May 2013
Greetings!    
 
Can you believe the end of the school year is approaching? As you prepare for final exams, take advantage of our content updates and program enhancements to make your final review sessions as powerful as possible.

"When educating the minds of our youth, we must not forget to educate their hearts." - Dalai Lama

The Castle Learning Online Team

 
In This Issue
Have We Earned Your Vote?
New Assignment Mode Flexibility
Social Studies Content Updates
Math Sampler Exams
Mail Bag
ELA Sampler Exams
Correlated Social Studies Questions
New Question Formats in Math
Helpful SAT/ACT Webinars
Upcoming Conferences
Have We Earned Your Vote?

 

Has Castle Learning made a positive impact in your school or district this year? If so, would you consider nominating us for District Administration's Readers' Choice Top 100 Products?

Fill out the short form here if we earned your nomination, and thank you for using Castle Learning!

Learn more about District Administration publications here.
New Assignment Mode Flexibility!

 

The Development Team is proud to release a long-awaited assignment mode update. The enhancement provides increased flexibility along with additional options for teachers when assigning work to students. Navigating the new format is easy!

 

 

Social Studies Content Updates
New Questions in Civics & Economics

The Social Studies Content Team has recently added new high school level multiple choice questions to the Government & Citizenship and Economics areas of the Social Studies course topic tree.  

 

The new questions can be found in the sections featuring  

  • Citizenship Knowledge  
  • United States Government
  • Macroeconomics
  • Economics and the Government
  • Global Economics    
Math Sampler Exams

Available for grades 3-8  


The Math Content Team has constructed sample math exams for grades 3 to 8. The sample exams reflect the changes indicated by New York State, and assess what students know and can do relative to the grade-level Common Core Learning Standards for Math.

Each grade level sampler follows the recommended percentages for clusters, standard emphasis, and domain attribution specified in the "Educator Guide to the 2013 Common Core Math Test."

Mail Bag

 

In this month's mail bag you can find the answers to the following questions:
  • Help! My students are reporting that they cannot answer constructed response questions on their iPads because the onscreen keyboard is covering the box to type in their answer.
  • I do not see the eInstruction® icon next to my assignment. Why not? 
ELA Sampler Exams 
Available for grades 3-8  

The English Content Team has constructed sample ELA exams for grades 3 to 8. The sample exams reflect the changes indicated by New York State, and assess what students know and can do relative to the grade-level Common Core Learning Standards for English Language Arts.

A variety of passage genres are represented in the samplers, and each sampler has a balanced mix of nonfiction, fiction, poetry and comparison passages.

 

All Social Studies Questions Correlated!

The Castle Learning Social Studies Content Team is pleased to announce the completion of: Bloom's Taxonomy and Webb's Depth of Knowledge Levels Correlation Project.

 

Each question is correlated to:

  • Bloom's Cognitive Level
  • Bloom's Knowledge Level
  • Webb's Depth of Knowledge Level 
New Question Formats in Math!
"Select All that Apply" & "Multi-Option"

With the introduction of the Common Core, we are developing new questions using different formats:
  • Select All that Apply
  • Multi-Option

The Math Content team has also correlated nearly 2,000 more questions using Webb's Depth of Knowledge and Bloom's Revised Taxonomy. We anticipate having our entire math database correlated to these two taxonomies by the end of the year! 

 

image: logo for Method Test Prep.
Helpful SAT/ACT Webinars  
By Method Test Prep

MTP offers a variety of free webinars each month! See how they can help you!

The Biggest Myths About the SAT and ACT
This session will be presented by MTP Specialist Elliot Bock. This session is for educators only. A recorded version of this webinar will be posted inside Method Test Prep's online programs for students and parents to view at a later date.

♦ REGISTER FOR MAY WEBINARS  

Upcoming Conferences
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