NoRedInk Review for Teachers

NoRedInk is a website which is created to help students learn and practice English grammar and elements of good writing. This website allows teachers to create classes, add students, and assign specific skills to lead students to be able to master grammar.

As explained on the Common Sense site, in the NoRedInk site, you are able to find material for about every possible writing convention which ranges from subject-verb agreement and parallelism to compound sentence structure and citation formats. In the NoRedInk site, teachers are also permitted to create and assign writing prompts, expanding assessment potential beyond grammar drills.

NoRedInk Review for Teachers

Teachers are able to see the students’ work that have been completed by students and also progress toward mastery of individual skills in the teacher dashboard. There are practice, diagnostics, and quiz elements which give detailed information about each student.

If you choose the Premium version, you will be able to enjoy some of the best features which are offered by the site such as a complete curriculum for grammar and writing and also tools to help students revise and improve their writing.

If students use NoRedInk, they are able to choose their interests such as movies, sports, TV shows, books, and many more and then they can see passages which reflect these interests. When students start a new topic, they will get straightforward instruction and learning tips and after that they will be provided support which is clear and easy-to-understand when they build understanding. Even students are permitted to monitor their own progress.

The Way Teachers Use NoRedInk

According to the Common Sense site, here is an effective way for using NoRedInk.

    • Teachers will assign a diagnostic task for the entire class.
    • Then, teachers will review the results from the diagnostic and provide targeted, standards-based instruction.
    • Teachers will give practice for students in the target group.
    • After that, teachers will assess progress and identify further support needs.

It is important for you to note that the platform is diagnostic and instructive. So, teachers are able to meet students where they are at first and then help them to hone specific skills. Some students will learn grammar and writing practice. However, teachers are able to use the site to identify areas of potential growth for students and after that assign activities to help them improve.

There are a lot of prompts and activities which are connected to the interests of students. So, teachers are able to spend less time trying to make content and more time to give quality feedback to help students to be better.

Students can access the library of activities on that site through a dashboard where it features three separate tabs including Lessons, Activities, and Data. In the Lesson tab, there is a comprehensive list of NoRedInk’s offerings broken into pathways and smaller lessons. Let’s take an example, the ‘Adjectives’ pathway is broken into four lessons including ‘What Does the Adjective Describe?’, ‘Identify Adjectives 1’, ‘Comparative Adjectives’, and ‘Superlative Adjective’. Teachers can read through pathway objectives and individual lessons.

In the Activities tab, teachers are able to build ‘Planning Diagnostic’ tests and graded ‘Unit Diagnostic’, ‘Practice’, and ‘Quiz’ activities. Teachers will choose anywhere from 4 to 10 questions for students to complete from the pathway which has been chosen. Point values may also be set by teachers for practice activities and quizzes, establish due dates, and determine whether students are permitted late submissions. Based on the specific pathways and number of questions that the teacher chooses, NoRedInk dashboard will estimate the amount of time to complete each assignment.

In the Data tab, there are different metrics to help teachers plan lessons and track student progress and growth. There is also a Gradebook feature where it functions to keep track of all completed assignments. How about Filters? With it, teachers can search by class, date, completion, and assignment type. The dashboard of NoRedInk can also generate Heat Maps. What is it? It is a color-coded report which is able to show the mastery of a student about the whole pathway or mastery of a specific skill.

Well, in NoRedInk, there are hundreds of activities for students in 4th through 12th grade. Teachers can differentiate instruction using a wide array of activities so that it can be suitable for specific learning needs of the students.

You are able to subscribe to NoRedInk Premium where you can get over 500 topics across more than 50 learning pathways, materials aligned to Common Core and other state and national tests, and priority customer support.

Is NoRedInk Good for Learning?

If you want to be a good writer, you need engaging writing assignments, quality feedback, and a well-maintained reading habit. In NoRedInk, students are able to master writing conventions and improve their writing style and also fluency. They will get benefits from targeted practice to learn and develop specific skills. On the site, teachers can identify where students need help and target instruction to provide them with greater support because the site is rich in content. Not only that, teachers are also able to encourage revisions through feedback where it will make students spend more time to improve the quality of writing that they make.

In NoRedInk, there are a lot of contents for helping with specific grammatical skills. Besides, there is also feedback and support which can motivate students to dig in. On that site, there is a dashboard for teachers which can be used to target instruction and help students to set defined goals when they refine their writing skills.

On the EdSurge site, it is explained that the majority of content on that site is free for all users and here are some free contents which can be accessed on NoRedInk.

    • Diagnostic testing features where it is used to determine student strengths and deficiencies.
    • Adaptive learning technology where it can work to adjust to student correct and incorrect responses.
    • Immediate feedback which is aimed for students.
    • Auto-grading for all assignments.

On EdSurge site, it is also explained that NoRedInk has a number of resources for onboarding where those include parent letters, implementation guidelines, and video tutorials.

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