Castle Learning

While I was working as a substitute teacher I remember hearing about various teachers using Castle Learning with their students but I never had a chance to look at the website myself.  I am so glad that I finally did!

For those of you who are unfamiliar, many school districts have accounts set up with Castle Learning.  This is a website that has a TON of resources of regents type review for ALL subject areas.  There are various types of questions available for use: flash cards, multiple choice, and short answer.  Teachers are able to add their classes to the site and make up assignments for the students to take.  Teachers have access to full item/data analysis and score reports and are able to set various restrictions on what their students can/cannot have access to on the site.  I have started using this program to give my students extra credit opportunities.  Since most of the assignments I have made are multiple choice questions, I told my classes that they have to receive a minimum score in order to be eligible for the extra credit points.  This way I know that they will have their notebooks out with them while they are using the site and not just choosing random answers hoping to receive credit.

I wanted to try giving a quiz on Castle Learning.  They do not have the ability for you to set a timer on various assignments (although according to a Customer Service Representative they will soon have this feature) so I told my students to keep a clock or watch near them and make sure that they stop working after twenty minutes.  The quiz was 20 multiple choice questions on the Circulatory system.  I told the students that this was a trial and I wanted their honest feedback about how they felt about taking a quiz online at home instead of in class.  Overall, I got extremely positive results! Most of the students did very well and they all finished in WELL under the allotted twenty minutes.  I plan on giving more quizzes this way and I feel that this will enable me to maximize instruction time in the classroom.

I highly recommend this program to teachers in all subject areas and grade levels.  It truly is a wonderful site.