At IXL, we strive to keep our personalized learning platform in line and up to date with students’ evolving needs. That’s why we compile a list of our top new features to help you—as a learner, educator, or parent—get the most out of IXL.
Continue reading for a big roundup of releases from over the summer, ready just in time for back-to-school. This includes video tutorials for math, the Real-Time Diagnostic’s new Snapshot mode, social studies skill plans, more answer explanation audio support, and more!
New features
Video tutorials for math
We’ve released over 600 math video tutorials for 6th through 8th grade! Each bite-sized video walks through concepts and works out examples for a specific skill. These targeted videos, created in partnership with Wyzant tutors, provide instruction and support to students as they learn and practice independently.
Each video can be accessed from the practice page of its associated skill. Try it yourself with the 6th grade skill Volume of triangular prisms.
Snapshot mode for the Real-Time Diagnostic
Snapshot mode is a new way for school and district administrators to use the Real-Time Diagnostic to get all the benefits of a benchmark assessment in a flexible, lightweight format. By setting Snapshot windows, schools and districts can efficiently assess all students, capture student knowledge levels at a point in time, and track student performance over time.
Skill plans for IXL Social Studies
We’ve released social studies skill plans for 23 states: Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia. You can see an example of one of our new skill plans here.
Additionally, we’ve added skill plans for two popular textbook programs:
- MyWorld Interactive Grades 2-5
- Discovering Our Past Grades 6-8.
ELA explanation audio for grades PreK-2
We’ve added audio support to the explanations of ELA skills in Pre-K through 2nd grade! This audio support helps our youngest students learn and practice ELA independently. Hear it in action by checking out the answer explanations in the Kindergarten skill Find the short o word.
New ELA skill plans
We’ve added new skill plans, including:
- Into Reading Grades 2-6
- Into Literature Grades 6, 7, and 12
- StudySync 2015 Grades 6-12
- StudySync California Grades 6-12
- StudySync Florida Grades 6-12
- myPerspectives Texas Grades 6 and 7
- myPerspectives Florida Grades 6-12
With these additions, we now offer complete coverage of Into Literature, StudySync 2015, and StudySync California.
We’ve also updated Units of Study for Teaching Reading Grades 6, 7, and 8.
New math skill plans
We’ve added the following skill plans:
- Into Math Grades K, 1, 3, and 8
- Reveal Math Grade 2, Algebra 1, and Algebra 2
- Texas GO Math! Kindergarten
- enVisionMath 2.0 Texas Grades 1-3
- SpringBoard Mathematics Course 1, Course 2, and Geometry
- Math in Focus 2020 Grade 8
- ORIGO Stepping Stones 2.0 Grades 4 and 5
- Illustrative Mathematics Grade 6 Accelerated and Grade 7 Accelerated
- Texas Math Grade 6
- Eureka Math TEKS Grade 4
- Lial Beginning Algebra and Intermediate Algebra (Higher Ed)
- Blitzer Mathematics Intermediate Algebra (Higher Ed)
We’re excited that this completes our coverage of the Into Math K-8 program, Texas GO Math!, and Math in Focus.
Also, we’ve made extensive updates to our Eureka Math Algebra 1 and EngageNY Math Algebra 1 skill plans.
New science skill plans
We’ve added new science textbook skill plans, covering 4th through 8th grade of the STEMscopes curriculum. Check out one of the new plans here.
New NWEA MAP growth skill plans for high school math
We’ve released new skill plans for the Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 NWEA MAP Growth tests. These plans will provide guidance to students as they interpret their RIT scores and determine what content to work on next. Explore one of the new skill plans here!
Skill plans for higher education
To better support our adult learner and community college students, we’ve added a higher ed textbooks section to the skill plans page, along with the following new skill plans:
- Common Core Basics & Achieve Mathematics
- Blitzer Mathematics Introductory Algebra and Intermediate Algebra
- Lial Beginning Algebra and Intermediate Algebra
With these new skill plans, you can easily incorporate IXL into community college or adult education curricula.
New Pre-K math and ELA alignments
We’ve added new Pre-K math and ELA alignments for Alabama, Arizona, the District of Columbia, and Indiana. To see an example, you can find one of the new alignments here.
Spanish support now accessible in the Android app
Students with Spanish language support enabled by their teacher or parent can now access Spanish translations in the IXL Android app. As with the IXL website and iOS apps, translations are available for key math skills, and students can switch back and forth between languages as they answer questions and view explanations.
Admin Resource Center now available
The Admin Resource Center provides resources to help administrators level up their implementation of IXL. While signed in, administrators can find the Admin Resource Center by selecting the Resources tab. Explore it here.
Real-Time Diagnostic data export for school and district administrators
School and district administrators can now export up-to-date Real-Time Diagnostic data from the Diagnostic Levels report. Clicking the export button at the top of the report will download a CSV file with diagnostic data (overall and strand levels) for all students with current levels.
Student activity data integrated into Canvas SpeedGrader
We’ve upgraded our integration with Canvas so teachers can use Canvas’s grading module, SpeedGrader, to quickly evaluate students’ work and assign scores. Canvas now also shows practice and diagnostic data to teachers who use it to assign IXL activities. Teachers can see their students’ SmartScores, questions answered, and time spent practicing, and there’s now a button that launches you directly into the Questions Log report.
Updated features
Live Leaderboards for teachers
Teacher accounts now have live Leaderboards! For teachers, IXL Leaderboards will automatically update every 5 seconds, so you can monitor up-to-date leaderboard status without refreshing the page.
Expanded math explanation audio for grades 3-5
We’ve extended audio support to explanations for math problems in 3rd through 5th grade! Teachers or parents can turn on the optional audio support for both questions and explanations.
More Spanish support for math skills
We’ve expanded our Spanish-language support for math to cover select 7th grade, 8th grade, and Algebra 1 skills, meaning we now offer Spanish support for skills across all of elementary and middle school! Additionally, we’ve added Spanish-language support to a number of new skills in grades PK-6, involving topics such as counting forward and backward, classifying flat and solid shapes, and evaluating numerical expressions with fractions.
Suggest skills from Trouble Spots and Skill Analysis
Teachers can now suggest skills to students from the Trouble Spots report, and suggest Checkpoints from the Skill Analysis report. For each trouble spot, and each foundational skill for Checkpoints, teachers can click “Suggest this skill” to assign the skill to the students listed. A star will appear next to the name of each student with that skill suggested.
Score Grid and Student Score Chart: Support for multiple grade levels, suggested skills, and more
We’ve made several changes to the Score Grid and Student Score Chart reports to make it easier to review results for skills assigned to students. Teachers can now view multiple grades at once to help them see student results in all of the skills they’ve suggested at the same time. Additionally, in the Score Grid, the practiced skills and suggested skills filters have been placed directly on the report so it’s more convenient for teachers to follow up on skills they’ve assigned.
We’ve also added the practiced skills and suggested skills filters to the Student Score Chart so that teachers, students, and families can see how an individual student is doing on their suggested skills.
Progress indicators in the Real-Time Diagnostic arena
All students can now see their progress towards up-to-date levels in the Diagnostic arena. The progress indicator will appear when a student hovers over the Diagnostic arena icon. For students in the Snapshot mode, the progress indicator will still show at the right-end of the Diagnostic arena header.
Updated NWEA MAP Common Core test prep skill plans
We’ve updated our Common Core NWEA MAP test prep plans for math and ELA. The updated plans incorporate many recently released skills, and reading plans for grades 2-5 and 6+ have also been revised to match NWEA’s new instructional area structure. You can check out one of the updated plans here.
Updated TerraNova3 test prep skill plans
We’ve updated our TerraNova test prep plans to give targeted skill recommendations based on students’ scores, similar to our NWEA MAP skill plans. These improved skill plans covering K-2, 3-5, and 6-8 are now available for both Math and ELA. You can try out one of the new plans here.
