Teacher’s Guide Introduction
3 How to Access the Vocab App
4 Student Experience
5 Number of Words Received Per Day and Backlog
6 Differentiated Streams of Content
8 Levels
8 Stats
9 Using the App Offline
9 Teacher Experience
10 Student Lists
10 Student Stats
11 Word Lists
12 Word Information
14 Activities
15 Narrative Multiple Choice
15 Find Synonyms and Antonyms
15 Order Synonyms and Antonyms
16 Word Match
16 Totally ReDictionary
17 Two of a Kind
17 Roots Exist
18 Vocabulary Videos
18 Gradebook
19 2 Introduction Welcome to Amplify’s Vocab App. We’re really excited to share it with you, so let’s get started. The purpose of this app is to help students master vocabulary words. We define mastery as when a student is able to use a new word in their writing and in speech. Research has shown that to master a word, a student needs to encounter it many times, preferably in a variety of media and in a way that appeals to different learning styles. This app is designed to increase the number of times that students see a new vocabulary word, in multiple contexts, while practicing different vocabulary skills that are determined, in part, by the Common Core. In addition to the work in the app, we want to encourage you to still use strategies like word walls and Amplify’s paper­based vocabulary games like Versus. The Vocab App is designed to work with classroom instruction. You should encourage students to use a lesson’s vocabulary words in their writing, and you should try to use those words, if possible, when addressing your classes and during over­the­shoulder conferences. The words in the app come from the texts students are studying in each unit, as well as academic vocabulary lists. We’ve chosen words that students are likely to see across multiple texts and that are integral to understanding key concepts in each unit. The Words To Use section of the Teacher Lesson Brief lists the vocabulary words students will first encounter during that lesson. Words to Know, in the student view, lists the two important words for that lesson and the words that will appear in the various grade­level streams. The important words appear for all students along with the words from their specific stream. 3 How to Access the Vocab App For teachers, the Vocab App is accessible from the Global Navigation menu. For students and teachers, the Vocab App is accessible from the link in the first student activity of a lesson. When students launch the app, they will be taken to their personal homepage. When teachers launch the app, they will be taken to a list of their classes. 4 Student Experience The first time a student clicks on the app, they will get onboarding messages from the Helper and see a blue and a green button. In addition to introducing the student to the app and its features, the Helper responds to how well a student is doing and occasionally offers random, fun facts. Grade Level Readers should click the blue button. The blue button starts the student with the Core stream. ELLs s hould click the green button. The green button starts the student with the ELL stream. Teachers should decide beforehand which stream a student should join the first time he or she opens and uses the Vocab App. After pushing the button, a Yes/No confirmation appears, and if Yes is chosen, the first set of words drops, and the Go button takes students to the first in a series of activities. (See Activities section of this document.) 5 Each word has a series of dots next to it. The number of dots corresponds to the number of activities available for the word. Progress toward mastery is indicated by the state of the dots next to each word. Open dots represent new activities or activities attempted incorrectly. Closed dots represent activities completed correctly. New lesson words will have all open dots. Number of Words Received Per Day and Backlog When students sign into the app from a new lesson, the app homepage shows the new words a student will work on for that day. Two will be important words that all students will receive regardless of their stream, and two or more will be new words specific to a student’s stream. Once encountered, a word will stay in a student’s backlog until he or she has correctly completed all the available encounters with this word. Over the course of using the Vocab App, students will have multiple encounters with a word in their backlogs, at least a day apart. The Vocab App gives students chances to encounter the word again and again in different activity types in order to gain mastery. 6 A list of mastered words is accessible from a link at the bottom of the app. 7 Differentiated Streams of Content The Vocab App includes fully differentiated streams of content for Striving, Core, and Challenge Level readers for each grade. It also includes three fully differentiated streams of ELL content for Emerging/Substantial, Expanding/Moderate, and Bridging/Light students. These streams are adaptive, and adjust based on students’ performance. Students will move between streams depending on the number of correct or incorrect answers. If a student gets four answers in a row correct, he or she will seamlessly move to the next stream up. If a student gets four answers in a row incorrect, he or she will seamlessly move to the next stream down. That is, a student could begin in the Striving Level stream but as they do well in their vocabulary work, the app will send them increasingly challenging words. These stream changes are only visible to the student as subtle hints from the Helper that something has changed, allowing him or her to focus solely on learning the words he or she needs. Stream changes do not affect words in the student’s backlog; only the new words they receive, i.e., backlog words from previous streams will still be delivered for mastery. Levels As students progress through the app, they level up through different themes. Themes are represented by different backgrounds and Helper skins, and by a level number in the bottom right. 8 Stats Vocabulary activity results will appear in the Stats view. Dials show students’ total activities completed, longest streak of correct answers, overall accuracy in the app, and number of mastered words. The calendar shows activities completed vs. correct on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Using the App Offline The Vocab App can run offline once a set of words has been loaded. You can tell that you’ve entered offline mode and are no longer connected to the Internet when the Wi­Fi symbol turns red and has a slash through it. When back online, students can get new sets of words and the app will update Gradebook with information on any work done while offline. 9 Teacher Experience The first time teachers launch the Vocab App, they will see a list of their sections. Clicking on a section takes the teacher to the Student list. Student Lists The Student list view shows overall class accuracy, and some high­level information about each student: correct encounters o
ver total encounters for the day, mastered words o
ver total words encountered overall, accuracy overall, and current stream. Clicking Export List downloads a CSV of class stats onto the local computer. Clicking on a student in the list takes the teacher to the stats for that student. 10 Teachers can sort each column of information alpha­numerically. For example, sorting the class by overall accuracy will reveal which students might need extra help. Student Stats In each student’s Stats view, teachers see total activities completed, longest streak of correct answers, overall accuracy in the app, number of mastered words, and activities completed vs. correct on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. 11 The Stats view for teachers includes a link to student word lists, which show all words in play for a student, progress toward mastery for each word, and a separate list of mastered words similar to the one students see. The Stats view for teachers also shows the current stream for the student, and offers the ability for teachers to change the student’s stream, which will result in easier or harder words being delivered in the next new set. Word Lists The Word list view offers filtered access to all word and activity content in the Vocab App. In this view, teachers can quickly find specific words to review related information and activities. 12 The search field is the quickest way to find a specific word. A searched list of words shows part of speech and streams for each word. Words are clickable to show more information. Teachers can also filter the view to show words for any unit or sub­unit in the curriculum. A filtered list of words shows the lesson number, part of speech, and streams for each word. Columns are alpha­numerically sortable to make it easier to find specific words, or words in specific streams or lessons. Clicking Export List downloads the current words into a CSV on the 13 local computer. Clicking on a word takes the teacher to more information about the word and its activities. Word Information The Word Information view shows all the content and activities we have authored for a given word. Some words have more content and activities than others. Some of the word content is student­facing (used in activities) and some content is not. Clicking on a synonym or an antonym of a word takes the teacher to the synonym or antonym Word Information page. Selecting activities for a word and clicking Launch Activities will start a full preview of the activities—exactly what students are seeing. 14 Activities The Vocab App includes activities designed to meet vocabulary standards. Narrative Multiple Choice Students practice the skill of learning words in context. Each narrative provides at least two context clues to help a student figure out the meaning of a word. Four of the 12 Narrative Multiple Choice themes. Find Synonyms and Antonyms Using a game­like interaction, students match a word to four of its synonyms or four of its antonyms, seeing their score as they go. 15 Order Synonyms and Antonyms Students explore word nuance by ordering a word and its synonyms or antonyms according to shades of meaning. This part of the activity is entirely subjective, and it’s up to you as the teacher to respond to a student’s line of argument. Word Match Word Match focuses on ELL­appropriate words from the unit’s text. Students are asked to match a word’s English definition, Spanish definition, context sentence, audio pronunciation, and visual definition. Currently, Word Match only contains Spanish­language translations. Additional languages are coming soon! 16 Totally ReDictionary Students get a chance to practice dictionary skills such as looking up phrases, multiple meanings of a word, parts of speech, and identifying a word’s etymology using our dictionary scavenger hunt activity. This activity can be done using both a print and an online dictionary so that students get used to using both types of sources. Two of a Kind Students further explore word meaning through analogies. 17 Roots Exist Roots Exist is an introduction to the concept of morphology. Students will encounter two of these activities in each grade. Four of the six Roots Exist themes. Vocabulary Videos Video days will still exist. On video days, there will be no link to the Vocab App. Teachers will be expected to project the vocabulary video to the whole class. Students will answer questions in­lesson. 18 Gradebook Vocabulary activity results will appear in Gradebook. Teachers can incorporate results into students’ overall grades. Results appear as the number of activities correct out of the number of activities given to a student. Results are tabulated per lesson , and they apply to the last lesson a student clicked on. If students do backlog work after completing lesson words, the grade will reflect that. So, on the first lesson days, if a student has received four activities and got X number correct, their results will display as X/4. As students acquire a backlog of activities, the denominator will change. So, if a student has a backlog of 16 activities and has only gotten eight correct, their grade for the day will display as 8/16. 19