With Exploros, students actively engage in learning about, practicing, and demonstrating interconnected TEKS-based skills. Specifically designed for device-enabled classrooms, teachers guide 5E model Exploros ELAR learning experiences, and students participate and contribute using social media, reading, writing, listening, speaking and critical thinking skills.

As students join in social classroom instruction, Exploros automatically stores student work and tracks progress against all relevant TEKS at the breakout level. This data is accessible to students, teachers, and administrators. It helps inform classroom instruction, providing teachers real-time insights into student comprehension and understanding. It also provides a data-centric foundation for instructional improvement via PLCs and other strategic campus or district programs.

Exploros ELAR offers a Collection for each grade, 4-8. Students study English Language Arts and Reading with emphasis on reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. All experiences are correlated to TEKS (2019).

Each Grade-Level Collection Contains the Following Units:

Scope & Sequence and Text Sources per Grade-level Collection:

• Grade 4: Scope and Sequence, Text Sources
• Grade 5: Scope and Sequence, Text Sources
• Grade 6: Scope and Sequence, Text Sources
• Grade 7: Scope and Sequence, Text Sources
• Grade 8: Scope and Sequence, Text Sources

Each Unit Contains 5E Model Learning Experiences
Within each unit are a series of learning experiences (lessons) based on a 5E model: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. The lessons are self-contained, with the content and the pedagogic methodology presented in the flow of the experience. Each learning experience stresses student engagement and requires students to participate via readings, polls, word clouds, graphic organizers, short essays, and more.

Each experience includes student work in the domains of listening and speaking (class and small group discussion), reading (assigned and self-selected texts, and the experience text itself), writing (from text responses to essays to genre/craft-based exercises, often reflective writing), and thinking (formative assessment and discussions throughout).

There are four main types of learning experiences, interspersed across the units:

• Content delivery (genres, craft concepts, etc.), generally with reading passages
• Writing projects, e.g., writing an informational text
• Presentations, e.g., a debate or oral presentation
• Skills practice (using a dictionary, following instructions, etc.)

The content delivery experiences (e.g., Analyzing Character, Figurative Language, etc.) uses short excerpts or longer passages for teaching the concepts. Then, the student applies the concept learned to a self-selected text or to a short writing exercise.

Experiences run from one class period to a full week. In many of the experiences, students can read the passage prior to beginning the experience.

The program includes two book report experiences, one for fiction and one for non-fiction. They can be used multiple times throughout the year. The reports can be for self-selected or assigned texts. Each book report ends with a recommendation to classmates as a means of generating student interest in independent reading.

The experiences use a 5E model, although they often run more than 5 scenes. The quizzes at the end of each experience typically include 3–5 STAAR-like multiple choice questions. Writing projects and presentations include a self-evaluation rubric instead of a quiz.

Since all student prompts are tagged with relevant TEKS breakouts, student work is automatically cataloged, and TEKS performance is organized for students, teachers, and administrators according to their roles.

Exploros provides a variety of automatic data, simply by teaching using the program in the live, flipped or blended classroom. For each student, class, campus, and district, the program reports:

• Time spent (minutes) on each TEKS SE and breakout
• Number of student responses per SE and breakout
• Auto-scored results for assessments per SE and breakout
• individual lesson and overall curriculum progress

These metrics are not simply analytics. Since the underlying artifacts are stored as portfolios, ELAR coordinators and teachers can look deeper into the metrics to see the actual underlying student work.

A New Era in Student Portfolios
Unlike most textbook or ebook offerings, where sections of content are tagged with the possibility of students demonstrating TEKS skills and understanding, in Exploros, the actual digital artifact representing the TEKS skills are stored for students, teachers, and administrators.

Google Integration
Exploros ELAR operates as a stand alone, but is also highly integrated with Google Apps for Education and Google Classroom for districts using the Google Suite.

Exploros ELAR can automatically import classes from Google Classroom, and Exploros assignments can automatically be posted to Classroom, among other integrations.