Overview

Welcome to Membean! This guide is designed to help teachers who are new to Membean get started on the right foot and will cover the flow of enrollment, training, assessments, and reports. Check out this video to learn how to get started quickly. You can also find a Success Checklist attached to the bottom of this article.  

1. Set Up Your Account

You will receive a Membean invitation through email from either a colleague using Membean or your Membean contact. If you haven't received a Membean invitation, please contact [email protected] with the name of your school, and we can help get you started.

Click on the Join Now button. You will be prompted to fill in your name, email, and password. You will then be taken to your teacher dashboard where you can create your first class.

2. Create Classes

Now that your account is set up, you can create classes by clicking the Add your first class button or the plus icon from your dashboard.

Some guidelines for creating classes:

  • Classes don't have to follow your roster, and you can create as many classes as you want. Consider moving your ELL students, students with special needs, or gifted students into a class of their own so you can monitor them more closely or assign different training goals and expectations.
  • You can have up to 50 students per class. 
  • You can assign class colors by including any of the following colors in the class name: blue, Columbia blue, gold, green, orange, purple, red, and yellow. 

3. Set Your Training Cycle and Expectations

You'll notice that you'll be asked to set a Training Cycle and Training Expectations when creating your classes.

Cycles and expectations are important for the following reasons:

  • They help you establish clear and concise grading guidelines.
  • They let Membean know what you expect from your students so that the engine can determine things like when your students are ready for an assessment.
  • They make using detailed reports and the class fidelity report easy, as you can see at a glance how your students are doing on a regular basis.
  • They allow us to send you a Cycle Report email, which makes grading easy and efficient.

4. The First Day Using Membean

The first thing you'll want to do is share this introductory video with your students. It explains why vocabulary is important, walks them through enrollment and the calibration process, and shows them what to expect in their training. It is also important for students to have an understanding of your expectations and how they'll be graded. While your training goals and expectations will be available right from their student dashboards, we encourage you to discuss this information with your students so they know what to expect. 

Check out our Getting Your Students Started article for more tips.

5. Enroll Students

After you create your classes, Membean makes the enrollment process simple with self-enrollment. Students will enter their class code at membean.com/enroll to create an account and join your class. 

You can have students skip the step of entering the class code by sharing the special URL. Using the special URL instead of the class code will prevent students from typing the code incorrectly or trying to sign up in the wrong place.

We also provide you with the ability to email students enrollment instructions or print out enrollment cards. Click the Class Settings wheel and select Invite Students. 

You'll then see the options to invite students by email or print enrollment cards. 

It is very important that students do not create a new account if they already have one, even if the account is from a different grade or school. This can result in duplicate accounts, which can lead to split training and the belief that Membean is losing training time.

6. Accommodate Learning Needs

If you have students who need accommodations, such as ELL students or students with IEPs/504s, you can adjust their individual training preferences. From the Students tab, click the drop-down menu next to the student's name and click Preferences. 

You will then have the option to adjust the training preferences for that student. Some training preferences include providing extended time, hiding progress timers, or slowing down the introduction of new words. 

Learn more about Accommodating Unique Learners here.

7. Reset a Password

The first page of your dashboard provides you simple maintenance tools. Resetting a student's password is one you'll likely need!

You can reset the password of any student in your entire school. They do not need to be in one of your classes to be able to reset their password. 

You can do this by typing the first few letters of the student's name in the Reset a Student's Password search box and finding them in the dropdown menu.

Choosing to reset a password will generate a Magic Link that the student can use to create a new password. The link can be used up to 3 times and will expire in 24 hours. 

8. Transfer or Drop a Student

You can transfer a student into your class or drop a student from your class by typing the student's name in the Transfer/Drop a Student search box. You have access to all of the students with an account at your school, not just those who are in your classes. 

9. Begin Training

Now that your classes are set up and you've relayed your expectations to your students, it's time to begin training. Membean's Adaptive Reinforcement Engine guides your students through word pages and questions.

We recommend that you try training like a student yourself before assigning Membean to your students.
  • Best practices: Our suggestions for best practices include having your students complete short and spaced sessions, waiting to issue an assessment until students have trained for about a month, and monitoring goal compliance and training behaviors regularly. More information on best practices can be found here.
  • Low stakes training: It may be a good idea to mention to your students that training is low stakes, and while engagement is important, they should feel comfortable getting questions wrong and returning to the word page to restudy. Struggle is good for memory!

10. Customize Your Report

Checking on student training is particularly important within the first month. Not only will this show your investment in Membean to your students, but will also allow you to address and correct suboptimal training early on.

Once students are enrolled in your class, your Training Report will be generated. This report will automatically update with the previous training cycle's data. Customize your report to include the data you need for monitoring and grading students. 

Membean reports are chock-full of data. With reports, you can look at how your students are doing at a glance or dig deeper into student training sessions.

Learn more about what to look out for on reports here.

11. Create Assessments

You can generate or schedule assessments for your entire class in seconds. You can navigate to this by clicking on the name of the class from the first page of your dashboard, and then clicking on the Assessments tab.

Each student is given a customized assessment based on their current vocabulary acquisition.

Assessments are graded automatically, and the results can be downloaded into a spreadsheet. Usually, students who train regularly will have sufficient words deemed quizzable in about a month.

Some guidelines for assessments:

  • Start with 15-question assessments, and gradually increase the number of questions over the course of the year.
  • When possible, issue pop assessments instead of scheduled assessments. If students train diligently, they will do well!
  • Students do not have to study for assessments. The best way to prepare is to train regularly. Any "reasonably learned" word is fair game. Students can check the quizzable category of their words learned to see which words could show up on their assessment. 

When students are finished taking an assessment, you can find assessment results under Recent Assessments. Click on an assessment set to view the results. 

Learn more about assessments here.  

12. Create Writing Assignments 

Writing assignments give students the opportunity to use their Membean words in context. Like assessments, each student will get a unique writing assignment based on their training. 

To issue writing assignments, navigate to the Writing tab and click Create Writing Assignment. Choose the number of words, the due date, and, if you'd like to use cue sentences, the type of cue. You can even add your own instructions. Click Create Assignment and a unique assignment will be generated for each student. 

To monitor students' progress and to grade completed assignments, click on the assignment under Recent Writing Assignments.

Here are some guidelines for Writing Assignments: 

  • Keep in mind that writing assignments are not auto-graded. Don't over-assign these; we recommend just one or two writing assignments per month. 
  • Literary cues are our most challenging cue sentence type. Only use these with high school and advanced middle school students. 
  • Cue sentences help spark creativity and discourage plagiarism. These are especially helpful for students who struggle with getting started.

13. Add a Co-Teacher

Co-teachers can see shared classes on their dashboards, issue assessments and assignments, view reports, and manage students. To add a co-teacher, click on the class and navigate to the settings wheel. You'll see the option to Manage Teachers. Type the name of the teacher you wish to add to the class and click Add Teacher to confirm.

In order to add a co-teacher to your class, the teacher must already have a Membean account at your school. Keep reading to learn how to invite a colleague.

14. Invite a Colleague

You can invite other teachers from your school to join Membean. Just navigate to the Invite Another Teacher link on the left-hand navigation panel. You'll type the teacher's email and click Send Invite.