Spotlighting ASSISTments Teachers

At ASSISTments, we keep teachers in the driver's seat because you are the experts of your classrooms. You know what your students need to grow, learn, and be successful. We are eternally grateful for your work and for letting ASSISTments be a part of it.

For Teacher Appreciation Month, we are spotlighting six of our amazing teacher users who are doing great work and using ASSISTments in innovative ways.

Maria Catherine Borres
– California 

How Maria Uses ASSISTments
Maria has been using ASSISTments for two years with her 8th Graders. She starts class with a ‘Do Now’ in ASSISTments either as a review of the previous lesson or to start a new lesson. She also uses ASSISTments to check student understanding at the end of her lessons.  

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How It Helps Her Students
The data Maria gets through ASSISTments helps her in creating an intentional seating plan for her class which, when combined with student collaboration, creates an environment of elevated confidence wherein students are more likely to give each other support and also ask for help when they need it. Maria is also able to spend more time lesson planning (and less time manually grading assignments) because of the automatic scoring that is done within ASSISTments. To hear more about Maria uses ASSISTments data to create an intentional seating plan, check out our Targeted Webinar on Using ASSISTments to Support Equity and Inclusion. 

David Morrison
– Kentucky  

How He Uses ASSISTments
Having taught for 12 years, David has seen a difference in using ASSISTments for the last two years with his Algebra 1 and Geometry students. He reviews all data reports and utilizes student scores to formulate grades based on accuracy. For example, since he can see when a student has made multiple attempts before ultimately getting the problem right, he can adjust the score to give the student full points for the final result. In the past, David has taught lessons where he wasn’t sure how well students understood key skills and knowledge, so he likes that now, with ASSISTments, he can see if students truly understand before moving on to the next lesson. David shares the anonymized data with his class in order to share key learnings and explain how they drive class instruction.

How It Helps His Students
David's students benefit from the time he saves in the planning and grading phases of his instruction because ASSISTments aligns with his curriculum and automatic problem scoring.

Reema Alnizami
- Virginia  

How Reema Uses ASSISTments
Reema, an ASSISTments Certified Educator, has used ASSISTments for two years with her 7th-12th grade students to assign homework, small-group work, unit tests, and individualized tasks. She describes ASSISTments as her teaching assistant and something that she can rely on for all teaching duties. 

How It Helps Her Students
Students are able to complete a subset of their assignment based on their specific needs because of the “student choice” mode available within ASSISTments that Reema selects for her students during unit reviews. She loves the ability to align the purpose of the assignment to how they are presented to her students (whether that be in linear, random, and/or student choice).  

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Jewelyn Williams – Washington DC  

How Jewelyn Uses ASSISTments
Jewelyn is an 8th-grade teacher who has used ASSISTments for four years. She loves utilizing ASSISTments Skillbuilders to give students additional practice on targeted Common Core skills. 

How It Helps Her Students
In addition to using Skillbuilders, Jewelyn creates her own problem sets based on concepts she wants to revisit or introduce before the lesson is taught in class. Jewelyn also uses ASSISTments to help students get acclimated to filling in responses on the computer. This is an important skill considering that students will be completing several computerized assessments during the school year.

Bonnie Delk
– Missouri  

How Bonnie Uses ASSISTments
Bonnie has used ASSISTments with her 6th Graders for two years. She finds the ability to select specific problems and schedule assignments ahead of time particularly helpful.  

How It Helps Her Students
Bonnie has found that students respond very positively to receiving immediate feedback. Many students have shared how much they appreciate the feedback and hints when responding to challenging questions. As a result, she has seen students taking ownership of their learning by asking her to try assignments again after reviewing notes and identifying mistakes.  

Marybeth Fleming - Massachusetts  

How Marybeth Uses ASSISTments
Marybeth is a new ASSISTments teacher. She began using ASSISTments this school year with her 6th-8th Grade students and has seen her students' motivation for learning grow as a result. She leverages ASSISTments to create a safe and secure space in her classroom where students understand that making mistakes is a key part of the learning process. 

How It Helps Her Students
Marybeth shares ASSISTments data during math class to increase student investment and perseverance.  Students in her classes set daily goals for their average scores so they have a clear goal in mind as they work. Students use the data to determine what went wrong on key problems. This has created an atmosphere where students can confidently share and view their mistakes while learning from them together.

These are just a few of our amazing teacher users. We hope their uses of ASSISTments have inspired you as much as they have inspired us. Thank you for letting ASSISTments be a part of your classroom and for the positive impact you make on your students. 

We will continue to spotlight our excellent teachers throughout the year as a part of our monthly newsletter.