Rogers middle schools finding success with math digital instructional tool

ROGERS — The Rogers School District is partnering with a national education organization to offer personalized math instruction for students based on their grasp of important skills.

The Arkansas Department of Education has taken notice and could consider bringing these instructional methods to more schools.

The School District is using a digital tool called Teach to One Roadmaps to help students develop mathematical skills they lack, but need to know in order to engage with grade-level instructional content. The district began using the technology this year.

State-level education leaders, including Secretary of Education Jacob Oliva, visited Oakdale Middle School on Wednesday to see the new instructional method in action. Joel Rose — CEO and co-founder of New Classrooms, the organization that developed Teach to One Roadmaps — also visited and explained the program to education leaders.

District Superintendent Jeff Perry said during the February School Board meeting that student successes in the district, coupled with new programs like Cambridge International School pathways and Teach to One Roadmaps, resulted in Oliva’s visit.

“When he spoke to me, he said he was excited about what was taking place in Rogers, and he wanted to come up and see what was going on,” Perry said.

Oliva said Wednesday the state is intrigued by Teach to One Roadmaps and could one day look to bring this technology to more schools across the state if it proves successful.

“Each one of these lessons is personalized based on the gaps in skills or accelerated opportunities that this student is showing, and as we’re looking at how well it’s being implemented, there is a strong possibility that we may want to scale this across the state as well,” he said.

Erin McCain, secondary curriculum specialist for math and science for the School District, said Wednesday the district began looking for math intervention plans to target students who need extra instruction after the LEARNS Act passed. The omnibus bill signed into law by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in 2023, among other things, mandated stronger intervention plans for students struggling in specific subject areas.

“At the time, we really didn’t have a tool to help us meet needs for kids with math intervention plans,” McCain said. “So the math coaches and I started working and talking together about, like, what can we do to help kids with gaps in their learning and mathematics?”

Through research, the district determined Teach to One Roadmaps could fulfill that need. All Rogers students enrolled in sixth-grade math through Algebra I have access to the technology, according to Charles Lee, the district’s assistant superintendent for secondary education.

The program is based on the understanding students must attain certain baseline skills to engage with subsequent math instruction effectively, Rose said.

For example, fourth-grade students are expected to learn 42 math skills by the end of the year, but students need to have mastered more than 20 “predecessor skills” to engage with and learn fourth-grade math content, Rose said. By the time students get to an algebra course, they need to have mastered just under 100 of these predecessor skills.

Rose said this learning trajectory works well if all students master necessary baseline skills on time, but in reality, many students fail to master every skill they need to engage with upper-level math before advancing to those classes.

Teach to One Roadmaps blends a school’s curriculum with individual students’ skill mastery to develop a learning plan, he said.

Every student takes a diagnostic assessment to determine the baseline skills they have and which ones they lack. The program then gives recommendations for what subjects students need to study more instead of wasting time learning grade-level skills they are not ready to learn. After receiving some online and offline learning, students must pass skill assessments with at least 80% accuracy to declare mastery of a particular skill.

Rose said students can take as many tries as they need to pass the assessments. The assessments are designed to ensure any student who passes them with 100% accuracy can achieve proficiency in state-level summative assessments like the ATLAS exam.

“When we say they know the skill, they know the skill,” Rose said.

Rogers students have designated times during the school day where they can work on mastering predecessor skills through Teach to One Roadmaps. The organization’s recommendation is for students to learn two new math skills per week, McCain said.

Rose said the Teach to One Roadmaps program is in its first year and New Classrooms is still “working out the kinks,” but the organization is thrilled with how it is progressing.