you choose to turn on this feature, the Platform will send automated text messages from your school to all of your parents in the Summit Learning Program about their child’s academic coursework and progress, as well as tips to support their child academically. Parents will receive approximately 2 messages per week per child, and can opt of these messages. To turn on these alerts, talk to your mentor. Learn more here.
  • Printing Project Plans: We heard feedback that teachers needed a way to review the overall scope of their projects. You can now print all days in your Project Plans at once! Click File –> Print on the Plans page to bring up your complete print dialog. Please write in more feedback if you have any other suggestions for this process!
  • Parent Help Center Articles in Spanish: We translated Parent-facing Help Center articles into Spanish.

August 2018

  • Improvements to mentoring and projects based on teacher feedback: We've made improvements to the mentoring tool and to projects based on feedback that teachers have sent in through the help desk.
  • Britannica School: You'll now see Britannica School integrated throughout the Base Curriculum. Britannica School contains thousands of learning resources in multiple formats- text, video, image and practice assessments. These resources are free to use for teachers and students when accessed through the Summit Learning Platform. Britannica School offers great features such as the ability to change reading levels and font size, English and Spanish definitions, cross-references, and citation support.
  • Mathalicious: We're offering free and complete access to math activities created by math curriculum creators Mathalicious. These lessons are designed to kick off projects and stimulate interest. We have only integrated Mathalicious activities into the Base Curriculum for 6th and 9th grade teachers, but all teachers have access to the materials. You can find these interactive, teacher-facing materials in the Plans tab of 6th and 9th grade Math Units. While normally paid sites, we're offering free access to both Britannica School and Mathalicious materials through the Summit Learning Platform.

July 2018

  • Progress Reports: We’ve heard your feedback that grade reports can be difficult to distribute to parents and students. You can now download easy-to-print PDF progress reports of student grades. Learn more here.
  • Mentoring: We launched a major new feature to make mentoring easier over the summer. The feature includes a set of in-Platform research-based mentoring agendas with the ability for students to complete a guided reflection before the check-in. Learn more here.
  • Focus Area Onboarding: Focus Area Onboarding is an interactive introduction to Focus Area pages and the Self-Directed Learning Cycle. Students will see the onboarding experience when they click on a focus area for the first time.
  • Learning Strategies: The Summit Learning Platform maintains a library of learning strategies that is accessible both to students and to teachers. The strategy library contains templates that teachers can use or print out, examples of student work, and videos that may be shown to classes or to individual students. Teachers can also recommend that their classes (or certain students) visit certain strategy pages. Learn more here.
  • Student Resources: Students will see a new Resources tab in their left side-tab. This tab houses all non-curriculum student resources, such as cognitive skill instruction, information about habits of success, and common learning strategies.
  • Platform Status Page: We created Status.summitlearning.org to alert you of platform outages. Visit this website if you think the platform might be down, and subscribe to it for updates.

June 2018

  • Typeface updates: We added some small typography updates as part of a larger effort to make the platform more readable, higher contrast, and easier to use. You’ll see these text changes on page titles (such as “Year” on the Year page) and some sub-sections (such as checkpoint titles). 
  • Updates to the Project “Overview” and “Plans” pagesIn response to teacher feedback on Projects, the Summit Learning Platform team made changes to Projects for the 2018-19 school year. We made these changes with the following goals:
    1. To pull in information from the project guides into the platform
    2. To create a more structured system to organize scaffolds and know who they are for
    3. To make it easier for teachers to plan their day to day facilitation
    Learn more about Project updates here.

May 2018

  • Update to the Data Tab: We updated the school data tab for Administrators.
  • Base Curriculum Preview:  We launched a preview where you can see the first Project in every course and an overview of each focus area. The Summit Curriculum and Instruction team will be adding continuously to the Base Curriculum between now and the end of June, and you’ll see new Projects appearing in courses as they're uploaded! Please hold off on setting up your 2018-2019 curriculum so you can take full advantage of these improvements. You’ll be able to copy the Base Curriculum once it is completed by the end of June.

April 2018

  • Data exports for unenrolled students: We heard your feedback that it’s important to access grades for students after they leave your school. We added a grades export for unenrolled students under “Students” in the “Setup” menu. Learn more here.
  • Last login data for parent and student exports: In an effort to make frequently requested data more accessible, we’ve added a “Last Access Time” column to the Parent and Student exports (also under “Students” in the “Setup” menu).
  • Student Notifications:  Students will be notified when teachers provide feedback, score Projects, write notes or respond to assessment requests.  Learn more here. 

March 2018

  • Rich text formatting in Projects: We made updates to allow you to bold, italicize, hyperlink, bullet, number, and undo/redo text in Project descriptions, essential questions, and enduring understandings.

February 2018

  • Year Page Zoom: We added the ability for students to zoom in and out of the year page. You can check out this feature here.

January 2018

  • Eliminating Content Assessment Choices: We added the ability for students to virtually 'eliminate' answers in diagnostic and Content Assessments.
  • Pacing Line in Teacher Data Tables: We heard teacher feedback that the pacing line in data tables was not accurately portraying student focus area progress. The line is now tailored to reflect each student’s expected focus area completion. 
  • Teacher Data Pages: We made minor changes to data pages to help teachers and students better understand how students are doing on particular objectives. We added a new orange "almost passed" state for objectives where students got half of the questions in that objective right and expanding the "passed" state for objectives to show as green when students get 80% right (70% for AP classes).  Previously one or more wrong answers on an objective would change its color to red, even if the student mastered the focus area. These changes apply to the student's focus area page and the teacher's focus area objectives report.
  • Year Page Hover Information: We’ve received a lot of feedback about how the year page can be more useful for students. Now we show additional information about Projects and focus areas without having to click on the item from the Year Page. Read more about why we made these changes and what changed here.
  • Improvements to the assessment approvals page: You’ll now see more information that will help you decide whether you should approve a Content Assessment request. The assessment approval page now shows if the student hasn't clicked on any resources or is skipping around between focus areas.
  • Notifications: This feature should make it easier for teachers to keep up with student requests for feedback on checkpoints, Project submissions, assessment take requests, and notes from your mentees on their progress pages. Look out for this feature in the lower left of your screen. You can read more about the feature and see an video of it in action here.
  • Goal Setting Update: We’ve received a lot of feedback about how the student goal setting tools could be more useful. To address this, we launched a set of usability improvements that help students write SMARTer goals, be able to create goals from focus areas or Projects, and generally make the features easier to use.
  • Content Assessment Integrity: We heard your feedback that students take Content Assessments for each other by logging into each other’s accounts or trading computers. We added student names to the orange bar at the top of Content Assessment windows to help you ensure that students are taking the correct assessments.
  • Desmos Calculators: Desmos calculators are available on-platform during eligible focus areas and assessments. Calculators are present in all tagged focus areas (in Math and Science), but teachers can add or remove calculator access for any focus area assessment.
  • Student Start Dates: Many teachers have written thoughtful comments asking us to improve the experience of students joining school mid-year. Upon request, we’ll now be able to shift the pacing of student work on the Year page to reflect custom start dates! This feature will often be used in conjunction with Focus Area exemptions, as a year of work may be squeezed into a shorter time period. If you’d like to set this up for one of your students, please send in a help ticket with the student’s name and entry date!
  • Shuffled Assessment Questions: Diagnostic and Content Assessment questions are now presented in randomized order, with questions interleaved with one another, rather than blocked by objective. We heard this great feature request from several teachers, and it has many benefits for students and classrooms:
    • "Interleaved" practice, in which learners apply multiple skills in one session, has been shown to both improve memory and lead to an increased transfer of learned skills (Rohrer & Taylor, 2007)
    • Randomizing increases students' ability to identify which type of question is being asked and which concepts or skills are required on each type of question. (Kornell and Bjork, 2008)
    • Randomized assessments provide more "authentic" preparation for later academic testing, such as college admission testing.

December 2017

  • Rubric Highlighting: We heard your comments that students would benefit from more actionable and specific rubric feedback. We launched a new tool that allows teachers to highlight rubric language when evaluating checkpoints and Final Products. Students can see exactly where they succeeded and where they still have room for growth. Here's a guide to the highlighting colors:
    • Green = Strong Evidence
    • Purple = Focus For Next Time
  • Focus Area Design Update We launched a redesign to the student focus area page. Your students should have seen an announcement and walkthrough on the platform introducing them to the page the first time they saw it. Learn why we are making these changes and what will be different.

November 2017

  • Rate this Project/Math Unit: Now you can rate Projects that are derived from the Base Curriculum. On the Projects page, you can click a link to a Google form that surveys how satisfied you are with the Project, what went well and what could be improved.

October 2017

  • Improvements to the goals page: We heard that it’s frustrating to see student goals day by day. Now, rather than simply navigating back-and-forth day-by-day, you can now see goals for the full week (or all of last week or all of next week) using a new drop-down. Learn more.
  • Section management: You can now add students to sections without passing out enrollment codes. Learn more.
  • Assessment Companion: We built a chrome extension called Assessment Companion that prevents students from viewing other tabs or windows when taking Content Assessments. Someone in your school’s IT department will need to install the extension on student computers. Once that’s complete, reach out to us at support@summitlearning.org to turn on the Assessment Companion. Learn more.
  • Observation Tool: We built an observation tool that allows coaches and administration to provide feedback to teachers. Learn more.

September 2017

  • Calculators: We added calculator tags to math focus areas! Tags in focus areas tell teachers and students which, if any, calculator is allowed. Students will see what type of calculator they can use in two places: on their view of the focus area, and while taking Content Assessments.

August 2017

  • Color scheme update: We’ve heard feedback that text in the platform can be hard to read for people with vision impairments who are using low-quality displays or who are using a projector. We made a small update to our color scheme that increases the contrast of all of our text.
  • Data table update: We updated the course table to allow teachers to drill down on the "overdue Projects" column to see which specific Projects are overdue in the course. Similarly, teachers who are viewing a student group table can drill down on either the "incomplete courses" or "overdue Projects" columns to see which specific courses are incomplete or have overdue Projects.
  • Improvements to the Observation Tool: We improved the observation tool to include  Look Fors, Math, PLT, Learning Center, Mentoring, and Habits / Community / Culture.

 

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