ONLINE EDUCATION
Scantron | August 19, 2021
Scantron, a global leader in assessment, analytics, and data capture for the Education, Certification, and Workforce markets today announced the launch of Scantron® Snapshot™, an innovative, cloud-based, K-12 classroom testing solution designed to pinpoint unfinished learning, empower students to be invested in their progress, and give teachers on-the-spot information regarding student understanding of lesson concepts.
Following a year of educational disruption brought on by the pandemic, many educators are facing the challenge of efficiently assessing student academic progress and supporting differentiation. The need for real-time assessment is now more important than ever before. With Snapshot, teachers have a powerful tool to easily and instantly assess student progress and help students grow on their educational journeys. It can be used to deliver end-of-chapter tests, pop quizzes, or even quick-question check-ins on difficult concepts. The true value of the solution lies in giving teachers simple, easily deployable options for immediate intervention opportunities letting them decide how and when to test. Students then receive timely feedback on their progress, rather than wait for end of unit, interim or semester tests—giving them more insight on which concepts need attention and confidence during the learning process.
"Scantron Snapshot provides a new opportunity for K-12 educators to measure current learning comprehension while enabling accelerated student growth through real-time knowledge and understanding checks," said Jay Whitchurch, President, Scantron. "We have spent decades laying the groundwork and investing in technology to deliver the most reliable assessment solutions built to meet educator needs. This easy-to-use, teacher-driven classroom assessment is a game changer and one that will enable teachers to create individual plans and next steps relevant to each student based on immediate results."
Scantron Snapshot provides a quick, flexible, and easy-to-use K-12 evaluation solution that can be created with customized or state standard-aligned items to show progress in crucial areas of learning. It syncs with district Student Information Systems making it simple and fast to deploy. Classroom tests, quizzes, and concept checks can be created as needed and delivered online, by paper, or both. Teachers can build these using item banks containing more than 300,000 items, collaborate with teachers in their departments or schools to develop common assessments, and easily digitize existing paper forms using a simple upload process saving time and energy. The solution offers a modern interface, enabling the use of screen readers for students with visual impairments and supports multiple languages via Google Translate™.
"We're excited to launch this new, digital offering for classroom educators," said Mary Michael Pontzer, VP Portfolio Management for Scantron. "Educators have trusted our scanning solutions and online interim assessments for decades—now, with Scantron Snapshot, we offer a truly innovative solution that can raise the bar for equitable student engagement and personalization. This solution is timely as we head back to school, empowering educators to efficiently identify and address learning progress right in their classroom."
ABOUT SCANTRON
Scantron provides solutions that help organizations around the globe turn data into insights. These include assessment development and psychometric services from a deeply experienced and tenured team, state-of-the-art, proprietary assessment technology platforms, a full suite of survey services, as well as dynamic reporting and analytics tools that enable clients to make timely, accurate decisions for any industry. It is part of a global, diversified company that develops and delivers millions of digital education assessments and certification tests, prints & delivers hundreds of millions of high-precision, scannable answer sheets, and supports leading educational institutions, certifying bodies, small-to-large businesses, and government agencies. Scantron is headquartered in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, with other locations in the Research Triangle of North Carolina; Omaha, Nebraska, and Columbia, Pennsylvania.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
edx | December 15, 2020
edX, the education movement for restless learners, today announced a significant milestone in their growth in 2020. edX grew from 81 million total global enrollments in 2019, to over 110 million global enrollments in 2020, a record 29 million increase. The number of new registered users grew even faster at 161% year-over-year, to 35 million total individual users. Individual courses offered passed 3,000. In 2020 edX saw an average of 400,000 learners per day engaged in course content. This year alone, edX reached another milestone of issuing 2.1 million verified course certificates and offered 149 different credit pathways. More than 39 million hours of video were collectively consumed.
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ONLINE EDUCATION
Macmillan Learning | August 23, 2021
Macmillan Learning, a privately-held, family-owned education publishing and services company announced a new professional development series for educators to help support student engagement and success in college. The virtual “Engage Students to Achieve More” series is free for college faculty and administrators and will explore the techniques and technologies used to support active learning and student engagement in and outside the classroom, as well as timely lessons about effective teaching pedagogies gleaned during the pandemic.
Student engagement continues to be an area of concern due to educators’ diminished ability to work one-on-one with students and the decreasing levels of student motivation and morale versus pre-pandemic. It ranked as instructors greatest challenge in 2020, up from their third greatest challenge just two years ago, according to Digital Promise.
“While student engagement plays an important role in helping students in their coursework, its impact reaches far beyond the classroom,” said Charles Linsmeier, General Manager of Macmillan Learning. “In order to close COVID-19-related learning gaps, educators and student advocates are seeking new ways to best reestablish meaningful connections and timely interventions for deeper learning and engagement with their students. This is even more important with the variability and blending of synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning environments, which is the norm for many institutions for the foreseeable future.”
Throughout the complimentary virtual professional development series, which begins in August and continues throughout the fall, participants will hear about student engagement practices and solutions informed by the experiences of instructors, students, and administrators during the pandemic. The series explores various strategies, methods, and techniques that help increase students’ attention, interest, curiosity, and positive emotional connections to their learning and college communities.
About Macmillan Learning
Macmillan Learning is a privately-held, family-owned company that improves lives through learning. By linking research to learning practice, we develop pioneering products and learning materials for students that are highly effective and drive improved outcomes.
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