Education Technology
PRnewswire | July 04, 2023
Newsela, the leading K-12 instructional content platform, announced today that it has acquired Formative, the leading real-time instruction and assessment platform. This acquisition brings together two beloved classroom products to provide a comprehensive instructional solution that engages students and accelerates learning.
"Newsela has led the transition away from static classroom instructional materials to become the digital platform of choice for teachers seeking to accelerate student growth with accessible, real-world content and scaffolding activities that support all learners," said Pep Carrera, Chief Executive Officer at Newsela.
"Combining Newsela's best-in-class, accessible content with Formative's data-rich assessment activities will give students and teachers the complete, meaningful learning experience they want, while providing the deep insights that teachers and administrators need to effectively impact student outcomes."
Craig Jones and Kevin McFarland founded Formative as graduate students at UCLA in 2013. Today, Formative is used by educators and administrators globally and has a presence in the majority of U.S. school districts. In the past year alone, more than four million students have engaged with the platform.
"All teachers know the importance of being responsive to their students, but that individual attention requires a lot of time and resources. As a teacher, I saw greater improvements when I had the time to provide daily formative assessments, targeted intervention, and quicker feedback loops. Formative was created to apply this approach at scale, so teachers can do it better, faster, and take swift action with real-time data," said Craig Jones, Co-Founder and CEO of Formative. "Our goal was to give teachers the most effective tool for assessment and analysis. Now, the most effective assessment tool can be used with the best content."
As school districts look for the best pathways to improve student outcomes following the disruption of the pandemic, the role of formative assessments in concert with authentic, engaging content, could not be more critical in the effort to accelerate learning. Teachers will soon be able to apply Formative's powerful technology to Newsela's 15,000+ content library to gauge learning immediately, provide even more powerful scaffolds and support, while course-correcting in real time to meet academic goals throughout the year.
"We've learned that schools can have the best assessments and the best content, but that won't matter if teachers don't have the resources to make actionable changes based on data. Formative's success to date has been giving teachers real-time data that helps make informed decisions," said Kevin McFarland, Co-Founder and COO of Formative. "Now with Newsela, teachers will have all the resources—the best content and the best assessments—to help students achieve their goals."'
About Formative
Built by teachers for teachers, Formative's mission is to accelerate learning and close the opportunity gap for all students. Formative empowers educators to super-charge their existing lessons and teaching tools into data-rich, formative-learning experiences across every grade level and subject matter. Formative's world-class Customer Success team ensures that administrators and teachers get the most from the platform, providing expert support for any level of technology in the classroom.
About Newsela
Newsela is an education technology company dedicated to meaningful classroom learning for every student. With over 15,000 authentic texts published at five reading levels, teacher scaffolding tools and activities, and flexible formative assessments, Newsela's products provide K-12 teachers with the instructional content they need to support and grow every learner.Newsela's platform is backed by learning science and purpose-built to drive outcomes and unlock student motivation. Today, over 3.3 million teachers and 40 million students have registered with Newsela for relevant, real-world content that accelerates learning and engages every learner.
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Continuing Education
Businesswire | August 11, 2023
Research shows that safety in school science labs and classrooms is a national concern. More than half of schools have had an injury or litigation, and more than three-quarters of accidents involve students. Accelerate Learning and Science Safety Inc. have exclusively partnered to increase safety in STEM education programming nationwide.
Accelerate Learning now offers Science Safety products and services to enable districts to improve safety policies and practices, reduce risk, and support ongoing compliance requirements.
“Safety is essential for hands-on learning, and it’s an integral part of Accelerate Learning’s STEM curriculum and professional development programs,” said Kent Donges, chief revenue officer for Accelerate Learning. “Through this partnership, our team now provides districts with comprehensive, preventative safety programs to meet the most current professional standards and regulatory requirements while making their STEM programs safer and more successful for all.”
Science Safety’s scalable, cloud-based mobile apps provide exceptional compliance capabilities for Facilities-based Safety Inspections, Student Safety Acknowledgment Forms, and STEM inventory management. Online Science Safety Training gives administrators, educators, and students access to STEM safety learning Pathways and Modules that are role, grade level, and subject matter specific, and can be customized to meet the local jurisdiction’s compliance requirements. Upon completion, learners receive verifiable micro-credentials and certificates. Professional expert safety services include in-person training and inspections, workshops, safety document services, and safety inspection report validations.
“Appropriately documented safety training is an annual requirement for educators in every district. Yet, many schools lack the proper tools, training, and expertise to mitigate the risks and legal liability of delivering highly engaging science and STEM programs,” said James Palcik, CEO of Science Safety. “Science Safety is excited to join forces with Accelerate Learning to elevate safety awareness and help schools build a culture of continuous safety.”
About Accelerate Learning Inc.
Accelerate Learning provides STEM curriculum and professional development solutions that empower teachers, increase scores, and inspire students to become tomorrow’s STEM leaders. Its STEMscopes, Collaborate Science, and Math Nation curricula and resources are highly adaptable, accessible, and support instruction in any learning environment.
About Science Safety Inc.
Science Safety’s mission is to elevate STEM safety awareness in schools and create a fundamental culture of safety that can mitigate unforeseen risks and liabilities.
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Entrepreneurs and Leaders
PRnewswire | August 02, 2023
Instructure, the leading learning platform and maker of Canvas, today announced enhanced and expanded Instructure Learning Platform solutions, further demonstrating the company's ongoing commitment to innovation in edtech and its mission to make teachers' work easier and improve student success. Today the company unveiled enhancements centered around core teaching and learning, advanced analytics, lifelong learning and platform integration during InstructureCon 2023, the company's annual user conference held July 26-28 in Denver.
Core Teaching and Learning
To better support millions of educators and learners using Canvas around the world, Instructure showcased continued innovation to their core teaching and learning solutions, all designed to save educators time, personalize learning experiences for students and simplify complex tasks for administrators. Today, AI-assisted course templating was announced, giving educators and instructional designers the power to quickly create elegant page layouts using dynamic methods, making courses both more engaging and intuitive. This latest release, soon available in beta, joins the growing list of new functionalities specifically designed to improve educator efficiency and reduce administrative tasks, such as bulk publishing for modules, enhanced Gradebook filters, Course Pacing and the ability to submit assignments on behalf of students. Students also gain a more personalized, equitable experience from Canvas solutions with tailored in-context support, like the beta AI-powered right-and-wrong answer rationale and integration of AI writing tutor Khanmigo, made available through the just-announced partnership with Khan Academy. These tools give instructors supplemental AI-powered tools to support students in and out of the classroom. "This work underscores our continued commitment to build the extensibility and advanced capabilities of Canvas products, while also promoting simplicity for both educators and learners," said Shiren Vijiasingam, Instructure's Chief Product Officer. "With the introduction of AI capabilities into our core products—both with our own innovation and that of our strategic partners found in our beta emerging AI marketplace—we aim to meet the immediate and future needs of our community with substantive improvements that help to drive best practice in pedagogy and curriculum."
Advanced Analytics
Building upon the rapid adoption of the new data pipeline for Canvas Data 2 and the recently released Canvas Admin Analytics, included in Canvas LMS, Instructure also showcased new advanced analytics solutions now available in beta. This allows administrators to personalize the way they see and interact with their data in a fraction of the time. Injecting conversational AI into Instructure analytics products empowers educators to ask deeper questions of their data using everyday language. This results in more timely, actionable insights to drive better outcomes for students.
Lifelong Learning
In response to rapidly evolving labor markets and growing demand for alternate educational paths, Instructure's new streamlined offering of Canvas LMS, Canvas Credentials and Canvas Catalog provide institutions with a turnkey solution to diversify course offerings, attract new learners and drive continued institutional growth. As an evolution of this offering, today the company previewed innovative work in credentialing and learner records. Instructure is launching a learner passport in beta designed to empower learners to carry stackable, verifiable evidence of the competencies acquired throughout their learning journey. "We believe the future requires a portable, shareable record to show the skills and achievements an individual mastered with either employers or institutions," Vijiasingam said. "We know that learners are looking for alternative paths to employment and education and this gives them the power to pursue their own unique learning journeys."
Platform Integration
To realize the company's mission of delivering the most comprehensive, seamless learning platform on the market, Instructure showcased new deep integration between their solutions, like Canvas LMS and assessment management system Mastery Connect, and a seamless learning experience across Canvas LMS, Canvas Catalog and Canvas Credentials. This cohesive platform experience is strengthened by a foundation of data brought to life by advanced analytics. As part of the platform, the Instructure Community, edtech's largest online community, now has PandaBot, an AI-powered chatbot available to all community members. "Whether educators and learners are using Instructure products or other educational technologies on the Instructure Learning Platform, they deserve an experience that puts teaching and learning front and center," said Steve Daly, Instructure's Chief Executive Officer. "Removing the barriers between these solutions allows everyone to navigate freely so they can focus on the content of their education and not the tech. Today we shared our vision of what a cohesive platform experience could and should look like–and our strategy to get there."
ABOUT INSTRUCTURECON
InstructureCon 2023, Instructure's professional learning event for educators and edtech users, with a 2023 theme of Making Moments, features prominent keynotes from Deepak Chopra, Arianna Huffington and Dr. Jordan Nguyen. With more than 130 sessions from fellow educators and inspiring thinkers, InstructureCon addresses some of the most impactful edtech insights and tips on resilience, wellness and self-care for educators. This year's InstructureCon event takes place July 25-28, at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Denver.
ABOUT INSTRUCTURE
Instructure is an education technology company dedicated to elevating student success, amplifying the power of teaching, and inspiring everyone to learn together. Today the Instructure Learning Platform, comprised of its flagship product Canvas LMS and several products serving K-12 and higher education, supports tens of millions of educators and learners around the world.
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