Hamilton County Schools and Mastery Connect
Educators need to understand where students are in their learning, so they can get them to where they need to be. Using Mastery Connect, Hamilton County Schools in Chattanooga, Tennessee increased student achievement and became the fastest-improving district in the state. Watch the video to hear their story.
[MUSIC PLAYING] GREG BAGBY: When I think of Hamilton County first thing that comes to mind is the amazing public schools, because we've accomplished a lot of great things over the last few years. So when I first started this role, we were a level one out of five. The very next year immediately after using Mastery Connect, we rose to level four out of five overall. And ever since then, we've been a level five out of five. So before we were using Mastery Connect, we were just kind of guessing where our students' needs were. Now we actually know.
It's targeted. We can see which standards we need to spend a little more time on reviewing. It's really provided us a way to have more targeted review and intervention, not just right before the state test but really all year long. We're trying to make sure that we understand exactly where the students are throughout the year and be able to reach them at their point of need wherever they are and then build them up to their potential. And of course, how are you going to know if you don't assess the students? Having a tool like Mastery Connect allows us to see where the students are and what the students actually know.
Mastery Connect gives us the data in a really user friendly format. We can easily see the proficiency levels of each student on every standard as we go through the year. My favorite thing about Mastery Connect is the ease with which data can be obtained and used by teachers. If there's a standard or a subject or topic that students are not doing very well on, it gives me that data and I can say, oh, well, students are not performing well on this standard or even this part of a standard. And I can say, well, I need to develop a resource.
I need to find a resource for teachers to kind of help fill that gap. I love that it's standard space. I love that I can look at the standard that we've been working on, I can click on it in Mastery Connect, I can build an assessment that I feel like is robust, diverse question types. I can look at the DOK levels and just build something that I feel like really hits the standard of what we've been learning, push it out to the kids five minutes before, and they take it and they get that feedback right away. I have the feedback right away.
I feel very strongly that if we're not assessing kids and finding out what they know and what they can do, I don't feel like I can do my job well. We use our assessments to figure out what we need to teach, what we need to change, what we need to shift. And it seems to be working for us. We became the fastest improving district in Tennessee. I attribute most of our success to our use of Mastery Connect.
It's just part of our culture now here in Hamilton County, and we rely on it very much. And it's contributed a lot to our academic achievement. So really have seen the impact, couldn't do without it.
It's targeted. We can see which standards we need to spend a little more time on reviewing. It's really provided us a way to have more targeted review and intervention, not just right before the state test but really all year long. We're trying to make sure that we understand exactly where the students are throughout the year and be able to reach them at their point of need wherever they are and then build them up to their potential. And of course, how are you going to know if you don't assess the students? Having a tool like Mastery Connect allows us to see where the students are and what the students actually know.
Mastery Connect gives us the data in a really user friendly format. We can easily see the proficiency levels of each student on every standard as we go through the year. My favorite thing about Mastery Connect is the ease with which data can be obtained and used by teachers. If there's a standard or a subject or topic that students are not doing very well on, it gives me that data and I can say, oh, well, students are not performing well on this standard or even this part of a standard. And I can say, well, I need to develop a resource.
I need to find a resource for teachers to kind of help fill that gap. I love that it's standard space. I love that I can look at the standard that we've been working on, I can click on it in Mastery Connect, I can build an assessment that I feel like is robust, diverse question types. I can look at the DOK levels and just build something that I feel like really hits the standard of what we've been learning, push it out to the kids five minutes before, and they take it and they get that feedback right away. I have the feedback right away.
I feel very strongly that if we're not assessing kids and finding out what they know and what they can do, I don't feel like I can do my job well. We use our assessments to figure out what we need to teach, what we need to change, what we need to shift. And it seems to be working for us. We became the fastest improving district in Tennessee. I attribute most of our success to our use of Mastery Connect.
It's just part of our culture now here in Hamilton County, and we rely on it very much. And it's contributed a lot to our academic achievement. So really have seen the impact, couldn't do without it.