Freckle’s differentiation platform is designed to makes it easy for teachers to reach each student at their own individual level—without having to spend extra time preparing many different lessons every day.
The Freckle platform was designed by Freckle Education in San Francisco, and was acquired and is now supported by Renaissance Learning (acquired May 2019).
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TalentSorter
Score 9.1 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
TalentSorter is a cloud-based candidate assessment tool that aims to put ease and accuracy behind hiring decisions. Seeing the data from an applicant's assessment is like putting on X-Ray glasses – it goes beyond their resume so you know if they will thrive and perform in the role, meet company standards and gel with team. The vendor states the results are: - Reduce time sorting resumes - Don't waste time interviewing the wrong people - Increase on-the-job…
Freckle is a fantastic online learning platform. I think it works well in multiple learning environments. Last year I used Freckle in a distance learning model and this year on individual iPads in class. I love that it is a quick platform to assess student achievement. I haven't experienced a scenario where Freckle would fail however, lack of access to the internet is always a factor.
“Kids don’t care what you know until they know that you care.”
One of the very first things I learned my first five years of teaching, except that student teaching does not really prepare you, is that it is my job to help my students succeed, not to just give them a grade. In the beginning, I taught the lesson, assigned work, administered tests, and took grades. I did that because that is how we are supposed to determine efficiency. Right? No, Wrong. I learned this the hard way and, sadly and regrettably, at the expense of my students at that time. Over time, I noticed how sometimes it took re-teaching along with small group instruction and interventions for students to understand and master the concepts. Since then, I have allowed for them to fix, re-do, and re-re-do their work, as needed.
I focus on my interventions just as much as I do my initial teaching of the objective. Making sure that they truly understand and master the content before moving on to another objective helps me just as much as it helps them. It saves me from continually re-teaching. Slow and steady does win the race. This approach allows me to help the student master objectives with more efficiency.
Accelerated Math has allowed for me to individualize my instruction and interventions. I love this program. Truly! I have three types of students; above, on target, and below. This program allows for growth in each area. However, I have found the most growth in my bottom quartile. Why? I believe it is because I am able to recognize a problem or issue with a particular objective immediately. I, then, can address that issue immediately before the bad habits or wrong approach is repeated.
This program is masked as a whole-group classroom approach, however, the most important components are found under the mask. One-on-one instruction is how I describe it to educators. My students are actively engaged in their own learning. They are also actively engaged in the learning of their peers, as well. I use a lot of peer tutoring techniques. They have access to knowing who is also working on mastering the same objective(s) they are working on plus they know who has already mastered said objective. This allows them to know who to go to for effective help. They are able to steer their own learning to a point. They can ask a peer or me. They can get on Accel math and look at the objective and see completed answers for a reference. This also boosts the confidence of their own understanding. They feel confident in having control of the path they want to use for gaining knowledge. Peer-tutoring and peer-discussions give them the opportunity to say out loud what they are thinking/feeling about a concept and rationalize their approach to evaluating said concept. As the teacher, I play various roles. I can teach, facilitate a small group, or just be an observer. A lot of times, I just ask open-ended questions to jump start their own questions.
Accel Math has assisted my math classrooms with tremendous gains. My test scores have gone up significantly. My students have a greater sense of accomplishment since they have been given the "driver's seat" for their own learning. This makes my heart smile! ;)
We decided to have a few prior employees who were our best, and who remained the longest - ultimately a perfect fit for us, complete the TalentSorter questionaire. Both former employees scored very high and were spot on in meeting our unique criteria that TalentSorter allowed us to set up. That reverse approach really impressed us and also confirmed we had set our criteria correctly to help us sort through applicants. We now require all applicants go through TalentSorter before we will even look at their resume.
TalentSorter took the five character traits that Fortune 500 companies deem most valuable and added many more to help us get a real sense of the individual. It allowed us to gain a much more complete image of the whole person, not just what they want to reveal in their resume, but what is revealed by the questions TalentSorter poses to them and are rated based on the criteria we select as priority.
TalentSorter offers a unique approach to screening applicants using what they call "Predictive Human Analytics" its what we found to be a products that helps find a fit / match between employee and employer values and priorities - with the objective of increasing the quality of the work experience for all. Now that we did the favourite ex-employee test we are confident we will attract the right people and increase retention.
Talent Sorter offers everything in one bucket with a dashboard that ranks best fit candidates, this really assisted our sorting where we focused mainly on the highest ranking candidates. And it captures resumes and ranks intelligence, provides a summary - its a genuine time saver and organizes all applicant material.
As an side we discovered that TalentSorter works like a pre-screen for applicants. The very process eliminates "window shoppers" and the like, who are broadcasting their resume to any and all job postings without consideration.
I am new to TalentSorter and still discovering all its incredible benefits to our recruitment process, so at this stage in time I have no criticism for improvement.
I have used Freckle for a long time, even before the premium version. If my district were not to renew the program, I would utilize the free options as a digital tool to assess standards. Love it
As a tech savvy person, I found Accelerated Math to be easy to learn. There are a ton of options to display your data and integrate your students learning abilities into the program. It can, however, be a little overwhelming for a tech beginner and if they don't have someone to walk them through the initial steps and get them started, I can imagine it might be difficult for them to get going.
It is consistently available with outages planned and communicated well in advance. The outages also seem to be planned to provide the least disruption to teachers.
I like the support I receive with Renaissance Accelerated Math. I like that I can quickly and easily print the problems I need for interventions. I like the hands-on lessons with Engage but it is too scripted for my tastes. I gave up on I-Ready years back because it was too complex. I still use Moby for filling in gaps. I use Study Island for my higher students after they work through Renaissance Accelerated Math.
If there is going to be an outage for service, Renaissance does a great job of communicating that well in advance to allow the faculty to plan accordingly.
Thanks to the practices, exercises, and tests, by end of year 85% of my students will be on grade level or above and those who struggle will make significant growth.
I like that I can quickly assess and fix misconceptions with a quick print out of a couple of problems.
TalentSorter has reduced the number of inappropriate applicants. Im able to tailor each job posted.
It scores and ranks applicants with the highest fit to our criteria.
It helps me be better organized and serves as an excellent interview tool, affording me to ask deeper questions and explore where that individual is at and where they are headed.
We are finding better suited individuals, where in the past we may have overlooked them because our sorting was based solely on resume content relevancy, now we are looking at people with the best fit and those who are a fit are happier, more engaged, find passion, pride and are easier to train and can take pride and find passion in their role.
