Managing student Platform Supports

Platform Supports are tools that help students with defined learning needs to access their Focus Area assessment experiences. Platform Admins can enable a Platform Support for any individual student or group of students. These supports are especially helpful for students with an Individualized Education Program (IEP), Section 504 Plan, or who are multilingual learners. It is important that only the students who demonstrate a need have the appropriate Platform Support(s) enabled to ensure students do not experience an over-reduction of rigor.

The following Platform Supports are available to be enabled:

• Text-to-speech: text in all Focus Area diagnostics and Content Assessments is read aloud to students.
• Focus Area Manual Mastery: Focus Areas are marked as mastered. These masteries do count towards a student’s grade and appear as mastered on the year page.
• Focus Area Exemptions: Focus Area is marked as exempted. These exemptions do not count towards a student’s grade.
• Reduced Questions: Focus Area Content Assessments questions are lowered from 10 questions to 7, 8, or 9 questions for all Focus Areas in a specific course.

To learn more about what to consider before enabling Platform Supports and see additional curricular resources that can be used to support students with defined learning needs, check out Differentiation Supports for Students with Individualized Education Programs and Section 504 Plans.

In this article, you can find information about: 

• Enabling text-to-speech for multiple students 
• Reducing the number of Content Assessment questions
• Exempting Focus Areas
• Granting Focus Area masteries 
• Filtering for Platform Supports the Students page

You can see which platform supports are enabled for each student by viewing the Platform Supports column on the Students page.

Enabling text-to-speech for multiple students

Platform Admins can enable the text-to-speech tool on Focus Area diagnostics and content assessments for several students. Text-to-speech on assessments is for all content and diagnostic assessments across all courses that the student will take. 

1. Go to Settings.
2. Click Students.
3. Search for the student’s name and select the box to the left of their name.
4. Click Add Platform Support.
5. Select Text-to-speech - Content Assessments from the drop-down menu.
6. Click the Off toggle to switch to On.
7. Check the acknowledgment box. 
8. Click Save. 

Reducing the number of Content Assessment questions 

Platform Admins can adjust the number of questions on Content Assessments for several students who are in the same course. When you enable this support for a student, the assessment questions are reduced across all objectives rather than by a specific objective. This ensures that a similar level of content is still being covered in an assessment.

1. Go to Settings in your left navigation menu.
2. Click  Students.
3. Search for the student’s name and select the box to the left of their name.
4. Repeat step 3 for each student in the same course.
5. Click Add Platform Support.
6. Select Reduce Questions - Content Assessments from the drop-down menu.
7. Enter the course name. *Only courses which are shared amongst the selected students will be available to select from. If you don’t see your desired shared course, you must deselect the students who are not enrolled in the course. 
8. Select the number of assessment questions.
9. Check the acknowledgment box. 
10. Click Save.  

Exempting Focus Areas

Platform Admins can exempt several students from completing the same Focus Area when they transfer to a school mid-year. Admins can also use the Platform Supports to exempt a single student from multiple Focus Areas at once. You should not enable this support if a student is behind and want to catch them up.

1. Go to Settings in your left navigation bar.
2. Click on Students. 
3. Search for the student’s name and select the box to the left of their name.
4. If relevant, repeat step 3 for each student. 
5. Click Add Platform Support.
6. Select Focus Area Exemptions from the drop-down menu.
7. Search for and select the relevant Focus Area(s).
8. Enter the reason for the exemption. 
9. Check the acknowledgment box. 
10. Click Save.  

Grant Focus Area masteries 

Platform admins can grant multiple Focus Area masteries at once for several students that are assigned the same Focus Area. Manually granted Focus Areas masteries are shown as green or mastered on the student's year page. If you'd like the Focus Area to not appear at all, please see this article on how to exempt students from Focus Areas.  

1. Go to Settings in your left navigation menu.
2. Click on Students.
3. Search for the student’s name and select the box to the left of their name.
4. Click Add Platform Support.
5. Select Focus Area Manual Mastery from the drop-down menu. 
6. Search for and select the relevant Focus Area(s).
7. Enter the reason for the mastery. 
8. Check the acknowledgment box. 
9. Click Save.

How do I filter my view on the Students page?

You can filter your view of Students to more easily manage Platform Supports. To filter,

1. Select the Filter dropdown at the top.
2. Click Add Filter.
   
3. Select and enter details for the filter that you want to apply.
4. If you want to add an additional filter, click +Add Filter.
   
5. Click the X on the left-hand side to remove a previously selected filter.