As PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessment) preparation marches on, the sixth grade Math department at the West Mifflin Area Middle School has found a unique way to prepare their students: Study Island.
“Typically, students that complete these programs will come back after PSSA’s and they’ll say, ‘that test was so easy’, just because they’ve been exposed to so many questions and topics,’” said Middle School teacher Tricia Hopchak
“They’re getting flooded with Math questions and concepts.”
Study Island is an online, “K–12 state-standards-aligned practice, test prep, and assessments to advance grade-level proficiency in math, ELA, science, and social studies and build testing confidence for all learners.” At the West Mifflin Area Middle School, 6th grade students started using the program competitively last year, matching up against the North Allegheny School District’s 6th graders to see which school could complete the most Math problems over a roughly two week span.
The competition expanded this year to include a three-way competition between West Mifflin, North Allegheny and North Hills. West Mifflin won the competition this year, answering 275,965 questions. Top performers include Jonathan Folk, Alayna Lesutis, Mackenzie Rush, Hunter Stillwagon, Aiden Jones, Preston Yeschenko, Carson Perry, Madison McClaren, Love Strasser, and Summer Hill.
Students were awarded with a number of prizes, from a pizza party, a trip to Top Golf, a trip to Acrisure Stadium and much more, varying based on the amount of work completed in Study Island.
“The competition creates a buzz for them,” said Middle School teacher Greg Obsincs. “For the two of three weeks leading up to PSSA testing, it kind of focuses them on Math.”
“It actually proves to our students that they can compete with anybody. It shows them that if they work hard, they can achieve anything,” Hopchak added.
Students are able to work on Study Island during their free time in school, but do most of the work outside of school. The program is self-paced, but students can progress all the way to 7th grade level Math problems. The sheer volume of work — as well as the increasing difficulty — makes Study Island an especially valuable PSSA tool. In one two-day period, Obisincs noted that each student completed 800 problems on average, a jarring number that would be nearly impossible to replicate in a normal classroom setting.
“We could teach for weeks doing problems on the board and not do 800 questions. The fact that they're going home and doing a lot of this stuff on their own, they’re motivated,” said Obisncs. “This is something that we can hopefully do every year around this time to also boost PSSA scores.”