a guide for parents & tutors - smart tutor · 3324 ne 32nd street. for lauderdale, fl 33308 | 2...

SmartTutor.com User Manual

A Guide for Parents & Tutors

3324 NE 32nd Street. For Lauderdale, FL 33308 | www.SmartTutor.com

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Table of Contents

Welcome ......................................................................................................................... 2

Program Objectives ......................................................................................................... 3

Program Overview........................................................................................................... 4

Assessment ..................................................................................................................... 5

Curriculum Overview ....................................................................................................... 6

Reading ....................................................................................................................... 6

Math ............................................................................................................................. 7

Instructional Model .......................................................................................................... 8

Applications ................................................................................................................... 10

Parent Account .............................................................................................................. 11

Parent Logging on / Logout ........................................................................................... 11

Lesson Library Tab........................................................................................................ 12

Reviewing Lessons in the Lesson Library .................................................................. 12

Assigning Lessons ..................................................................................................... 16

Removing Lessons .................................................................................................... 16

Reports Tab .................................................................................................................. 17

My Account Tab ............................................................................................................ 20

Change Account Info ................................................................................................. 20

Manage Student Accounts ......................................................................................... 24

Update Credit Card / Subscription Plan ..................................................................... 26

View Payments .......................................................................................................... 28

How-To Videos Tab....................................................................................................... 29

Help Tab ........................................................................................................................ 30

Student Account ............................................................................................................ 33

Student Logging on / Logging Off .............................................................................. 33

How to Start the Assessment .................................................................................... 33

Notes / Comments / Questions ..................................................................................... 36


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Welcome

Dear Parent,

Welcome to the Parent Guide! Parents and educators all over the country are using

Smart Tutor to support differentiated instruction and provide targeted learning to their

children and child or students. We are happy to welcome you to our family, and we

hope you find our Parent Guide useful.

Smart Tutor was designed to be user-friendly and very easy to implement in your home

or tutoring program. Since it provides your children and child or students with

instructional content automatically based on their assessment results, many parents

and educators find that they only need to run reports once a week to monitor their child

or student progress. Others like to explore all of Smart Tutor’s features in order to attain

the greatest benefit for their child. This guide is designed to meet the needs of both

these groups.

� If you would like to get a better understanding of the Reports section, feel free to

jump ahead to page 17.

� If you would like to explore how you can support differentiated instruction by

assigning additional lessons to your child, please go through the Lesson Library

section, which begins on page 12.

� If you need further assistance, you can explore the Help section online as

described on page 30.

Last revised: April 2014


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Program Objectives

� Assess child or students to determine their appropriate skill level

� Establish individualized instruction for each child or student

� Monitor and review child or student progress by accessing reports

� Identify child or students in need of remediation and intervention

� Help build skills that allow child or students to perform better on tests


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Program Overview

What is Smart Tutor™?

Smart Tutor is an online learning system that is perfect for use in school, afterschool or

at home. Smart Tutor offers a revolutionary technology that automatically provides

assessment-driven differentiated instruction and increases achievement in weeks rather

than months. It is designed to accelerate learning, increase your child’s motivation and

improve their test scores in reading and math. And since every child is automatically

assessed and provided with an individualized learning program, parents and educators

have no extra work to do!

Program highlights:

� 100% Web-based – No installation or download

� Curriculum from K to 5th grade

� Essential Reading & Math skills

� Automatic Placement Assessment – No human interaction!

� Automatically aligns child or students to self-paced instruction at a sub-skill and

sub-grade level

� Prescriptive & Differentiated Instruction

� Friendly Instruction and Assessment Data Reports

� Access anywhere in the world!


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Assessment Our adaptive placement assessment allows parents to evaluate what the child knows

and do not know prior to beginning the Smart Tutor program. If your child or students

answer many of the questions correctly, the questions automatically become harder. If

they start to give the wrong answers, the questions automatically get easier.

Other highlights:

� Determines which lessons your child or students need to

complete in order to learn specific skills and concepts

� Creates an individualized educational program for each

child AUTOMATICALLY

� Ensures that your child interest is high and learning time

is low by allowing them to focus only on the skills they

need

� Bookmarks where the student stops, allowing them to

complete the test in one or several sittings

� Helps child or students stay motivated and focused through the use of quick

interactive ‘breaks’

Assessment Tips:

� Do not help child during the assessment!

� First 5 questions will not count towards placement, they

are practice questions

� Ensure sound is working on computer

� Reading Assessment takes approximately 20 to 30

minutes

� Math Assessment takes approximately 30 to 45 minutes. Please provide paper

and pencil. No calculators or cheat-sheets

Math Assessment

Reading Assessment


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Curriculum Overview Our reading and math curriculum is research-based and aligned with state and national

education standards. Learning Today's content is presented in an engaging, interactive

and high-impact learning environment, and students work with real world, relevant

examples.

Reading Our reading curriculum comprises over 1500 tutorials and

activities and covers ”Reading First’s Big 5” and more

including:

Sight Words

Learn to recognize common sight words to increase reading fluency.

Phonics

Learn systematic and predictable relationships between

written letters and spoken sounds.

Phonemic Awareness

Learn to identify, think about, and work with individual sounds

in spoken words.

Vocabulary

Learn to expand their vocabulary to communicate more

effectively.

Reading Comprehension

Learn to actively construct meaning when reading both fiction and non-fiction passages.


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Math Our math curriculum is designed to build skills while providing guided instruction using

engaging themes and a problem solving approach. With over 1200 tutorials and

activities, Learning Today's curriculum covers:

Number Sense & Operations

Learn numbers, ways of representing numbers,

relationships among numbers, number systems and

operations.

Measurement Concepts

Learn measurable attributes of objects and the units,

systems, processes, techniques and tools of

measurement.

Geometry Concepts

Learn to analyze characteristics and properties of

geometric shapes and use visualization, spatial

reasoning, and geometric modeling to solve problems.

Algebra

Learn to analyze characteristics and properties of

geometric shapes and use visualization, spatial

reasoning, and geometric modeling to solve problems.

Data Analysis

Learn to collect, organize, display and analyze relevant

data to answer formulated questions.


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Instructional Model After the initial evaluation, Smart Tutor automatically creates a program that targets

your child or students’ strengths and weaknesses. It provides a non-threatening,

engaging environment where the child feels successful. This builds their confidence and

skills, enabling them to ultimately perform better on tests.

If a child is in 2nd grade but is weak in Phonics and Reading Comprehension, Smart

Tutor will start them off with lower level Phonics and Reading Comprehension lessons

based on their abilities. Smart Tutor does this for each skill in Reading and Math, which

means your child receives a learning program that is truly just for them.

Our lessons have a full Tutorial (instruction), a Practice Exercise, and a Graded

Activity (quiz). Lessons can have between 2 to 7 lesson components depending on

complexity of concept and state standard requirements.

One Lesson = One Unit

Tutorial Practice Exercise Graded Activity


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The Smart Tutor icon is automatically created once a child or student completes his/her

Placement Assessment. They simply click on the icon to begin their lessons.

Lesson Highlights:

� Explicit Instruction Aligned with National and State Standards

� Interactive, Engaging Activities

� Immediate Corrective Feedback – kids do not “fail” visibly

� Randomized Exercises

� Immediate remediation if child or student does not score 70% or higher in quiz

The Crossing Guard

The Crossing Guard is a logical stopping point for students. It will appear after every

lesson component to bookmark where child left off during the lessons. The Crossing

Guard does not indicate the lesson or unit was completed.


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Applications

Student Application - Dashboard

Students log in to complete assessments, Smart Tutor lessons, and Lesson

Assignments.

Parent Application – Dashboard

Parents are able to log in and monitor the progress of their children, manage their

account, and read all the supportive documentation.


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Parent Account This program enables users to manage child or students’ access to assessments and

instruction and monitor child or student progress through numerous comprehensive

reports.

Parent Logging on / Logout Parents can log on and off the system at the SmartTutor.com Website.

Logging On

Go to http://www2.smarttutor.com/parentslogin.asp enter your User Name (usually your

email) and Password and click the OK button (see figure 1). You will then be taken to

the appropriate screen.

Logging Off

To log off, click the Log off button on the bottom left of the screen (see figure 2).

Figure 1 – Parent Login

Figure 2 – Navigation List


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Parent Navigation Bar

Once you have logged in to your account, you will see your dashboard (see figure 3)

with the many options available to you as described below.

Figure 3 – Parent Dashboard

Lesson Library Tab Use this area if you would like to manually assign and manage lessons for your child or

students. You can browse the Lesson Library to assign lessons.

Reviewing Lessons in the Lesson Library You can find, access, and review lessons in detail in the Lesson Library. Click on

Lesson Library on your dashboard or navigation bar on the left side of the screen.

1: Click on Assign Lessons (see figure 4).


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2: Select Grade Level and Subject (see figure 5).

Figure 4 – Lesson Library

Figure 5 – Select grade level


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3: You will then see a list of lesson sets. To view a lesson, click on a Set Name (see

figure 6).

Figure 6 – List of Lessons by grade level and subject


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4: You will then see a Lesson List pop-up screen with the titles of the lessons in that set

(figure 7).

To preview a lesson component, click on the lesson title, and another screen will pop

up. Click the gray arrow on the left side of the lesson components (see figure 8).

Figure 7 - Lesson List pop-up screen

Figure 8 - Lesson Component Window


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Assigning Lessons You can assign and remove lessons for all child or students.

1: To assign lessons, click the checkbox next to the name of the set you wish to assign

(figure 9).

2: click the button to ASSIGN LESSONS at the top of that list (figure 10).

3: To review lessons you have assigned, click the link to VIEW ASSIGNMENTS at the

top of the list (see figure 11).

Removing Lessons You can also remove lessons you have assigned.

1: To remove a lesson, go to the page of lessons assigned by clicking VIEW

ASSIGNMENTS as in figure above.

2: Check the box(es) next to the lesson(s) you would like to remove, and click REMOVE

(see figure 12 ).

Figure 9 - Assigning Lessons

Figure 10 - Assign Lessons Button

Figure 11 - View Assigned Lessons

Figure 12 - Remove Lessons Button


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Reports Tab

In the Reports area, you can view and print important information about your child or

students’ progress and results.

Assessment Reports – General Purpose These reports provide you with information regarding assessment scores and allow you

to track your child’s progress from one assessment to another. You can view the

Overview Report to see the placement of your child.

Instruction Reports – General Purpose These provide you with information regarding lessons completed, the scores received,

and time on task.

How to View Reports To run/view a report, follow these steps:

1: Select a Period:

2: Select a Child or student from the drop down list:

Figure 13 - Select a Date Period

Figure 14 - Select a Student from the List


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3: Select a Report: Choose a report by clicking the link of the report (see figure 15). It

will open in a separate pop-up window.

Figure 15 - Reports


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Figure 16 is a sample of a Reading Assessment Student Overview Report:

Figure 16 - Sample Reading Overview Report


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My Account Tab

In this area, you are able to change your account information, update your credit card

and plan, manage your student accounts, and view your billing statements. Figure 17

shows the options in My Account Tab.

Change Account Info This area refers to your account, where parents and tutors are able to change and edit

their contact information, login information, or suspend the account.

Change Contact Info

To change your contact information, click on the link to Change Contact Info.

1: Edit the information on the form (figure 18) and click save when done.

Figure 17 - Account Options


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2: The system will confirm the information was saved.

Change Login Info

To change your login information, click on the link to Change Login Info.

1: Edit the information on the form (figure 19) and click save when done.

2: The system will confirm the information was saved.

Figure 18 - Change Contact Info Form

Figure 19 - Change Login Info Form


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Suspend Account

When going on vacation, or to take a break from Smart Tutor, place your account on

hold. You will be able to suspend your account for one, two, or three months. During

this time, your account will be suspended and your credit card will not be charged.

The hold starts on the last day of your billing cycle, and you will not be able to use

Smart Tutor lessons. The parent account will be accessible while the account is on hold.

You can reactivate the account anytime you want or wait until the suspension period

ends.

To suspend your account, click on the link to Suspend Account.

1: Chose the date range of suspension (figure 20) and click save when done.

2: The system will display a confirmation message similar to the one in Figure 21.

3: A new link will appear on the My Account Dashboard as in figure 22 to cancel the

suspension to reactivate the account.

Figure 20 - Suspend Your Account Form

Figure 21 - Suspend Account Confirmation Message


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Reactivate Suspended Account

1: To Un-suspend the Account, click the new link to Cancel Suspension.

2: Click Cancel Now button as in figure 23

3: The system will display a confirmation message.

Figure 22 - New Link on Account Dashboard

Figure 23 - Cancel Suspension Button


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Manage Student Accounts In this area, parents and tutors are able to create new student accounts, change student

accounts, or remove a student.

Create a New Student Account

To create a new student account, follow these steps:

1: Click on the link to Create a New Student Account under the Manage Student

Accounts heading.

2: Enter the information for your new student in the form displayed (figure 24).

3: Click the checkbox to accept terms and the Save New Student when ready.

4: The system will display a message that the student was successfully added. An email

will be sent to your account with the student information for your records.

Change a Student Account

To change a student account, follow these steps:

1: Click the link to Change a Student Account under the Manage Student Accounts

heading.

2: Enter the new information for your student in the form displayed (figure 25).

Figure 24 - Create New Student Form


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3: Click the SAVE button when done.

4: The system will display a message to confirm the changes.

Remove a Student Account

To remove a student account, follow these steps:

1: Click the link to Remove a Student Account under the Manage Student Accounts

heading.

2: Click on the button to Remove This Student Account below the student name (figure

26).

Figure 25 - Change Student Account Form

Figure 26 - Delete/Remove Student Form


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3: The system will ask to confirm the deletion before deleting the student, a pop up

window will be display (figure 27). Click OK to confirm.

4: The system will display a message confirmation the removal of the student.

Update Credit Card / Subscription Plan In this area, parents and tutors are able to update their credit card information, change

the subscription plan, and cancel their account.

Change Credit Card Info

To edit the credit card on the system or update your credit card information, follow these

steps:

1: Click the Change Credit Card Info link under the Update Credit Card / Subscription

Plan heading in My Account.

2: Edit the information in the form displayed, including the address. All fields are

required to update the information (figure 28). Click SAVE when ready.

3: The system will display a message to confirm the update.

Figure 27 - Confirmation Pop-up before Deletion

Figure 28 – Edit/Change Credit Card Form


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Change Subscription Plan

To change your subscription from monthly to annual or from annual to monthly, follow

these steps.

1: Click the Change Subscription Plan link under the Update Credit Card / Subscription


2: If your current plan is monthly, then a link to change to yearly will appear (figure 29).

If your plan is yearly then a link to monthly will appear (figure 30).

Click on the link to change your plan, see figures 20 or 30 depending on your current

plan.

3: Click on the button to Change Subscription as in figures 31 or 32.

4: The system will confirm that what your new plan is as in figures 33 or 34.

Figure 29 - Change to Yearly Figure 30 - Change to Monthly

Figure 31 - Change to Yearly Button Figure 32 - Change to Monthly Button

Figure 33 - Confirmation of Yearly Plan Figure 34 - Confirmation of Monthly Plan


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Cancel Subscription Plan

To cancel your account, follow these steps:

1: Click the Cancel Subscription Plan link under the Update Credit Card / Subscription


2: Read the page and confirm your cancelation.

3: Choose from the options provided or write a comment (figure 35). Click Continue

when ready.

4: The system will display a confirmation and email you a confirmation for your records.

View Payments In this area, parents and tutors are able to view their billing statements by month.

View Billing Statements

To view your billing statements, follow these steps:

1: Click the View Billing Statements link under the View Payments link in My Account.

2: A list of your statements will appear with a summary of your trial and account. Click

on the month you want to view, and the statement will be displayed with all the

transactions for that month.

Figure 35 - Cancel Account Form


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How-To Videos Tab In this area, parents and tutors will find the different videos available to learn different

parts of the programs. The videos include the following topics (figure 36):

� Introduction to Lesson Library

� Assessment Overview

� How to use the Lesson Library with Smart Tutor

� How to use the Lesson Library (step by step)

To play a video, click on the link and then click on the play button on the video.

Figure 36 - How-To Videos Dashboard and List of Videos


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Help Tab In this area, you will find all resources and materials to help you understand the

program and take advantage of all its features so your child can achieve success using

the program.

In this area, parents and tutors have access to the Curriculum Guides and Resources,

the How to Videos, frequently asked questions section, checking your system to make

sure it meets the requirements for the program, and the user manual (figure 37).

Curriculum Guides

In this area, you will find the following resources (figure 38):

� Lesson Lists by Subject and Grade level

� Vocabulary Lists (all the words used in our Vocabulary curriculum)

� Sight Words List (all the words used in our Sight Words curriculum)

� The Scope and Sequence (Reading and Math)

� The Assessment Grade Ranges Key document

� Program Overview document

Figure 37 - Help Tab Options


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You will also find here a form to request a new assessment for your child, the contact

form for tech support, and links to our Facebook and Twitter page.

Questions and Answers Section

In this area of our website, parents and teachers will find the most commonly asked

general questions as well as questions regarding the assessments, the lessons, billing,

and other technical questions.

The page starts with the general questions as in figure 39, and users can scroll down to

the other topics covered in this section. We recommend reading this area before calling

our tech support team since many of your questions will be easily answered here.

Figure 38 - Curriculum Guides and Resources


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Check Your System Section In this area, parents and tutors can check the requirements for the program. This

section has a list that can be checked to ensure that the lessons can play properly in

your computer (see figure 40).

Figure 39 - FAQ Section

Figure 40 - System Check Section


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Student Account The students log in using their own account information created at the time of sign up by

the parent or tutor.

Student Logging on / Logging Off The students log in at this link: https://www2.smarttutor.com/studentslogin.asp (see

figure 41) using their username and password.

To log off, the students click the log off button in their dashboard (figure 42).

Figure 41 - Student Login Page

Figure 42 - Log Off Button in Student Dashboard


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How to Start the Assessment To start the assessment, students click on the Reading or Math Challenge icons (figure

43).

A new window will open with the assessments questions (figure 44 & 45).

Figure 43 - Reading and Math Challenge Icons on Dashboard

Figure 45 – Math Challenge / Assessment Figure 44 - Reading Challenge / Assessment


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How to Start the Automated Lesson (Smart Tutor Lessons)

After the Reading and Math Challenge has been completed, the Smart Tutor icons will

appear with all the lessons that the program will automatically assign to your child

(figure 46).

Figure 46 - Reading and Math Smart Tutor Icons on Student Dashboard


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a guide for parents & tutors - smart tutor · 3324 ne 32nd street. for lauderdale, fl 33308 | 2...

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