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| [January 17, 2013] |
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Agilix, Compass Learning and School Improvement Network Chosen to Help Rescue Michigan's Lowest Performing Schools
AUSTIN, Texas --(Business Wire)--
Compass (News - Alert) Learning, Inc., Agilix Labs, Inc. and School Improvement Network
announced today a joint effort to help improve the five percent of
historically lowest-performing public schools in the state of Michigan.
The three companies are integrating digital content from Compass
Learning's Odyssey and Renzulli Learning™, and School Improvement
Network's Educator Effectiveness System with Buzz, a personalized
learning platform from Agilix, as well as district-generated content.
The integrated solution serves as the core of a comprehensive,
personalized learning system that allows educators to mix, match and
extend components to deliver an individualized learning plan for every
participating student. The initiative supports Michigan's Education
Achievement Authority (EAA) in efforts to provide new, stable and
financially responsible public schools designed to help underperforming
students make significant academic gains.
"With Buzz, CompassLearning Odyssey® and Renzulli Learning™, we have a
powerful combination of best-in-class curriculum, content and
instruction that puts students at the center of learning for all
subjects, schools and mastery levels," said Dr. John Covington,
Chancellor of the EAA. "This combination can empower our students to
work in partnership with teachers to personalize learning based on
readiness, learning pace, interests, learning and expression styles,
effort and understanding. This is a unique model where students are at
the center of learning."
Buzz leverages an age-centric user interface driven by performance data,
teacher and peer feedback - as well as student preferences - to provide
every student a unique, tailored learning experience. CompassLearning
Odyssey uses assessment data to prescribe a personalized learning
path complete with rigorous and engaging curriculum and instruction that
ensures students are not only proficient in their knowledge and skills,
but developing the 21st century skills needed for future
success. Renzulli
Learning helps infuse creativity, critical thinking and problem
solving into the learning environment by providing students with lessons
and projects curated from more than 45,000 Web-based activities that are
personalized to their interests, learning styles and expression styles.
Students can access meaningful, authentic tasks that build skills in
goal-setting, teamwork, perseverance, critical thinking, communication,
creativity and problem solving. This powerful combination enables
students to track progress and manage their own learning as they master
learning objectives. The rich digital instructional content is aligned
with Common Core State Standards to ensure every student develops the
knowledge and skills necessary for college and career readiness.
Teachers and administrators can easily track student progress nd use
data to inform instructional adjustments.
School Improvement Network's Educator Effectiveness System increases
teacher effectiveness and drives student achievement. It includes an
on-demand library of more than 2,000 professional development videos, a
responsive observation platform that gives teachers immediate feedback,
with prescriptive and personalized professional development resources,
real-classroom examples of teaching best practices, and implementation
of the Common Core State Standards, and a professional learning
community of more than 900,000 educators. When imbedded with student
data, these resources give educators the tools they need to be truly
effective in helping every student become college and career ready.
With these resources, teachers have a single, centralized portal that
includes both the student-centered learning system and the resources for
educator effectiveness.
"We are excited to support the EAA, Compass Learning and School
Improvement Network in the creation of a new personalized learning
model," said Duane Call, vice president, strategic partnerships with Agilix.
"This is an exciting opportunity to work with forward-looking educators
in Detroit and our partners at Agilix and School Improvement Network to
create a student-centered, personalized learning experience for
students," added Arthur VanderVeen, vice president for Compass
Learning. "Together, we've integrated rich digital instructional
content with authentic learning tasks and assessments, all within a
learning environment that empowers students to direct and manage their
own progress toward mastery of the Common Core State Standards. With
these tools and resources, teachers will be able to differentiate their
instruction in powerful new ways, making personalized learning a reality
for every student."
"Personalized learning systems are the future of education and arm
teachers with the resources to address both individual student's needs
and entire classes," said Chet Linton, CEO and President of School
Improvement Network. "We are proud to partner with these
best-in-class solutions and the EAA to dramatically improve student
achievement in Michigan."
About Compass Learning
Compass Learning, Inc. provides K-12 educational software that empowers
teachers to unlock every student's potential for academic success and
personal growth. Compass Learning takes a student-centered
approach by providing comprehensive solutions that address the needs
of every student and student-type to create personalized learning and
differentiation programs that reach, engage and inspire students to
succeed. Teachers and administrators can more efficiently and
effectively manage and measure progress, freeing time to focus on
delivering academic
results and 21st century skills. Both of the company's
software solutions, CompassLearning
Odyssey® and the Renzulli
Learning™ System deliver academic rigor that is based on more than
40 years of research into how students learn and are aligned to state
and Common
Core State Standards to support classroom and district
accountability. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Compass Learning serves
more than 7,800 schools across the United States.
About Agilix Labs, Inc.
Buzz is just one of many solutions built on the Agilix Extensible
Learning Infrastructure (xLi), a modular, cloud-based platform that
makes creating scalable education applications quick and cost-effective.
Buzz is the first personalized learning solution to integrate teacher,
student, peer and system feedback to deliver custom learning experiences
for every student. With more than 10 years' experience, a highly
extensible platform and partnerships with leading educators, publishers,
developers, and device and service providers, Agilix enables best of
breed solutions that provide unequaled innovation.
About School Improvement Network
Founded in 1991 by teachers, School Improvement Network has spent
decades researching and documenting the best practices in education.
From this research, School Improvement Network has developed the
Educator Effectiveness System. This system outlines a process to improve
teacher practice, and arms educators with a set of powerful tools to
drive the process. Research shows that districts and schools that use
the tools in the Educator Effectiveness System produce better teachers,
and as a result experience dramatic increases in student achievement,
driving up student test scores by as much as 30 percent in a single
year. School Improvement Network works with thousands of schools and
districts in every state and around the world and has visited over 3,500
classrooms to document best practices in action. Learn more at http://www.schoolimprovement.com.
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