Problem : Communication between parents and their child/child’s teacher is often poor.

1. Getting Parents Involved in Learning: Does parent notification of student performance increase learning? Zach Broderick, Joseph Politz, Stephen Giguere, Ravi Singh, Mihai Luca Advisor: Neil Heffernan Goal 1.a [RIGHT] The process is started when a student signs up for ASSISTment and specifies a parent or legal guardian’s email. That email is reported to the teacher, who may choose to send the parent an account creation email. 1.b [LEFT] Upon receiving the account creation email, the parent will follow a link to the ASSISTment website and create a “parent” account that is automatically linked to their child(ren). The parent can log on whenever they please and monitor their student’s performance. Problem: Communication between parents and their child/child’s teacher is often poor. Solution: Use ASSISTment to foster this communication. Summary • Parents are given their own ASSISTment accounts linked to their children’s accounts that they can log into and monitor performance and learning • Daily, detailed item reports of a student’s activity can be viewed at any time, containing what the student worked on, what problems they got wrong, and what skills they need to learn • Parents are notified via e-mail of important activity • Teachers can send private and class-wide messages to parents linked to specific problem sets 2. [RIGHT] Once logged into their account, the parent is presented with a summary view of their childrens’ schooling: what assignments are due, messages from the teacher to their student and/or the class, and daily activity reports documenting everything their student worked on that day and how they performed. 3.b [ABOVE] The parent will then see the message when he or she logs in to his or her account. The parent can then easily navigate to the problem set in question by following the attached link. Research Goals • Does increasing parent communication with their child and their child’s teacher regarding his or her education increase student learning? 4.a [RIGHT] A parent can click on a student’s daily report and view a list of all the problem sets done that day, as well as the individual questions and whether he or she got them correct, what he or she answered, and more. Current Progress 3.a [BELOW] When reviewing his or her students’ performance on a particular problem set, a teacher can quickly send generic or individualized private comments to the parents pertaining to their child’s performance on that problem set. • Parent notification is nearing completion of the development phase and trial testing will begin this fall. Funding/People • The Parent Notification project is funded by a 2 million dollar grant from the Department of Education. Principal Investigators Neil Heffernan at WPI collaborating Kenneth Koedinger at Carnegie Mellon. • Zach Broderick is a PIMSE fellow funded by a 2 million dollar grant as part of the NSF’s GK12 program, which places graduate students in middle schools for 10 hours a week to spread their scientific expertise to students and teachers. • Contact: Professor Neil T. Heffernan (508) 831-5569, nth@wpi.edu 4.b [LEFT] The child’s teacher can also see the daily reports, as well as whether or not the child’s parent has viewed them, giving him or her a way to measure parent engagement with the student’s learning.