ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


General Videos 32 videos

A Student's Guide to Shmoop
165 Views

Yes, we even have a Shmoop learning guide on how to use our Shmoop learning guides. We're still working on making a video on how to watch videos, t...

See All

How Do I Use Shmoop ACT Prep: Teachers 55 Views


Share It!


Description:

We hope you’ll find our ACT prep resources intuitive and user-friendly. Anything to make standardized tests slightly less painful...

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:04

All right, well if you want to use Shmoop’s ACT Prep tool, you’re gonna need to get

00:08

to it first. [Woman at a cross roads]

00:09

You’ll want to begin from this homepage.

00:11

It’s the one for schools.shmoop.com…not the one for plain ol’ shmoop.com.

00:14

See the difference?

00:16

Okay…so on this page, there are two buttons you’ll grow to know and love. [Shmoop schools homepage]

00:21

First is the Shmoop logo, which will always deliver you straight back here to the homepage.

00:25

This other one…the login button…will log you in…then turn into your user name. [Person types username]

00:30

Click that puppy, and you’ll be whisked away to your profile, i.e.

00:34

“Dashboard.”

00:35

Now we’re cookin’ with gas.

00:36

Click on “ACT,” then scroll down and click on “ACT Exam Prep.” [Mouse clicks on exam prep link]

00:40

Here you’re looking at the Dashboard for ACT Prep specifically.

00:44

When a student logs on for the first time, they’ll be prompted to take a diagnostic

00:48

exam.

00:49

This exam will help them determine their strengths and…their not-so-strengths. [Student clicking through diagnostic exam]

00:51

They’ll be provided with answer explanations, links to drills, topic review, videos, you

00:57

name it.

00:58

They can spend as much or as little time as they want…or as much or as little time as

01:02

you tell them to…on topic review…

01:05

…brushing up on areas that have given them trouble.

01:07

Keep in mind, that once you create a classroom on your students join you'll be able to view

01:10

all of this great data, progress or er, lack of progress in the gradebook feature.

01:16

Student's can also get to the diagnostic by clicking on practice exams and selecting

01:22

diagnostic - Protip; all practice exams and diagnostics are broken into the sections of the test

01:27

for digestion purposes.

01:29

We try to recreate the best test-taking experience as much as possible, so they know exactly

01:34

what to expect. [Student completing online test]

01:35

That includes a timer on the right-hand side, so they can get a sense of how much time they’ll [Arrow points to timer]

01:39

have to answer everything.

01:40

If you’re not a fan of the timer, you – and you alone – have the option to disable it…but

01:45

we think it helps students a ton when it comes to time management.

01:48

When they’re done taking their test, they click “done” …and are rewarded immediately

01:52

with helpful feedback. [Page giving feedback of test results]

01:54

The multiple choice questions will be auto-graded, so they’ll be able to see their score…

01:58

…but more importantly, as soon as the student has completed their to-do list review topic and drills

02:04

will automatically pop up on the progress tab corresponding to whatever

02:07

questions they got wrong.

02:09

You will get the full scoop, of course. [Woman sits down at a desk]

02:11

By going to your Classroom, you can check out projected and raw scores, raw score versus

02:16

time, an answer breakdown, skill breakdown…whatever is necessary to fulfill your wildest data

02:22

analyzing needs and desires. [Person checking score data]

02:24

And because every question is tied to a particular skill, making it easy to see at a glance where

02:28

your students are faltering…

02:30

…you’ll be faced with a much easier task targeting instruction time.

02:34

Now, when looking through our topic review and answer explanations, you might notice

02:37

that our materials are infused with quite a bit of humor, pop culture references, and [Humor references highlighted]

02:42

so on.

02:43

Okay, moving on.

02:44

Under “Skills Tested,” there are links leading to reviews on whatever area a student

02:49

might be struggling in.

02:50

In “Review Topics,” you can go specifically to the topic you want to study. [Mouse clicks review topics button]

02:53

And if you want to test certain skills, there are drills that will target directly to those

02:57

skills directly.

02:58

Assign the ones you feel would be the most helpful.

03:00

And with ACT drills, every single one has a video explanation.

03:04

Great for all those visual learners out there.

03:06

All right, time to check out another cool feature.

03:09

From the homepage, you can click here to access Math Shack… [Mouse clicks Math Shack feature]

03:12

…where you’ll find limitless problems your students can work on to improve their

03:16

mastery of every math topic under the sun.

03:18

Here you’ll see the Math Shack bucket list. [Bucket list in Math Shack page]

03:20

As students master individual topics, they disappear from the bucket list…

03:24

…and hopefully, by the time test day rolls around, they’ll have…emptied their bucket.

03:27

Let’s check out an example.

03:29

Say we click on Area of a Composed Shape.

03:32

This bar here will move forward or backward to indicate progress…or regression.

03:36

There’s an algorithm in place that analyzes how questions are answered, how many hints [Math shack question examples]

03:40

are given, etc...

03:42

…and the product actually changes based on those factors.

03:45

You can check out the legend at the bottom of each page to see how many questions there

03:48

are in a given topic.

03:49

To master a topic, your students will need to get 90% or higher without help.

03:54

And, of course, they’ll earn some valuable Shmoints in the process, too. [Person earning shmoints reward]

03:58

If we head back to the dashboard and click on the skills tab…

04:00

…we can see the complete list of skills tied to each question your students have attempted.

04:04

We can see if they’ve progressed or regressed...with links to review guides.

04:09

And all this stuff is student-led. [Web page stamped and labelled student-led]

04:10

In other words, they can see their progress and be proactive about smoothing out their

04:14

rough edges…

04:15

…but in the meantime, you’re able to monitor them and target instruction time based on

04:18

their results.

04:19

If your appetite for all things Shmoop has been whetted and you’re hungry for more…[Man waiting at a table for more food]

04:23

…check out links to other helpful vids in the section below this video.

04:26

Or just poke around on the site and do some exploring.

04:29

Just please leave everything where you found it. [Person picks up image of Einstein from shmoop web page]

Related Videos

What is Schools.Shmoop?
364 Views

schools.shmoop.com is tailor-made for students, teachers, and administrators like you who have a Shmoop license through your school or district. Be...

A Student's Guide to AP Exam Prep
83 Views

The goal of this video is to help you understand how to best use Shmoop to improve your AP test scores, have a better life, and conquer the world!

AP Test Prep: Teachers
1059 Views

Are you interested in helping your students get a 5 on the AP® test? Are you a teacher, an administrator, or a bored teen who randomly found this...

SAT® Test Prep: Students
27789 Views

Interested in hitting the SAT out of the park? Better take a few warm-up swings... This video will walk you through how to login, how to take and...

Why Should I Take AP Calculus? (New)
137 Views

Why should you take AP Calculus? Well, because AP Addition and Subtraction would be too easy.