ShmoopTube

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All right, well if you want to use Shmoop’s ACT Prep tool, you’re gonna need to get

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to it first. [Woman at a cross roads]

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You’ll want to begin from this homepage.

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It’s the one for schools.shmoop.com…not the one for plain ol’ shmoop.com.

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See the difference?

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Okay…so on this page, there are two buttons you’ll grow to know and love. [Shmoop schools homepage]

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First is the Shmoop logo, which will always deliver you straight back here to the homepage.

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This other one…the login button…will log you in…then turn into your user name. [Person types username]

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Click that puppy, and you’ll be whisked away to your profile, i.e.

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“Dashboard.”

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Now we’re cookin’ with gas.

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Click on “ACT,” then scroll down and click on “ACT Exam Prep.” [Mouse clicks on exam prep link]

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Here you’re looking at the Dashboard for ACT Prep specifically.

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When a student logs on for the first time, they’ll be prompted to take a diagnostic

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exam.

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This exam will help them determine their strengths and…their not-so-strengths. [Student clicking through diagnostic exam]

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They’ll be provided with answer explanations, links to drills, topic review, videos, you

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name it.

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They can spend as much or as little time as they want…or as much or as little time as

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you tell them to…on topic review…

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…brushing up on areas that have given them trouble.

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Keep in mind, that once you create a classroom on your students join you'll be able to view

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all of this great data, progress or er, lack of progress in the gradebook feature.

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Student's can also get to the diagnostic by clicking on practice exams and selecting

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diagnostic - Protip; all practice exams and diagnostics are broken into the sections of the test

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for digestion purposes.

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We try to recreate the best test-taking experience as much as possible, so they know exactly

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what to expect. [Student completing online test]

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That includes a timer on the right-hand side, so they can get a sense of how much time they’ll [Arrow points to timer]

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have to answer everything.

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If you’re not a fan of the timer, you – and you alone – have the option to disable it…but

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we think it helps students a ton when it comes to time management.

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When they’re done taking their test, they click “done” …and are rewarded immediately

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with helpful feedback. [Page giving feedback of test results]

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The multiple choice questions will be auto-graded, so they’ll be able to see their score…

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…but more importantly, as soon as the student has completed their to-do list review topic and drills

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will automatically pop up on the progress tab corresponding to whatever

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questions they got wrong.

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You will get the full scoop, of course. [Woman sits down at a desk]

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By going to your Classroom, you can check out projected and raw scores, raw score versus

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time, an answer breakdown, skill breakdown…whatever is necessary to fulfill your wildest data

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analyzing needs and desires. [Person checking score data]

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And because every question is tied to a particular skill, making it easy to see at a glance where

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your students are faltering…

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…you’ll be faced with a much easier task targeting instruction time.

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Now, when looking through our topic review and answer explanations, you might notice

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that our materials are infused with quite a bit of humor, pop culture references, and [Humor references highlighted]

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so on.

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Okay, moving on.

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Under “Skills Tested,” there are links leading to reviews on whatever area a student

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might be struggling in.

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In “Review Topics,” you can go specifically to the topic you want to study. [Mouse clicks review topics button]

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And if you want to test certain skills, there are drills that will target directly to those

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skills directly.

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Assign the ones you feel would be the most helpful.

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And with ACT drills, every single one has a video explanation.

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Great for all those visual learners out there.

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All right, time to check out another cool feature.

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From the homepage, you can click here to access Math Shack… [Mouse clicks Math Shack feature]

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…where you’ll find limitless problems your students can work on to improve their

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mastery of every math topic under the sun.

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Here you’ll see the Math Shack bucket list. [Bucket list in Math Shack page]

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As students master individual topics, they disappear from the bucket list…

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…and hopefully, by the time test day rolls around, they’ll have…emptied their bucket.

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Let’s check out an example.

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Say we click on Area of a Composed Shape.

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This bar here will move forward or backward to indicate progress…or regression.

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There’s an algorithm in place that analyzes how questions are answered, how many hints [Math shack question examples]

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are given, etc...

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…and the product actually changes based on those factors.

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You can check out the legend at the bottom of each page to see how many questions there

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are in a given topic.

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To master a topic, your students will need to get 90% or higher without help.

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And, of course, they’ll earn some valuable Shmoints in the process, too. [Person earning shmoints reward]

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If we head back to the dashboard and click on the skills tab…

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…we can see the complete list of skills tied to each question your students have attempted.

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We can see if they’ve progressed or regressed...with links to review guides.

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And all this stuff is student-led. [Web page stamped and labelled student-led]

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In other words, they can see their progress and be proactive about smoothing out their

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rough edges…

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…but in the meantime, you’re able to monitor them and target instruction time based on

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their results.

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If your appetite for all things Shmoop has been whetted and you’re hungry for more…[Man waiting at a table for more food]

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…check out links to other helpful vids in the section below this video.

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Or just poke around on the site and do some exploring.

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Just please leave everything where you found it. [Person picks up image of Einstein from shmoop web page]

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