Educators can monitor ST Math progress by two different metrics, Puzzle Goal Progress, and Journey Progress.
| Puzzle Goal Progress (PGP) | Journey Progress (JP) | |
| Description |
The Puzzle Goal Progress awards kids puzzles for anything they are prompted to play including Bonus Objectives and Assignments and Auto Assignments in the current term. Replayed levels do not count toward puzzle goal progress unless they were assigned by the teacher. |
The Journey Progress feature provides a metric for educators to determine how far a student has progressed this term in their currently assigned grade level journey. Assignments will count toward the JP only if they are part of a student's current grade level Journey. |
| How is it calculated? | By taking “the total number of puzzles completed in the current term” from any grade level divided by “the total number of puzzles recommended for that grade.” | By taking “the total number of levels completed this term in the currently assigned journey” divided by “the total number of levels in the currently assigned journey.” |
| What does it look like? |
This number will be shown as a rounded, whole number in percentage form and fraction form. The percentage will go over 100% when students have completed more puzzles than are recommended for that grade. Students can see this number in their account. |
This number will be shown as a rounded, whole number in percentage form and fraction form. The percentage will not go over 100%. When students have completed their assigned journey, a checkmark will replace the percentage. Students can not see this number from their account. |
| Benefit of use |
PGP will provide the user with a picture of how many puzzles a school or a student has done. The numerator (puzzles completed) can be larger than the denominator (puzzles recommended for that grade); therefore, the percentage could go over 100. This could be a good metric for schools to use when:
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JP will provide the user with a picture of how much of the grade-level journey has been completed. This could be a good metric to use when:
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FAQ
Q: Which metric should I use?
A: At MIND, we provide both metrics since we recommend you use them together. Most schools will use the Puzzle Goal Progress for their bulletin boards and competitions since it gives credit to students for all the work they are completing, but cross checking it against Journey Progress will help identify any students that are not experiencing much content in the grade level they are assigned. Seeing the two numbers next to each other will help tell the more complete story.
Q: Is it bad to have some off-grade-level objectives assigned?
A: In general, we want to get all students to thrive on-grade-level; however, ST Math has intentionally designed functionality to allow educators to customize the experience for their students. There are times when the best thing for a student is to give them some work not on their current grade level journey; however, in most cases having them work on-grade-level is ideal.
Q: Why are the two so different?
A: For most students, these two metrics will be very similar all year; however, if a student has been assigned many objectives below or above their grade level, the numbers may grow apart. A wide discrepancy between the two would be caused by a student completing a lot of content that is not in their assigned journey. As described above, most often this is not needed, but educators know their students best and have the freedom to have them work off-grade-level when academically appropriate. Similarly, since Journey Progress only reflects work completed in the student's currently assigned grade level, students who have their assigned grade level changed mid-year will see a change in their Journey Progress, but no decrease in their Puzzle Goal Progress.
Q: Why is one assessed with levels and one with puzzles?
A: The end result is very similar since most levels have the same number of puzzles. However, due to data constraints, the Journey Progress metric is calculated using levels and not puzzles. Not only does the calculation require counting the number of levels a student has completed, it requires a confirmation that the levels completed are actually part of the assigned grade-level journey. For these calculations to occur at the puzzle level, it would cause load times to be too long.
Q: Why did my student that only worked on-grade-level reach 100% faster in Puzzle Goal Progress than they did Journey Progress? Shouldn’t those be the same?
A: The Puzzle Goal Progress is exactly that - a goal. A number of puzzles was set for each grade level that is how many puzzles a student should be able to finish in their school year, so it is not exactly the same as the actual total number of puzzles for their grade.
Q: If a third grader is assigned the second grade journey, what will the Journey Progress read?
A: The Journey Progress will measure whatever grade level journey is assigned. So if a third grader was assigned the second grade journey and had finished half of it, that student’s Journey Progress would be 50% regardless of how much 3rd grade content they had played.