McGraw-Hill Connect is an e-learning platform offered by McGraw-Hill Education. Features include course and assignment creation, grading, learning aides, e-books, and student portals.
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NWEA MAP Suite
Score 10.0 out of 10
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NWEA, a nonprofit headquartered in Portland, offers the MAP Suite, their flagship assessment platform and suite.
If you want a prepackaged option for learning that requires minimal instructor input, comes with no support, and offers a limited number of options as far as a dynamic and engaging learning experience, then this is probably the right option for you. If, on the other hand, you want a product that does a lot of different things, has excellent customer service, dynamically engages and challenges the user in a number of different activities and learning exercises, then, uh, please look elsewhere.
NWEA MAP is a great assessment for 1st grade and up. It directly aligns with the college and career standards. It can predict achievement on the ACT and state assessments. NWEA MAP used with kindergarten is not as aligned. It is very difficult for new kindergarteners to take. Most students guess because the assessment gets very long for them. It is a great assessment for the middle of the year for high achievers and at the end of the year for all students who are entering 1st grade.
Integration with Canvas is seamless and easy to use.
Assignment completion, for students, is straightforward and easy to use.
The SmartBook allows students to read as they are tested with questions and this helps them learn the material easily without having first trying to read, memorize a chapter and then answer questions.
NWEA MAP has technical issues during prime testing times (fall, winter, and spring). It is as if the system gets overloaded and cannot handle all of the students logged on at once.
I would like to be able to see the reports immediately. Currently, you have to wait until the next day for the scores to be available.
Personally, I did not encounter McGraw-Hill support. However, I worked with colleagues who needed support and were able to receive in a timely manner. Overall, McGraw Hill Connect is user-friendly (at least from teacher interface) and easy to navigate, which minimizes the need to reach out for support. The help button is useful and provides plenty of immediate support.
The customer service is phenomenal! Every time I call, which is not very often, I always get a friendly agent that works hard to solve my problem and does not give up. They look at all angles of the issue and will go above and beyond to help. For example, our students are rostered by connecting NWEA MAP Suite to our SIS, and sometimes there is a glitch. NWEA will call the other software company if necessary, to help get the glitch fixed.
McGraw-Hill Connect does a great job being user friendly and has relevant tasks and activities for what needs to be taught. Blackboard does a good job being used as a communication and quiz board and Cengage operates based on activities similar to Connect.
NWEA MAP Suite is more directly aligned to our college and career readiness state standards and ACT. The questions are more rigorous than Renaissance Star Assessments. The reports on the NWEA MAP Suite are more detailed and exact in where the data came from.
Because it did not integrate well with BBlearn and the adaptive quizzing did not function properly, we lost a great deal of time and had to face a large number of student issues. If it had worked well, we may still be using it.
Allowed us to test students 3x a year to better evaluate if a student is growing or not.
The data from the MAP assessment may be included as part of the placement review process along with other data points, such as student work samples and other assessment data to help determine if a student is ready for the next grade level.
