There’s a writer waiting to be discovered in every student.
Company
Amazon Education
Role
Head of Product, TenMarks English Language Arts
Scope
U.S. Students, Teachers and Administrators, grades 4-7
―
TenMarks Education was a leader in K-12 edtech in 2016, providing over 85% U.S. school districts differentiated math instruction through self-paced practice. Further, it offered solutions to help teachers chart each student’s learning pathway and personalize their work with leveled assignments, real-time interventions and strategies for expanding understanding.
The need for writing help— frameworks for teaching it, and support in student writing practice— emerged in need-finding research. Based on primary research, Amazon Education decided to expand TenMarks Education's personalized learning program by adding a new vertical category for English Language Arts— TenMarks Writing. I collaborated to set vision, strategy, requirements, roadmap, and go-to-market plan for a new suite of products designed to coach students in grades 4-6 to reach their writing potential by helping them through every step of the writing process.
Teacher Needs
1.
“I am a caring and diligent 4th-8th grade teacher, trying to coach my student writers, but providing individualized constructive feedback takes a lot of time, because writing suggestions demands a lot of thought and careful phrasing, which makes me feel daunted.”
2.
“I am a caring and diligent 4th-8th grade teacher, trying to teach standards-based writing, but it takes a lot of time and effort to prepare and deliver effective instruction, because there is no one resource that is easy-to-use and comprehensive, which makes me feel uncertain and overwhelmed.”
Teacher Persona
Teacher Insights
In 2016, creative writing was increasingly endangered due to the Common Core course load. As writing instruction integrated across the curriculum, teachers struggle to monitor and scaffold the student learning process in a structured and focused way.
Student Needs
1.
“I’m a conscientious 4th–8th grade student, trying to think of something to write about, but I’m not good at brainstorming alone, because I haven’t internalized the steps and strategies, which makes me feel stumped and unsupported.”
2.
“I’m a competent reader and conscientious 4th–8th grade student, trying to research a topic, but identifying important ideas is hard, because I haven’t internalized or been taught the steps/strategies, which makes me feel overwhelmed, perplexed and unsure.”
Student Persona
Student Insights
Students are more engaged when they can choose their own topic and more motivated when they learn they will share their writing with their peers. It also helps students to understand how their work will be measured.
Teacher Solutions:
Leveled Feedback Support
Writing Coach leverages Natural Language Processing technology to analyze each student’s work and deliver personalized feedback to help them think critically with refined organization, word choice, reflection and more. Personalized review suggestions are available to teachers to assist in grading, along with standards-aligned rubrics.
1.
Teacher Resources
2.
Take planning off teachers' plates with a writing curriculum for three genres of writing: Opinion/Argumentative, Informational , and Response to Literature— all in one place. Unit plans, graphic organizers, worksheets and rubrics. Lesson plans for every day, designed to seamlessly align with any English Language Arts instruction. Based on Lucy Calkin's Writing Workshop model with embedded guidance for differentiation to help anticipate and address student challenges.
Student Solutions:
1.
Writing Coach
Writing projects that scaffold and personalize the writing process for students. Writing Coach guides throughout the essay writing process with personalized support from a learning engine that employs natural language processing technology and end-to-end scaffolding for each step of the writing journey. Writing Coach automatically delivers timely and personalized feedback on subjects like essay organization and word choice, helping students analyze and think critically about their writing.
2.
Bursts
Playful, short writing exercises that engage students and unleash their creativity. During rapid experiments for new feature design, we realized that enabling student choice and autonomy with fun bite-sized writing warmups leads to greater engagement with the platform. To ignite student creativity, we tapped into short writing formats many students are familiar with from mobile apps. In these playful short exercises, students can craft dialogue between characters in a text messaging format or comment on images (like Instagram). With bursts, students experience the fun that comes from writing about topics they care about in formats they know and love.
3.
Leveled Exercises
Targeted practice sets to help students build their language and writing skills. Standards-aligned assignments can help struggling students master the tools they need, and enrich students with nuanced understanding of language and writing skills.
Teacher Outcomes
TenMarks Writing helps teachers easily monitor student progress with reports that provide insight at every step of the writing process. When it comes time to give feedback, the tool's automatic, personalized suggested comments make it faster and easier to coach students.
Insight into student progress
Save time with personalized suggestions to challenge or encourage students
“For the first time all year, my kids are saying that they’re enjoying writing. TenMarks Writing breaks down essays into manageable parts to give kids a visual idea of how to write.”
Student Outcomes
Student Confidence
Polished final essays
“Writing Coach in TenMarks helps my students to be confident about the writing process and to create a successful final piece.”
“My students absolutely loved Bursts. When they finished their required work, they wrote entire stories in the text messaging format from Bursts, talking and laughing about how funny their stories were the whole time. They even asked if they could do more writing during recess!”