Roadmap Learning: Compelling for Kids - Empowering for Teachers.

Today’s “digital-first” Alpha Generation children demand to be active, collaborative learners – not just consumers of boring text. To support student agency – while keeping the teacher in the learning loop - the Center for Digital Curricula, University of Michigan is distributing “Roadmaps,” graphical, colorful, 2D, node-and-arc formatted, year-long, OER lessons for K-5, math (Eureka/EngageNY), ELA (EL – yes, EL!) social studies, science (NGSS-aligned). A Roadmap lesson is “one-stop shop:” students see all the interactive learning activities (animating, collaborating, etc.), start to finish, of a lesson, while their teacher sees standards, pedagogical tips, etc. The Roadmap Platform, supporting Roadmap lessons, provides scaffolds, e.g., children can express themselves in audio/video, not just text, accommodations, e.g., a teacher’s AI-developed VoiceBot can read to a struggling reader all the materials in that teacher’s voice), while AI-auto grading of student essays is coming in fall 2024-25! Changing the learning activities in a Roadmap is straightforward; thus, a teacher can easily differentiate a Roadmap lesson to meet the needs of individual students. Since 2019-20, 20,000+ K-5 students in Michigan have used Roadmaps/Roadmap Platform daily. Teacher retention is virtually 100%, while teachers report a dramatic increase in student engagement and a comparable drop in behavioral issues.