ThinkCERCA is a digital literacy program with online tools available to help students improve their writing and critical thinking.
The company that offers these tools says that using this platform can double reading growth in a single year, with 20% of that in the first eight weeks. All that, and it claims that teachers save up to 10 hours in just one week with this tool.
Specific teaching tools and activities are available for a variety of ages ranging from third grade to twelfth grade.
The acronym CERCA stands for Claims, Evidence, Reasoning, Counterarguments, Hearing. All of this may give you an idea of the importance of critical thinking and reasoning as part of the objectives of this tool.
What is ThinkCERCA?
ThinkCERCA is a curriculum-aligned system that offers a single place to help teach and practice literacy skills for entire classes with individualized learning.
This is a very practical provision where students can use practical skills to help consolidate learning and expand understanding at the same time. Basically, it puts critical thinking and argumentation skills into practice to help develop and refine them with use.
The end result may be essays that students submit to teachers for evaluation. Therefore, there is a directly measurable outcome of learning, while allowing students to work more independently to free up teacher time to help those in need along the way.
With practice assessments for the ACT and SAT, as well as benchmark tests, this gives a very clear picture of student progress. Regularly updated slides also help with teaching to offer a comprehensive solution to help educators.
How does ThinkCERCA work?
ThinkCERCA works online, so it can be easily accessed from most devices with a browser and an internet connection. There are many ways to use the tool available for assessment and teaching, but the standard route works from reading.
Many real-world reading materials are available here, covering a variety of subjects, from English to science and mathematics. Choose from the thematically organized library of options, choose the grade level, and then let the differentiation tool automatically adjust to fit the student before assigning.
Students can then read and work with the text, using vocabulary and audio supports, highlighting and summarizing before moving on to automated comprehension assessments.
When it comes to writing, there are prompts to help with thinking, as well as writing structures, sentence stems, and even interactive graphic organizers. There is also space available for peer discussion and teacher support.
Finally, for grading, there are built-in rubrics that are aligned to the standards, making it easy to grade quickly. But you can also offer individual feedback after monitoring progress in real time. That tracking can then be done at the school and district level, if necessary.
What are the best features of ThinkCERCA?
ThinkCERCA offers a balanced, self-adaptive framework for reading, analysis, and writing that is standards-aligned and spans a range of ages. But it also offers many specific tools to work with direct objectives.
The useful skills library allows students to work on specific lessons and specific foundational knowledge. Teachers can use baseline assessments to see how individuals and groups are progressing, perhaps using them at specific times during the year.
Helpful lesson supports and regular slide updates are available for teachers to help implement these tools most effectively. This can help generate ideas and create original teaching techniques that engage students.
The tools are organized for targeted learning. This includes a benchmarking service, a foundational reading course, professional learning, and a complementary ELA writing curriculum. All of this constitutes a very direct way of teaching and learning that can offer results in a very short time.
How much does ThinkCERCA cost?
ThinkCERCA no longer offers a free service and instead offers a School either District Package charged to measure. Normally, although this works around $30-40 per studentwhich varies depending on the number of students needing access.
He School The plan gives you full access to ELA, social studies, science and math lessons, shared language scaffolds, aligned to CCSS and other state standards, social studies content, English language arts content, discipline-specific texts and writing, and further.
He District The version gives you all of the above only with more general data, such as year-end reviews, curriculum mapping, monthly data meetings, and more.
Top ThinkCERCA Tips and Tricks
Work outside the text
Use the wealth of text resources as a starting point for whole-class discussions and debates.
Evaluate regularly
Set assessment dates so you and your students can track progress made throughout the year.
Use resources
Encourage students to use the built-in dictionary and rubric at any time as a way to further extend their learning.
