Pacing Prompts

Context

The teacher sets a target score between 80-100 for mastery of a learning objective within IXL, depending on the student and the standard. Generally, once students achieve an IXL SmartScore of 80 on each objective, the teacher conducts an informal check in. During the check-in, the teacher asks questions to determine the student’s level of knowledge of the learning objective to avoid the most common inefficiency in this system: students spending too much time getting to 100. Teachers report that the two underlying causes of this are generally that students:

1. Know the material and are enjoying getting the problems right, or;
2. Are simply following the IXL prompts, which may ask too many questions to determine mastery.

By providing a quick check for understanding, and possibly a little motivation, the teacher is able to determine whether the student is ready to move on, and if so, prompts them to do so.