Q: What are the goals of eBRAVO?

eBRAVO bridges the divide between grade-school readers and middle- to upper-grade textbooks. Each element of the eBRAVO design, structure, and implementation is shaped by a specific goal: to prepare students to transition from reading largely narrative materials to comprehending complex, informational texts—in school and in their adult lives. This program revolves around a powerful combination of elements:

• An evidenced-based model of comprehension for informational text;
• Specific reading strategies that are supported by the comprehension model;
• Taught congruently with knowledge building of ecology content;
• Ongoing embedded assessment of students’ comprehension skills with targeted lessons;
• Engaging topics and high-quality materials in a teachable program.

Q: How is eBRAVO unique?

This system allows for individualized, adaptive learning to build knowledge in the area of ecology, while simultaneously learning the advanced reading comprehension skills that will make this knowledge building possible.

eBRAVO is unique because it involves a powerful combination of elements:

• An evidenced-based model of comprehension
• Reading-to-learn strategies derived from the comprehension model
• Scaffolded activities to practice these strategies
• A graduated series of increasingly complex texts to build knowledge on a single topic
• Developed with participatory, iterative design
• Adaptive, presenting lessons only when there is a need for additional support

Q: What ecology content will students learn?

eBRAVO contains a graduated series of increasingly complex, short chapters on ecology and are aligned with the Common Core State Standards.  Students will learn about various ecology topics, including ecosystems, adaptation, interactions among organisms, biodiversity, and human impact and responsibility.  A complete list of chapters is listed below:

1. Fate of the Black-Footed Ferret
2. What's in an Ecosystem?
3. Organization of Life on Earth
4. Adapting to Survive
5. Can Ecosystem Balance be Restored?
6. Interactions among Organisms
7. Powering Ecosystems
8. Matter
9. Biodiversity
10. Ecosystem Changes and Human Impact
11. Adaptation and Extinction
12. Human Responsibility

Q: What can my student expect when using eBRAVO?

Students read 12 increasingly complex, short chapters on topic of Ecology, receiving comprehension skills lessons adaptively at the end of each chapter based on the student’s assessed need.

The sequence is as follows:

1. Read chapter
2. Record Big Ideas
3. Concept Map (Chapter 4, 8, and 12)
4. Check for Understanding Quiz (If correct- move to next chapter)
5. Assessment of comprehension skill (linking ideas, gist, summary)
6. Comprehension skill lesson based on assessment

Q: How long is each chapter?

Each chapter is about 2 pages of text.

Q: How long will it take to complete the curriculum?

Each chapter is about 2 pages long, so if one answers the few assessment questions that probe deep understanding correctly, the lesson is as long as it takes to read the chapter. If it is determined that the student did not deeply comprehend the chapter, then they are queried to see what comprehension skills are missing or not working well.  The lesson can take from 2-10 minutes, depending on the individual student.  All to say there is no cut and dried answer to timing, it depends upon how it is used and who is using it, but each chapter could range from a few minutes to 45 minutes. Therefore, some students may be able to read through the entire curriculum within a few hours, while other students will take a few weeks. 

Q: Is there a way to monitor how my students are doing?

Yes, when you sign in with your teacher or parent account your dashboard allows you to monitor the progress of each student in the curriculum.

Q: Who is this curriculum for?

This curriculum is for middle-school and high-school students working on comprehending complex texts. This curriculum is complimentary to Language Arts and Science courses.

Q: Why does eBRAVO teach reading comprehension within an ecology curriculum?

The eBRAVO Ecology Reader provides an evidence-based Ecology curriculum for improving understanding of informational texts in the secondary grades. Based on The Construction-Integration (CI) Model of Comprehension (Kintsch, 1988, 1998), eBRAVO emphasizes the crucial role that knowledge use plays in comprehension. Over the course of the program, comprehension strategies are presented and practiced as students work through a graduated series of increasingly complex texts about a single, content-area topic: Ecology.

The Reader adapts to the needs of each student by assessing their skills and adaptively providing up to five reading-skills strategies at end of each chapter. Students learn how to form coherent understandings of ideas in a text and to integrate the new content with their own prior knowledge. In so doing they create rich and flexible new knowledge of the topic. This joint focus on comprehension and knowledge building combined with an adaptive learning environment is what makes eBRAVO unique.