Illuminate Education offers their student assessment management platform, Illuminate Data & Assessment (or Illuminate DnA), providing a means of tracking student standardized testing, test data analysis, and other features.
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Renaissance Accelerated Math
Score 8.1 out of 10
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Renaissance Accelerated Math® aims to provide deep math practice at the unique levels students need for them to grow – from foundational skills to grade-level standards. The software integrates with Star Math data to place students in instructional groups. Each group then receives tailored assignments based on state standards. Assignments incorporate multiple skill levels and tasks at Depth of Knowledge levels 2 and 3. Fast scoring and reporting give educators and their students immediate…
I think it is well suited for K-12 schools, especially for tracking student growth over time. The ability to easily upload state assessment results and produce pre-built reports provides teachers actionable data. The online assessment system is more appropriate for secondary (grades 6-12) students in our district due to the types of assessments our elementary (K-5) students complete. I have some experience with other systems and think that the illuminate software offers more flexibility in the types of data that can be stored.
It's great for practice but not as good as other programs with lessons that support students when they get into trouble. I'd prefer a video to pop up for students to review when they bomb a particular practice. I'd like them to watch the video and then do the lesson again. After that, if they need help they should come to me. That is one thing I like better about Moby Math. I also like Moby better at identifying and providing missing skills that are below grade level. With Renaissance Accelerated Math, I have to separate students into a variety of banks. That is time-consuming and may not specifically target all the skills that a student needs or does not require.
“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! ;)
Tech support seemed good but our main issue was never resolved. We received attention and someone was working on our issue, but they could never figure out why our student count was off for 1 grade level even though they said our data looked great.
The customized reports were powerful, but there was so much to learn for the average administrative user, like a principal, to get the detailed data they need. You would have to have a dedicated person to create customized reports.
At some point, our representative just stopped calling and there was no further contact. Then our rep left the company and the new rep only sent one email notifying us of the change. That was almost a year ago.
Illuminate DnA is a very usable system. A few items to learn and set up can be a bit time-consuming. However, once set up it is easy to use and powerful for a school that staff can master quickly. It has more features then we actually use but I hope we will over time.
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.
Our issue was never resolved so that we could use the software to produce accurate reports. Their tech department looked into the issue several times and could never figure out why our student was off and then they just closed the case. They confirmed we were performing the correct steps to load the data and they confirmed our data looked accurate. Great, but again why was our student count off?
Renaissance has great videos and articles in their help section. They also have an online user community that has great discussions about using their products, access to free webinars, and great tips. They have the honor roll program/challenge to help users track their progress and talk to other users for ideas and tips. Most one-on-one help comes from our instructional facilitators in our county.
Illuminate DnA offers more flexibility and additional features that our previous Data Director system offered. We were looking for a system that offered an online assessment portal and the ability to create elementary standard-based report cards when we selected the illuminate DnA software. We were impressed with the ability to easily create custom reports and liked the comprehensive student profile page.
Accelerated Reading and STAR Assessments. We use all three to help prepare students for state assessments. They are all targeting a different area so one is not better than the other. We use the reading portion to help with growth in reading and the STAR Assessments to pinpoint those who struggle with reading to prepare interventions.
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.
