Enterprise High School serves 300 students in rural Mississippi. When the school implemented the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), Algebra I teacher Jacqui Lewis wanted a program that would help with this transition. IXL Math brought the standards to life for her and her students—and brought new energy to her classroom.

New Standards, Burned-Out Students

When the district rolled out CCSS, the new math standards weren’t always easy to interpret. As the only Algebra I teacher in the district, Jacqui felt like she was on her own. “There was no one to collaborate with,” she explained. “It was hard to understand how each objective mapped to the curriculum we were using, and which problems I should assign to help my students master the objective.”

By the end of first semester, her students were burned out and bored—and so was Jacqui. She needed a better way to monitor student progress towards CCSS objectives. She also needed to get her students reenergized and engaged with the curriculum.

Jacqui had started using IXL Math herself during first semester. “I loved that I could search by Common Core objective and find all of the specific skills and problem types that mapped to that objective,” she says. “It helped me understand the objectives better and see the kinds of problems I needed to be assigning to teach each objective.” She realized that her students would also benefit from having access to the standards-based practice and instruction on IXL and started using the program with her students during second semester.

“A Whole New Energy Level in the Class”

Almost immediately, Jacqui noticed a difference with her students. “They got hooked right away. They love the immediate feedback and the awards. It’s like a game—it keeps them coming back.” Implementing IXL infused her classroom with new excitement for mastering the curriculum.

Jacqui used reports from IXL Analytics and IXL’s game-like elements to fuel her students’ natural competiveness. She made a large spreadsheet of the objectives they needed to cover and posted it on the wall, and organized her class into cooperative learning teams that are balanced by ability level. Teams compete against each other on different metrics such as problems completed per session, sessions completed, total problems completed, and objectives mastered. “I focus on the productivity,” she explains. “If they are putting the work in, the mastery naturally follows with IXL.” Students access IXL both at home and on Chromebooks during their 90-minute block sessions.

Jacqui also uses IXL as a remediation program for struggling students. “IXL is perfect for these students because the tutorials are built right in,” she says. “They have a teacher there to monitor progress and answer questions, but they can work at their own pace on IXL every day to build those skills.”

“My students are logging in before and after school to complete more problems. They are also begging their other teachers to allow them to go to computer rooms to work on IXL whenever those classes have down time. I have never seen them beg to work on math before!”

-Jacqui Lewis, Algebra I Teacher

Success on the PARCC—and Excitement for STEM

All the extra practice is really paying off for Jacqui’s students. A whopping 82 percent of her students passed the math section of the PARCC test in 2015—the highest passing rate in the state. Statewide, only 27 percent of Algebra students passed the PARCC that year, and the runner-up district had a 69 percent passing rate. Even better, 8 percent of Jacqui’s students reached the highest level (Level 5) on the PARCC, compared to just 1 percent across the state. “IXL certainly contributed to this success!” she says.

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