Getting Started as a Parent on Tassomai

Welcome to Tassomai!

This blog post is written for new private subscribers. It covers everything you need to know once you’ve signed up to the program and created yours and your child’s accounts, including:

Getting your child started with Tassomai

This video is a general introduction to Tassomai for private subscribers (users who are not getting Tassomai through their schools). It includes screengrabs ...

We recommend that one of the first things you do is to show your child this video. It explains how to use the program, but crucially why it will help them.

After watching the video all your child really needs to do is regularly complete their Daily Goal - aiming for at least four times a week.

Your child can sign in from any internet enabled device (laptop, mobile etc.), but most prefer to use our app. It’s free and they simply sign in using their username and password.

Download the app from Google Play (for Android phones) or the App Store (for Apple phones).

Understanding your “Parent Dashboard”

You also have your own admin account where you can monitor your child’s usage and performance. If you’ve only just signed up there won’t be any information available yet - however we’d recommend that when your child starts using the program you sign in regularly.

Watch a learner’s tree grow over time, and use it to identify and discuss topics they’ve understood and those they need help with. The Tree will initially only be accessible from Tassomai's parent dashboard, where a new tab has been added. - All private subscribing parents will have access to the Tree. - “School parents”, i.e. those whose children get Tassomai via their schools, will only have access to the parent dashboard if they have been set up by their school to receive our weekly parent report emails. If you receive our parent report emails but you haven’t set up a password for your dashboard yet, simply click on the “forgot your password” link and request one using the same email address that your parent reports are sent to. Please note not all schools using Tassomai have set up parent reports. Log in to the parent dashboard at http://www.tassomai.com/login We hope to make the Tree accessible via the student and teacher dashboards later in the year. Exploring the Tree: Every learner has a separate tree for each subject they’re studying on Tassomai. Every topic within that subject relates to a branch of their tree, and each sub-topic (or theme) is represented by a twig. Each leaf on the Tree represents a Tassomai question the learner has attempted, and the colour indicates whether they’re answering that question correctly or not. The greener the leaf, the better they’re doing. Clicking on a leaf displays a quiz question; click on the red or orange leaves to see the Tassomai questions a learner is struggling with. N.B. The Tree is best viewed on your desktop, not your mobile. Cultivating an environment for learning: Our aim with the Tree is to help parents engage in their child's learning, to inspire conversations and to encourage an awareness and appreciation amongst learners of their own abilities. Observing the Tree grow stimulates metacognition in children - the process of “thinking about one’s own thinking” - as well as demonstrating the growth of their own knowledge and boosting confidence. Learn more at http://www.tassomai.com

You can also access your child’s Tree via a tab on the parent dashboard

“The Tree” is a visual representation of your child’s knowledge and understanding based on their Tassomai usage and the questions they’ve answered.

Watch your child’s tree grow over time, and use it to identify and discuss topics they’ve understood and those they need help with.

Pausing Content

The Subjects Tab is where you can find out how well you’re doing in each subject and topic - and where you can (to an extent) control the content you see in Tassomai quizzes. The Bars When you open the Subjects view you’ll see several bars. The top bar, “Overall”, shows you your progress through the entire course, while the bars below it represent individual subjects. If you click on “Topics” it will open up the topics within that subject, letting you see a more in depth breakdown. Progress: Towards the top right of each bar you’ll see your progress in that topic or subject. Progress is gained when you see a question for the first time, and for each correct answer until you’ve “mastered” it by answering it correctly three times in a row. Colours: Each bar is comprised of up to four colours, and these segments represent different groups of questions: Blue: Questions you have “mastered”. Green: Questions you have answered correctly at least once, but not mastered yet. Red: Questions you have never answered correctly. Grey: Questions you have not yet seen. Pause: It is here that you can pause topics if you don’t want to take any quizzes on them that day, or unpause a topic which has been paused by your teacher (if your school purchased Tassomai). N.B. Your settings will revert to your teacher’s at midnight every night. Quiz: The two suggested quizzes on the homepage are the ones which our algorithm thinks are the most important for you to do, but if you want to focus on one specific topic or subject you can do it here. There are two important things to note here: If you choose to quiz in a subject, the program will choose the topic which you most need to study based on Tassomai’s unique algorithm. When you choose any quiz in the subject tab you can’t get “bonus XP” for hitting your target of correct questions - this is because it is almost always better to take the suggested quiz.

Your child might find that they are tested on some topics they haven’t yet covered in class - this is intentional, as it allows users to benefit from something called “flipped learning”*. However, if your child would rather wait until these topics are covered by their teacher, they are able to pause content.

They can do this by going into the “Subjects Tab” on their account, finding the relevant topic, and clicking “pause”. They can unpause it in the exact same way.

Want to find out more? Watch our short video guide.

N.B. You will need to make sure your child unpauses this topic at some point, or they will not be tested on it. If you want to pause or unpause topics for your child yourself, then you’ll need to click on the “switch to this account” button to log in as them.

*Usually, in the classroom, learning occurs by one topic being taught in a structured, pre-planned lesson. How much students understand this is then assessed in a later lesson. With flipped learning, the students research or explore new content independently, without a pre-planned structure - this allows teachers to see how well they handle brand-new material.

Your weekly parent report

You’ll receive an email every Monday morning going over your child’s activity for the last week. It will tell you how many days they’ve logged on, how many daily goals they’ve completed and how many questions they’ve answered.

It will also tell you which topics they’re doing best on, which they’re struggling on, and which they’ve improved the most on.

If you don’t want to regularly login to your account, then keep an eye on the report and make sure they’re completing at least four daily goals each week.

The Grade Guarantee

The GCSE Science course comes with a grade guarantee - if your child achieves 100% progress by the date of the exam, then they are guaranteed a 7-9 grade, or you will get a full refund. (Click here for full terms & conditions)

Please note - if you are on a GCSE Science course the Daily Goal will not push your child to satisfy the guarantee by completing the course. Instead, it is designed to encourage engagement. Our data shows that even a small amount of progress through the content will lead to a significant increase in grades, and so we want to ensure students use the site regularly, instead of setting what can be an unrealistic target.

If you want to ensure your child satisfies the guarantee, then there are two things to focus on, both of which you can monitor via your account:

Projected final progress
Accuracy

Projected final progress shows you how much of the course your child will complete if they keep answering questions at a similar rate and accuracy. It is important to remember that this is a lagging metric; it will take a few days to calculate, and then a few days to react to changes in behaviour.

Accuracy is crucial for making progress. The quality of your child’s answers impacts how much progress they make far more than the quantity. We recommend your child focuses on answering questions correctly - and remember, Googling the answer isn’t cheating! This actually helps them to learn.

Any questions or feedback?

If you ever have any questions or feedback please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’re always happy to help with any problem you have (no matter how small you think it is!) and your feedback is absolutely essential to improving Tassomai.

Feel free to email admin@tassomai.com, call 020 3380 7968, or just get in touch on social media.

Tips for parentsMurray Morrison26 November 2018Private subscribers, Getting started