Learn more about this year's nominees for all 10 categories in the Readers' Choice Awards below.
Once you've read about the nominees, click "VOTE NOW" to select the company you feel should win in each category. You'll also be entered to win a $50 Amazon gift card!
Curriculum development
What is the product? The Sora K-12 reading app gives every student 24/7 access to digital books for learning and choice reading. Students use Sora to read ebooks and audiobooks assigned by educators as well as popular digital books in every subject selected by their school librarians. Available on smartphones, tablets and desktops via browser, Sora also enables students to borrow age-appropriate titles from the public library. Sora’s customizable catalog and learning tools help eliminate reading barriers and support literacy goals. The app incentivizes achievement with avatars and badges while educators can assign individual titles, view reading analytics and more.
What problem does it solve? Sora provides equitable access to digital books for all students of all reading levels from any location. When digital access is the only option students due to illness or vacation, they can access required curriculum and recreational ebooks and audiobooks anytime, anywhere on any device. Titles can also be downloaded and read offline for students with limited or no home internet access. Additionally, educators can assign titles on Sora based on each student’s individual reading level. Reading levels remain private because the book cover is visible only to that student.
Further reading...
What is the product? The Mimic Simulation Platform gives students real-world job assignments and allows them to add marketable job skills to their resumes in areas like digital and social media marketing, professional sales, market research, and more. Our first-in-the-world simulations are vetted by industry and academia. Student surveys rank Mimic Simulations over the competition as being more engaging, better job preparation, and more relevant and worthwhile. Mimic Simulations have helped over 500,000 students around the world, from students at ivy league universities to rural community colleges. Major corporations also use Mimic Simulations to train their employees in digital and social media marketing.
What problem does it solve? A degree is not enough to help a student get a job—they need experience. Many entry-level positions ask for at least 2 years of experience. Mimic Simulations allow students to get the true-to-life experience they can add to a job resume. Often, this is an experience students can’t gain anywhere else, like managing a $50k ad budget, launching a new product, running a social media campaign, analyzing CRM data, A/B testing, conducting cluster analysis, and more. Students report that Mimic Simulations have helped them get internships and jobs at companies like Google, Adobe, and other Fortune 500 companies.
Further reading...
What is the product? myON is a digital reading platform that provides students with 24/7 access to thousands of books and news articles—in English, Spanish, and additional languages. A multimedia reading experience with colorful illustrations, professionally recorded audio, and annotation tools make each text engaging and unique. Built-in close reading tools, customizable literacy projects, and a large collection of nonfiction titles support lesson plans centered on reading and writing skills, while daily news articles enrich and support your curriculum. myON News provides daily, age-appropriate news articles vetted by a child psychologist that enrich content-area classes and bring more opportunities for reading into the school day.
What problem does it solve? Staying current with engaging, and relevant materials that spans the entire curriculum is an enduring quest for educators and creating deep learning opportunities with timely materials can be an even greater challenge. How does myON help? Robust fiction and nonfiction content for reading: myON offers over 15,000 titles with unlimited access and an expanding collection. State standard aligned content and assignable projects: Search by state standard to find books and create myON Projects that supplement core curriculum. Books and articles for all ages and reading levels: myON offers multi-leveled books and personalized reading recommendations at every reading level.
Further reading...
https://www.renaissance.com/products/myon/
https://renaissancevideo.hubs.vidyard.com/watch/EoQLFs98JmP7eb9Xy2eYre
What is the product? Poptential is a family of free social studies course packages that infuse lessons with pop culture-rich media to engage digital native learners. Poptential's award-winning course packages are standards-based, developed by social studies teachers, and include history, civics, economics, and personal finance. Course packages include lessons, bell ringers, quizzes, tests, and an eBook delivered on our unique eReader that does not require an internet connection. The courses are designed for today’s digital learners, and fill the need for a sensible curriculum that imparts knowledge and teaches students how to think critically and engage constructively with others.
What problem does it solve? Most social studies courses have been taught the same way for decades, and haven’t kept pace with changing student preferences. Today’s students are digital natives who have specific expectations for how they consume information. In a survey conducted by Project Tomorrow™, 84% of students said the Poptential pop culture references and videos help them learn. In addition, 96% of teachers said pop culture references are valuable teaching tools. Our rigorous content provides key information in a current, contemporary manner. Poptential is designed to equip teachers to teach students how to think, not what to think. Our digital tools and practical teaching methods are exceptional at conveying skills and knowledge, freeing up teachers to provide context, wisdom, and motivation.
Further reading...
What is the product? Discovery Education helps educators deliver equitable learning experiences engaging all students and supporting higher academic achievement on a global scale through the K-12 learning platform. Connecting educators to a vast collection of high-quality, standards-aligned content, ready-to-use digital lessons, intuitive quiz and activity creation tools, and professional learning resources, Discovery Education provides educators an enhanced learning platform that facilitates engaging, daily instruction. The K-12 learning platform is designed to work within school systems’ existing infrastructure and workflows and provide safe, secure, simple access methods for educators and students.
What problem does it solve? Discovery Education platform solves school leader’s need for one high-quality flexible, dynamic digital resource that can meet the varied needs of the school system. The over 200,000 dynamic digital assets are paired with a host of new, time-saving features, including an interactive quiz functionality, 1,500 ready-to-use instructional activities for all subjects, an enhanced collaboration tool, and video player that makes it easier to build interactive video quizzes, share content with students, and more. Discovery Education adds, contextualizes, and organizes new content and timely and relevant resources to the platform each month in response to the ever-evolving needs of educators.
Further reading...
https://www.discoveryeducation.com/features
https://videos.discoveryeducation.com/watch/AM9QoBp8KSjiesJETx59Sn?
What is the product? Courseware provides over 400 highly customizable, standards-aligned courses for students in grades 6-12 that help educators meet students where they are and progress them toward their first-time credit and credit recovery goals at the time, place, and pace that’s right for them. Courseware is rigorous, relevant, and aligned to state and national standards with courses covering core, elective, CTE, world language, and advanced or technical education subjects to prepare students for their next step into post-secondary education or the workforce.
What problem does it solve? Courseware provides students and educators proven, high-quality online learning to support the places and ways they learn and teach, whether that’s in a classroom or recovery lab, or via remote learning or virtual school. Customizable curricula, built around constructivist learning principles, support educators in creating original credit and credit recovery courses, aligned to local standards and to students’ interests and needs. Initial assessments can exempt students from mastered concepts, so time learning is maximized and personalized. Each step of the way, unmatched progress monitoring, gradebook functionality, and usage reporting provides educators with tools to take action and deliver targeted support.
Further reading...
What is the product? Tutorials offers personalized learning to identify gaps in prerequisite skills and accelerate 6-12 students to on-grade proficiency. This modular instruction uses skill-level pretests, deployed on an educator’s schedule to tightly align with lesson plans/pacing guides, to assess grade-level skills as they are taught. The pretests adapt instruction for each student, and extensive scaffolds and supports flex to meet individual needs. Each lesson includes direct instruction, non-scored practice with answer-specific feedback, review, and scored assessment that feed reports and dashboards. Media engage students and appeal to learning preferences, ensuring students aren’t passive receivers of information but are creating learning that sticks.
What problem does it solve? Students in a given grade have a wide range of readiness for each skill and concept required for grade-level proficiency. Tutorials address this problem by first identifying gaps in prerequisite skills and then focusing on mastery of the on-grade skills. As such, this standards-aligned, modular 6–12 instruction offers a comprehensive combination of purposeful targeted intervention and on-grade instruction to prevent students from falling behind, ensure high-stakes test readiness including end-of-course and high school equivalency scores, and even support post-secondary readiness on ACT, SAT, ACCUPLACER, and TSI Assessments.
Further reading...
https://www.apexlearning.com/digital-curriculum/tutorials
https://www.apexlearning.com/resources/video-gallery/tutorials-grades-6-12#play
What is the product? Time4Learning is an award-winning, online curriculum for PreK-12th grade that teaches math, language arts, science, social studies and more. The interactive, student-paced curriculum features thousands of engaging learning activities, printable worksheets, quizzes and tests, and more. Each activity focuses on strengthening reading and math skills, boosting learning comprehension and reinforcing problem-solving skills through interactive lessons, or fun, engaging games. Parents can assess progress and customize the curriculum to meet their child’s unique learning needs. Interested families may visit Time4Learning.com for more information on how to get started, read member stories and view demos.
What problem does it solve? At the onset of COVID-19, schools closed their doors and left 50 million public school students out of the classroom. For two years, parents have fought to combat “coronavirus learning loss.” Time4Learning was ready to accept the wave of students. Leaning into its 16-year history as a homeschool education leader, Time4Learning implemented innovative measures to meet families’ needs. It reinvented its database structures, reimagined server architectures into a more elastic model, incorporated audits of all buffer and error structures, and created a new level of monitoring and quality assurance systems. Time4Learning achieved a 185% increase in enrollments.
Further reading...
What is the product? NoRedInk includes diagnostic tools, instructional resources, targeted skills practice, and scaffolded writing activities. Our online writing curriculum engages students with exercises based on their interests, boosts their skills with adaptive practice, and guides them step by step through the writing and revision process. Through interactive tutorials, models, and lessons, we provide students with the just-in-time support they need to unlock their potential as writers. NoRedInk’s assessment and reporting features help teachers differentiate instruction, monitor trends, and track student progress toward mastery of specific skills included in state and national standards.
What problem does it solve? According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, 73% of 8th graders and 12th graders are below proficient in writing. For students to improve their writing skills, they need a continuous loop of modeling, practice, and feedback. NoRedInk’s approach is based on a simple premise: students learn best from their immediate social context. We take their favorite celebrities, fictional characters, athletes, and other interests and use them to generate personalized content. We then incorporate this content into writing and grammar activities that are rigorous and engaging and give teachers the data they need to make informed instructional decisions.
Further reading...
What is the product? Gale In Context: For Educators is a lesson planning tool that enables educators to find and personalize digital learning content, plan activities for remote or in-person environments, and build an equitable and culturally responsive classroom with, Equity, & Inclusion and Social Emotional Learning content and lessons. Fueled by content from the Gale In Context student databases and your student-facing Gale eBooks, it includes custom lesson plans and exclusive tools to help educators save time and teach with easily-sharable, curriculum-aligned resources, while enabling seamless collaboration within and across schools and districts. All to help students succeed.
What problem does it solve? Teachers spend up to 10 hours per week searching for digital lesson plan materials to supplement curriculum and support classroom learning1. Gale In Context: For Educators reduces this burden by streamlining access to curated and authoritative educational resources from Gale In Context databases, empowering teachers with a single point of access and the technology, tools and resources they need, saving them time and effort while enhancing their classroom curriculum. And now more than ever, educators need on-demand training and support. For Educators features a Learning Center to help educators self-teach virtual lesson planning and online teaching skills.
Further reading...
https://www.gale.com/databases/gale-in-context/for-educators
What is the product? Okapi Digital Literacy™ is a digital book platform with more than 1100 student texts (Levels A–V) that enables teachers to view and share Okapi’s resources with students. In addition to title-for-title equity in English and Spanish, teachers can also access and download Lesson Plans for every title or paired-book duo.
What problem does it solve? Each title or pair is supported with robust teaching support, making Okapi Digital Literacy™ an ideal choice for remote-, hybrid-, or in-class instruction.
Further reading...
Classroom assessment
What is the product?
Confidently guide instruction with Renaissance Star Assessments to meet all your needs. Our computer-adaptive assessments and formative skill checks work seamlessly together to provide the data and insight educators need to determine the skills students know, and how deeply those skills are understood – in three easy steps:
Step 1: Assess with Star Early Literacy, Star Reading, or Star Math to get an overall measure of students’ ability, in both English and Spanish.
Step 2: Plan instruction and access resources targeting skills students need to develop.
Step 3: Measure students’ understanding of specific skills with custom-built or pre-made test items from Star Custom, aligned to your state standards.
What problem does it solve?
Inform instructional decisions with trusted assessment data.
Most educators are concerned with over-testing students and believe more time should be dedicated to teaching and learning. Educators want assessments that not only provide reliable results, but also the next steps to guide instruction. They want one assessment system that provides data and insight to answer essential questions:
· Which skills do my students know and which skills they are ready to learn?
· How can I personalize instruction and practice to meet all students’ needs?
· Are my students mastering reading and math standards and skills?
· Are students growing as expected?
Further reading...
https://www.renaissance.com/products/star-assessments/
https://renaissancevideo.hubs.vidyard.com/watch/25xSruV2D28uKPS1JPRNTD
What product is it? Proliftic is an evidence-based student data insights platform that provides intuitive reporting—from the systems-level to the whole child. By bringing attendance, behavior, social-emotional, grade and test score data together, Proliftic equips districts to identify patterns, gaps or disproportionality in learning. Proliftic seamlessly integrates with a district’s existing student information system and preferred assessments and interventions—simplifying data to promote clarity and purpose. Proliftic also enables collaboration between classroom, school, and district-level leaders to ensure a cohesive, coordinated system of supports for all students. Best-in-class implementation and change management is built into the Proliftic experience ensuring a superior end-user experience.
What problem does it solve?
Proliftic provides districts a systematic, accessible approach to data and intervention management that facilitates understanding of students’ strengths and needs, and the extent to which programs are addressing needs.
Proliftic facilitates this by:
• Aggregating relevant student data— including test scores, attendance, behavior, and SEL data, grades, intervention and group participation, and progress monitoring results— into an intuitive platform
• Pulling data into one spot and analyzing trends districts can build shared understanding and clear definition around goals
• Providing a curated, customizable bank of research-supported interventions that updates to reflect current practices, promoting systematic implementation.
• Delivering key insights through one-click reports
Further reading...
What product is it? Understanding each student’s learning level and adapting instruction to align to those unique needs is paramount. Edmentum Exact Path sits squarely at the forefront of this work, committed to accelerating individual academic growth. Whether students need remediation, skills reinforcement, or enrichment, Exact Path makes learning personal by combining adaptive diagnostic assessments with individualized learning paths to promote growth for K–12 students in math, reading, and language arts. Each step of the way, educators are supported with powerful assignment features and meaningful data to pinpoint growth, set goals for improvement, and guide decision making.
What problem does it solve? Exact Path puts individual student growth first—giving students accessible content to close gaps in learning while providing educators with ongoing data to facilitate targeted support. As such, our program is ideal as individualized instruction for all or as targeted intervention for your highest need students. Since Exact Path looks at a student’s abilities not based on the grade they are in, but by the learning level they demonstrate understanding of, the program can dig deep and unearth longstanding gaps that are preventing future success, closing them once and for all and igniting student potential.
Further reading...
What product is it? Edmentum’s Study Island is a customizable K–12 practice and assessment tool built specifically from each state’s standards and grounded in 20 years of curriculum expertise and research. Study Island covers all core subjects and several elective subjects offering over 600,000 standards-aligned items, including 11 different technology-enhanced item types. Students can complete game-based practice to earn Blue Ribbons, participate in competitive Group Sessions to show what they know, or even prepare for summative assessments using teacher-customized formative and interim assessments. Validated by the Marzano research group, just 30 minutes of practice per subject weekly leads to growth and student achievement.
What problem does it solve? As educators and students continue to experience disruptions in learning, Study Island is the ideal tool to help educators identify and mitigate gaps in proficiency and focus on essential standards before summative testing season hits. Its flexibility supports implementations for classroom assessment, test preparation, intervention support, and more. It is well documented that formative assessment has great potential to raise student achievement and instill, develop, and support metacognition in students. Study Island is a testament to the power of this learning best practice.
Further reading...
classroom management
What is the product? Learning Space Manager (LSM) is a cloud based service that allows an institution to optimize the performance, utilization, and evolution of its learning spaces. LSM improves the learning space experience via its assessment, data insights, end of life forecasting, asset pedagogy management and much more. It is a naturally collaborative solution that allows all learning space service providers such as media/AV services, facilities, teaching and learning , external vendors and instructional designers to collaborate.
What problem does it solve? Learning Space Performance (do all of the assets in the learning space work properly), Utilization (do all the learning space users understand the pedagogy value of the assets), and evolution (effectively cost manage learning space pedological continual improvements and standardization).
Further reading...
What is the product? Clever’s free digital learning platform has become the essential digital learning partner for more than 65% of U.S. schools. The single sign-on platform creates a seamless learning experience for teachers and students while streamlining interoperability, rostering, and security for districts. Districts can connect any student information system to Clever to use its free, automated rostering solution to securely provision new applications – saving time with easy implementation and strengthening data security for all their users. Plus, Clever analytics give district administrators quick, real-time insights into who is accessing – making it easy to support equitable learning and optimize tech investments.
What problem does it solve? Born from Dan Carroll’s own experience as a tech director facing massive inefficiency and lost learning time from siloed technology and forgotten passwords, Clever helps districts build a secure place to access the apps students rely on. Clever also automatically creates student accounts – reducing data errors and strengthening security by connecting directly to the SIS. Over a third of schools using Clever report they’ve launched new edtech in just one day. According to Glendale Unified School District IT leader Doug Laing, Clever is “this magical place where students can go and everything they need is just one click away.”
Further reading...
Early education
What is the product? Lalilo is an online program that makes foundational reading development fun for K–2 learners. After an initial placement test, students journey through playful, engaging worlds working across a variety of adaptive exercises in phonemic awareness, letter recognition, letter-sound correspondence, blending, segmenting, decoding, fluency, and grammar and conventions, depending on their individual needs. The Teacher Dashboard puts an abundance of learning data at teachers’ fingertips. Lalilo helps educators better understand whole-class progress, monitor individual students’ development, assign additional practice, and plan instruction. When students master lessons, they unlock badges that earn them vocabulary-rich stories read aloud for pure enjoyment.
What problem does it solve? Lalilo makes the rocket science of foundational reading instruction fun for students, no matter where they learn. With a supportive environment specifically designed for early learners, students autonomously explore new literacy concepts at their own pace. Lalilo is standards-aligned and supports explicit, systematic phonics instruction based on the latest research on the Science of Reading. Innovative artificial intelligence technology adjusts the student’s experience to make sure they know the content before moving on. Whether by assigning lessons to students, observing whole-class trends, or tracking progress against national reading standards, Lalilo gives educators the insights to better differentiate their reading instruction.
Further reading...
What is the product? Learning Ally's new Excite Reading™ program is designed to prepare emergent readers in PreK-Grade 2 for literacy success. It is a collection of charming stories and enticing e-books with human-narration to help teachers forge a connection between early phonics skills and fundamental skills in comprehension, vocabulary, and background knowledge. The early literacy framework takes a holistic approach to focus on the "whole child," to include social emotional learning and cross important domains of knowledge in math, science, and art. It is ideal for children entering school with less exposure to words and books, and in need of extra support.
What problem does it solve? Children's life experiences and early exposure to literacy deeply impact their background knowledge and vocabulary acquisition critical for reading comprehension. Many children enter school without early literacy preparation due to diverse cultures, economic status, trauma, and language barriers. Through a mix of classic and contemporary stories, teachers immerse children into a literature-rich environment to catch up with peers. Children develop pre-reading skills by learning new words, creating context, and sparking conversations. Teacher guides support story themes to build a larger context so children can embark on a higher level of discourse using vocabulary to express questions, answers, and ideas.
Further reading...
https://learningally.org/Solutions-for-School/Excite-Reading
What is the product? Reading Horizons Discovery® is a phonics-based solution that supports educators with science-based, tech-enabled foundational reading instruction that helps all students reach reading proficiency by the end of 3rd grade. With differentiated instruction and a naturally multisensory approach built in, Reading Horizons truly meets the needs of every student. It features impact-maximizing resources, such as teacher-designed lesson plans and student-friendly software that help educators recognize concerns in real-time then respond with resources proven to help. With turnkey lesson plans and software that tracks student progress, teachers can be more efficient, effective, and free to focus their attention where it’s most needed.
What problem does it solve? More than 85% of learning depends on proficient reading. Yet, 64% of students nationwide are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade, 75% of whom will never catch up. We support educators with science-based reading instruction that helps students reach reading proficiency by the end of third grade. Students are able to learn at their own pace which creates confidence in their reading journey. Reading Horizons Discovery® has enabled students to experience a strong foundation of decoding and comprehension skills. Students are now able to communicate effectively, compete academically with their peers, and reduce anxiety surrounding reading.
Further reading...
https://www.readinghorizons.com/reading-curriculum/elementary-reading-curriculum/overview
What is the product? COMET is a Whole Child Information System born from helping organizations improve outcomes for the children they serve. That mission led us to build a robust, reliable, child-centric platform that allows users to make data-driven decisions based on the priorities of that organization. With tools for collecting and reporting on instruments and assessments, attendance, and 1:1 counseling or interactions, COMET is a comprehensive platform for any organization that aims to improve the lives of children.
What problem does it solve? COMET simplifies data collection and reporting with a single platform that can produce meaningful data for child outcomes, program effectiveness, and funders. COMET combines the power of a student information system, an assessment platform, attendance platform, and service, case, and referral management system with a reporting engine that can combine those data sets creating a comprehensive data system that can help an organization save on its most precious assets: time and money.
Further reading...
What is the product? My Math Academy is the comprehensive, standards-based program proven to help students (currently pre-K through second grade) achieve mastery and teachers accelerate learning in mathematics. The program determines gaps in each child’s learning through embedded formative and summative assessments. My Math Academy immediately assesses what each student knows or does not know and creates a personalized learning path across 200+ Learning Objectives. The adaptive technology continuously provides just-right challenges that encourage productive struggle. Developed using the latest science on how children learn, My Math Academy is proven to accelerate learning gains with as little as 45 minutes of usage per week while also boosting children’s engagement, interest, and confidence in learning math.
What problem does it solve? The development of My Math Academy reflects our deep commitment to expanding learning opportunities in the U.S. and globally and closing inequities and achievement gaps in education. The need for greater support is profound with hundreds of millions of children worldwide barely meeting minimum proficiency standards in reading and mathematics. My Math Academy helps scale what expert teachers would do if they could work one-on-one with every child in their classroom: assessing what each student knows, creating a personalized learning path, continually monitoring progress towards mastering new skills and finding a way to make math fun for all children. Pilot studies and research show that it boosts early learning math skills –-- and we are doing this at scale.
Further reading...
professional development
What is the product? The National Certificate for STEM Teaching (NCST) is online, competency-based professional development for preK-12 teachers, which focuses on high-impact STEM instructional strategies that work synergistically across content areas. Designed with working educators in mind, the NCST is personalized, job-embedded, standards-focused, and convenient. Participants can start the 100% online, self-paced program at any time, with support from a virtual STEM coach. The NCST program is affordably priced at $625 per teacher, with group discounts available. The American College of Education also provides six hours of graduate credit to NCST graduates who enroll in its 100% online STEM Master’s or Doctoral programs.
What problem does it solve? The National Certificate for STEM Teaching (NCST) is addressing an urgent need to integrate STEM education into all classrooms across grade levels and content areas. Teachers can start the online, competency-based professional development program any time and move at their own pace, or work with colleagues in school or district cohorts. While research and best practices provide an evidence-based foundation, the program’s focus is on educators’ personal application of learning. Each participant receives support from on online STEM coach, and has a full year to demonstrate their understanding of the 15 embedded STEM Teacher Actions.
Further reading...
What is the product? Vector Training (formerly SafeSchools) is a robust online training management system for schools. It provides staff and students with access to hundreds of expert-authored online training courses and helps administrators easily track and manage those trainings in a convenient, versatile web-based platform. In addition, Vector Training allows districts to create and deliver custom courses within the system. The versatility and ease of use of the web-based platform, the range and quality of courses, and the multiple automated administrative features make Vector Training a standout solution for PD courses and training management.
What problem does it solve? For administrators, Vector Training solves the challenge of tracking and managing staff training and compliance. For staff and students, it makes training more convenient by providing high-quality, engaging online courses written by expert authors, all in a versatile web-based platform. For district compliance officers, it makes it easier to track compliance with mandatory state and federal training, including OSHA, Title IX, Mandatory Reporting, FERPA, Youth Suicide Prevention, Bullying Prevention, and School Violence Prevention.
Further reading...
https://www.vectorsolutions.com/solutions/vector-lms/k12-training-management/
What is the product? Renaissance's professional development services are designed to teach educators new strategies and skills, help them apply what they learn in their classrooms, and monitor outcomes for continuous improvement. Through hands-on learning and modeling of best practices, participants deepen their pedagogical knowledge, learn how to strengthen their implementations, and discover how to make the greatest impact on student achievement. Our services are tailored to meet customer needs—from self-service learning resources to district-wide change management to leveraging community partners. Customers choose when, where, and how to learn with onsite, remote, and blended learning options designed to fit their schedule and style.
What problem does it solve? Renaissance Professional Learning aims to ensure that when new teachers join existing implementations, they have professional learning opportunities to see value realization and successfully engage in our solutions quickly. We empower educators to use Renaissance's innovative assessment, instruction, practice, and data tools to their greatest effect by developing educator’s abilities to analyze and interpret learning data, deliver “just right” instruction and practice for every student, and make adjustments to maximize the impact on student learning and ensure equitable opportunity for growth. With successful capacity-building techniques, districts increase adoption and strengthen implementation year over year.
Further reading...
https://www.renaissance.com/services/professional-learning/
https://videos.renaissance.com/watch/Lc4Qn93M8n1goLa2gk8qdY?
What is the product? Reading Horizons offers synchronous and asynchronous professional learning for teachers and administrators to provide explicit instruction and hands-on practice of how to effectively implement Reading Horizons in their classrooms. Participants are surveyed following each session and 98% of participants responded that they would recommend the Reading Horizons Professional Learning to colleagues. Overall, the sessions are rated 4.74 out of 5. Educators also receive ongoing support throughout the year from the RH Customer Enablement Team.
What problem does it solve? It can be challenging to find a reading curriculum that is simple, effective, and paired with a professional learning support team focused on educator and student success. The Reading Horizons Customer Enablement Team’s mission is to empower educators to become institutions of excellence in literacy education. This is a team dedicated to helping educators execute their vision for implementation. The Reading Horizons Discovery® curriculum is aligned with the science of reading and gives educators the ability to provide every student with differentiated reading instruction. We believe educators deserve more than a curriculum. It’s why we consider ourselves your teaching partners.
Further reading...
https://www.readinghorizons.com/reading-curriculum/elementary-reading-curriculum/overview
What is the product? Since 2017, over 20,000 students, parents and educators have gone through Digital Respons-Ability’s digital citizenship classes, over totaling approximately 100,000 hours of instruction. This training was adapted online in 2019 and available as the Respons-Able Educators Certificate Program. The off-the-shelf digital modules currently have 53 lessons divided into 10 modules with an introductory orientation that has downloadable resources. The goal of REC is to help teachers embed digital citizenship across all K-12 classes. The REC program is available to fit into any school district’s learning management system. It can be taken asynchronously to fit into a busy teacher’s schedule.
What problem does it solve? Digital citizenship instruction usually takes places in pockets of schools, classes, but Digital Respons-Ability is the only company that has scaled this classroom-based instruction to cover an entire state. This implementation on a large scale has given them a wealth of knowledge to create a comprehensive digital citizenship education program based on practical experience, research, talking to students and working with parents. It's used by the federal government and around the world. REC solves the problem of teacher professional development without a firm background of classroom experience and across all of K-12.
Further reading...
safety & security
What is the product? InformaCast with Incident Management is a mass notification solution that offers users all the tools they need to manage an emergency. This includes initial alerts, follow-up, and “All Clear” messages, that reach on-site and mobile devices, as well as resources like safety checklists, floor plans, and links to security camera feeds. This reduces the need to navigate long lists or complex menus because every asset they need is in a centralized location. When the incident is over, a report is created to detail how the event was managed and inform future decisions to ensure the most effective response possible.
What problem does it solve?
InformaCast with Incident Management solves three critical problems
1.Automates safety plans, relieving pressure from school leaders, and minimizing the risk the critical steps are missed.
2.Provides expansive message reach with intrusive text and audio messages so no one in a school misses a message that impacts their safety
3.Increases the speed at which school leaders can respond to an emergency with one-touch message activation, virtual collaboration capabilities, and real-time insights.
Further reading...
What is the product? Schools have a basic responsibility to protect students from harm and ensure students are set up for success. MyConcern software makes it simple for teachers, administrators and school staff to securely and privately record well-being concerns about students, submit supporting evidence, organize a team of support, provide referrals and track and manage student supports. MyConcern modernizes outdated and ineffective methods of tracking student needs like paper notes, Excel files or even informal conversations. MyConcern enables private and secure asynchronous collaboration both within schools and between teachers and administrators, district personnel and outside agencies.
What problem does it solve? When students face mental health challenges, trauma, abuse and hardships, they risk limiting their academic progress. MyConcern helps schools proactively address these risks—setting educators up to effectively manage and support their students’ non-academic needs. If students’ wellness needs aren’t met, their academic progress suffers. Instead of responding after a crisis has occurred and piecing together the details and an urgent response, schools can proactively get ahead of student needs with MyConcern. Basing their support on the evidence collected, schools can efficiently communicate and collaborate with parents, support providers and school staff to keep students engaged and on track.
Further reading...
sel (mental and emotional teletherapy)
What is the product? Pixton gives teachers and students a unique way to create stories, demonstrate learning, and enhance writing assignments – in any subject – through digital comics. Users can explore topics in Math, Science, Social Studies, History, English, Art or any other subject. Choose images from popular content, books and movies like The Hunger Games or The Outsiders, plus other topics like the solar system, black history or the environment – all Common Core aligned. No drawing skills are required. Pixton levels the playing field with hundreds of preset characters, backgrounds, outfits, poses, and even emotions, all just a click or tap away.
What problem does it solve? Pixton is known to help enhance student grammar, vocabulary, and increase motivation and improve the learning of literature. Many students can read fluently but find it challenging to write. As a writing tool, Pixton provides students with tools to aid them in the writing process, supporting their language ideas with images, facial expressions, body language, etc. helping them resolve their storytelling problems and ideas. Additionally, students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia and autism benefit from using comics. The combination of images and text helps students process information better and the use of facial expressions and body language aids in understanding emotions and development of social engagement.
Further reading...
What is the product? Schools have a basic responsibility to protect students from harm and ensure students are set up for success. MyConcern software makes it simple for teachers, administrators and school staff to securely and privately record well-being concerns about students, submit supporting evidence, organize a team of support, provide referrals and track and manage student supports. MyConcern modernizes outdated and ineffective methods of tracking student needs like paper notes, Excel files or even informal conversations. MyConcern enables private and secure asynchronous collaboration both within schools and between teachers and administrators, district personnel and outside agencies.
What problem does it solve? When students face mental health challenges, trauma, abuse and hardships, they risk limiting their academic progress. MyConcern helps schools proactively address these risks—setting educators up to effectively manage and support their students’ non-academic needs. If students’ wellness needs aren’t met, their academic progress suffers. Instead of responding after a crisis has occurred and piecing together the details and an urgent response, schools can proactively get ahead of student needs with MyConcern. Basing their support on the evidence collected, schools can efficiently communicate and collaborate with parents, support providers and school staff to keep students engaged and on track.
Further reading...
What is the product?
Meaningful Conversations, a new resource included with literacy products Raz-Plus and Reading A-Z, is a comprehensive culturally responsive Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) resource for K-5 rooted in the CASEL framework. It enables teachers to facilitate classroom discussions on difficult, age-appropriate, topics that encourage celebrating one another’s differences and helps build understanding and respect for themselves and for others. Meaningful Conversations covers real-life issues that students, families, and educators are facing every day. This resource is designed especially to helps students:
- Grow in self- and social-awareness
- Construct self-confidence through equal visibility
- Develop inclusive, respectful dialogue skills
- Safely discuss and digest difficult topics
What problem does it solve? Students and teachers are feeling the effects of distance learning, COVID-19, social justice issues, the war in Ukraine, increasing weather events, and more. Students are smart, they ask questions and teachers are often the first people at the receiving end of these questions. Meaningful Conversations covers 10 key topics: Differences in Abilities, Bullying, Racism, Immigration, Living Through Difficult Times, Living Through Disasters, Families, Friends, You Are Marvelous, and Thinking and Learning Differences. Students are shown windows into other people's lives and mirrors reflecting their own experiences in order to validate their perspective, support their identity, and increase feelings of self-worth.
Further reading...
https://www.learninga-z.com/site/breakroom/new-meaningful-conversations-resource
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70PBYgmpfU&list=PLGcuN9fntXERBKopqDjyuY38sno89dvcK&index=5
Special education
What is the product?
Therapy Essentials includes the PresenceLearning interactive teletherapy platform, assessments, and professional learning to help school-based clinicians deliver services in-person or remotely.
With Therapy Essentials, speech-language therapists, occupational therapists, and school psychologists access training sessions with practical approaches for getting the most out of therapy in any environment. Then they use the award-winning online therapy platform to engage students in services in order to help them meet their learning goals. Key features of PresenceLearning’s platform include a robust digital content library, a comprehensive selection of top assessments, FERPA compliance to protect student privacy, and a therapy command center.
What problem does it solve? Therapy Essentials provides a solution for special education teams to deliver services in school or wherever students and clinicians are located. It increases staff productivity and retention by offering flexible, remote solutions for providing special education and behavioral mental health services to students within the district thus helping districts grappling with staff shortages or gaps in coverage. It helps districts offer full-or part-time remote work options to help meet the needs of their staff and keep trusted providers in the district. When providers stay within a district, students build stronger relationships with their provider which is a key component in maintaining progress.
Further reading...
What is the product? Pixton gives teachers and students a unique way to create stories, demonstrate learning, and enhance writing assignments – in any subject – through digital comics. Users can explore topics in Math, Science, Social Studies, History, English, Art or any other subject. Choose images from popular content, books and movies like The Hunger Games or The Outsiders, plus other topics like the solar system, black history or the environment – all Common Core aligned. No drawing skills are required. Pixton levels the playing field with hundreds of preset characters, backgrounds, outfits, poses, and even emotions, all just a click or tap away.
What problem does it solve? Pixton is known to help enhance student grammar, vocabulary, and increase motivation and improve the learning of literature. Many students can read fluently but find it challenging to write. As a writing tool, Pixton provides students with tools to aid them in the writing process, supporting their language ideas with images, facial expressions, body language, etc. helping them resolve their storytelling problems and ideas. Additionally, students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia and autism benefit from using comics. The combination of images and text helps students process information better and the use of facial expressions and body language aids in understanding emotions and development of social engagement.
Further reading...
stem and steam
What is the product?
STEMscopes is a comprehensive suite of results-oriented STEM curriculum and professional development solutions used by 8 million students across all 50 states. Created by educators for educators, STEMscopes is highly adaptable, affordable, and supports instruction in any kind of learning environment. STEMscopes was developed by Accelerate Learning Inc. in partnership with Rice University. It includes STEMscopes Science, STEMscopes Coding, STEMscopes DIVE-in Engineering, STEMscopes Math, STEMscopes Early Explorer, and STEMscopes Streaming. It combines a comprehensive digital curriculum, supplemental print materials, and hands-on exploration kits with embedded professional development to support student and teacher success.
What problem does it solve? The COVID-19 pandemic has caused educators to reimagine STEM education. STEMscopes is built from the ground up to today’s standards and is constantly evolving to meet changing needs. Teachers are using tools, training, and support in STEMscopes to confidently dive into STEM and facilitate inquiry-based, hands-on learning in the classroom, remote learning, and hybrid learning environments. Students are learning by exploring and discovering, and engaging with the standards through a variety of modalities. Studies show students who use STEMscopes have higher passing rates on state assessments. It positively impacts students regardless of English language proficiency, economic status, or geographic location.
Further reading...
What is the product? The STEM Careers Coalition is the first-of-its-kind national STEM initiative powered by corporate leaders and anchored in schools by Discovery Education. The Coalition prepares 10 million students for the future of work by providing equitable access to digital content and experiences that engage students, build foundational STEM knowledge, and develop the critical skills students need for college and career success. Reaching over 5 million students by the second-year anniversary in 2021, the Coalition is building the next generation of solution seekers. No-cost and standards aligned resources introduce new experiences to further support middle and high school students’ career preparedness.
What problem does it solve? STEM careers are necessary for the future and are growing at a rate faster than other sectors, but STEM careers have a diversity challenge. STEM Careers Coalition is nurturing a diverse culture of STEM education in K-12 schools nationwide by empowering educators to teach STEM effectively in the classroom, fostering and promoting quality education, and building the next generation of STEM solution-seekers with intentional focus on racial and gender equity. All 17 partners contribute careers content, expertise, and insight for the high-quality resources offered by the STEM Careers Coalition available to communities at no-cost.
Further reading...
What is the product? Launched in August 2021, BrainPOP Science is a new instructional solution that provides middle school science teachers with engaging, content-rich investigations driven by scientific phenomena that kids care about. BrainPOP Science investigations and curriculum-aligned units provide students with authentic opportunities to think critically, analyze, discuss, and “do” real science. This includes engaging in crucial virtual science and engineering practices through BrainPOP 3D Worlds®, simulations, and data manipulatives. With in-product standard alignments across all 50 states—and formative and summative assessments at the investigation and unit level—you'll save precious planning time while confidently meeting your curriculum's most important science standards.
What problem does it solve? BrainPOP Science elevates teachers’ daily instructional practice with engaging, entertaining, and effective science content that meets curriculum standards. For students, it provides an accessible entry point to develop critical scientific and data literacy skills, and engage in science and engineering practices. The intuitive Claim-Evidence-Reasoning process allows students to seamlessly collect evidence at every step of the investigation. Real-world datasets, and powerful data and graphing tools, make complex topics digestible. We aim to ignite students’ curiosity, empower them to explore and engage with the world around them, and nurture the skills they need to become problem solvers, collaborators, and innovators.
Further reading...
What is the product? Using a research-based approach to gamified learning, our academic esports program puts students on the pathway to college scholarships, industry certifications and multifaceted opportunities in emerging technologies. Learners build workforce-ready STEM skills with special attention to SEL while playing - and learning from - the titles they love.
What problem does it solve? Classroom disengagement and a lack of interest in STEM studies helps perpetuate the cycle of intergenerational poverty for students from traditionally disenfranchised backgrounds. But our curriculum channels these students' passion for gaming and opens doors to high-paying careers down STEM pathways like software design, coding, entrepreneurship, engineering and more. And we do it all through a standards-based computer science, academic esports and STEM curriculum that combines critical thinking to project-based fun.
Further reading...
What is the product? ST Math is a PreK-8 visual instructional program that leverages the brain's innate spatial-temporal reasoning ability to solve mathematical problems. The program’s unique, patented approach provides students with equitable access to learning through challenging puzzles, non-routine problem solving, and formative feedback. With ST Math, students build deep conceptual understanding, and schools see proven, repeatable results. The evidence-based impact of ST Math continues to be shown through independent, third-party validations as well as annual, transparent evaluations of results from ST Math school cohorts. These join more than 100 studies on the efficacy of ST Math.
What problem does it solve? Can a game change how you feel about math? The answer is yes, and the research proves it. ST Math’s patented approach - manipulating objects in space and time - is totally unique in the market. The program starts by teaching the foundational concepts visually, then connects the ideas to the symbols, language, and robust discourse. Why does this approach work so well? Because with visual learning, students are better equipped to tackle unfamiliar math problems, recognize patterns, and build conceptual understanding. Without language barriers, the problem is accessible to all students, regardless of skill level or language background.
Further reading...
What is the product?
There are lots of adaptive math tools out there. But most products are only adaptive at the question level. If you get the question wrong, the adaptive algorithm gives you easier questions. And the same vice versa.
What makes Mathspace unique is that we are truly adaptive. Our technology is adaptive on three levels. It can adapt and personalize feedback within a question, at a step level. Of course, it is also adaptive at a question level. And excitingly this year, following the launch of our new formative diagnostics tool, it is adaptive at an assessment level.
What problem does it solve? Mathspace solves two sides of the same problem. The problem is that math students have gaps in knowledge that go unidentified. One-to-one support can address this. Bloom’s Two Sigma Problem shows that the average student taught one-on-one outperforms 98% of their peers taught in a conventional classroom. By offering adaptive personalized learning pathways at a step level, Mathspace can support students at the exact moment of misconception, helping to fill knowledge gaps. The other side of the same problem is connected to assessment. Teachers rely on summative assessment to measure student progress and identify knowledge gaps. Often insights from these assessments come too late to be actioned. Our continuous formative assessment tools help teachers to perform regular check-ins, identify knowledge gaps and measure growth.
Further reading...