Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) today announced the results of a year-long pilot of HMH Fuse: Algebra I, the full-curriculum Algebra app for the Apple iPad. Educators in the Edison Township School District in Edison, NJ, selected HMH Fuse in hopes that it would raise the overall math aptitude of its students. Once the pilot had finished, research showed that average test scores of HMH Fuse users rose nearly 10 percent over their textbook-using peers.
The HMH Fuse platform encourages the use of personalized lesson plans by combining direct instruction, ongoing support, assessment and intervention in one easy-to-use suite of tools. These results show that with a supportive school culture and strategic implementation, technology can have a significant impact on student achievement.
Two teachers from two different high schools in the Edison Township School District participated in this study, each teaching one HMH Fuse classrooms and three total control classrooms, which worked from a traditional textbook. All participants were ninth graders performing at similar achievement levels. Pretests were administered to all students at the onset of the school year, showing no statistical difference in average scores between either the HMH Fuse classrooms or the control classrooms. At the end of the year, post-tests were administered to measure any changes in math aptitude in either group. The research study showed that the average post-test scores of HMH Fuse students were nearly 10 percent higher than those in the control group.
“We began this pilot in hopes of boosting overall math aptitude by changing the way we presented the subject matter to our students,” said Dr. Richard O’Malley, Superintendent of Edison Township School District. “We were very pleased with how well they responded to the immersive, interactive nature of the curriculum.”
