Roadmaps: Q&A with Product Manager, Jessica Burke

Can you tell us about your role at Teach to One and what drew you to the organization?

I came to Teach to One in November 2021, as the company’s first official product manager. As product manager, I oversee the current Roadmaps product as it stands today, as well as any future additions or enhancements. This includes being involved in design elements, overseeing the build and release of new features, and maintaining communication through the organization as it relates to Roadmaps. The addition of a product manager allows the team to focus fully on their specific roles, as I plan for the future and build out our product backlog. I have worked at educational assessment companies in the past, but after trying out different fields, I knew I wanted to get back into education and into work that was more fulfilling. New Classroom’s mission and work to date was exactly what I was looking for. Education should not be one-size-fits-all and that is exactly where Teach to One Roadmaps differs. It’s exciting!

What is it about Roadmaps that makes it such an important toolkit for teachers? 

Roadmaps offers teachers a view into each student’s path on their way to grade-level or Algebra proficiency. With this data, teachers can plan their classroom, track and monitor student progress, and utilize other tools to determine the best way to help each student work through their roadmap. Teachers and students have access to high-quality instructional materials from multiple providers and in multiple modalities. 

What are some major milestones that Roadmaps has accomplished over the past two years?

Roadmaps was rolled out just two years ago. Over the last two years, Roadmaps has grown their customer base, implemented new features and functionalities, and improved the user experience. And there is more to come! 

What are Roadmaps Plus biggest new features and how do they better support students and teachers? 

I am very excited about two of Roadmaps newest features, the student homepage and teacher assigned skills. We focused on improving the student experience, and with that came an actionable homepage. Now when students log into their Roadmaps portal, they are met with a set of recommended skills for them to get started on, promoting action and taking away that overwhelming feeling of “where do I even begin?”.

With teacher assigned skills, we heard from many of our current teachers that they wanted a simpler way of assigning skills to their students, instead of having each student search and filter for a specific skill. Now teachers are able to assign a skill to one student, a group of students, or the whole class. What is different about our approach is when a teacher picks which skill they want to assign, we then provide the teacher with data to identify those students who are not ready, ready for, or even placed out of that skill. The teacher then can make that informed decision on how they want to plan their class. If a skill is assigned, it will appear on the student’s homepage, ready for them to take action!

Part Two of our interview with Jessica Burke is available here.