Professional Development meets Curriculum and Assessment with new ‘Teachscape XL’


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Kati Elliott                           Cheryl Williams
KEH Communications       Teachscape
410-975-9638                     415-828-6253
Professional Development meets Curriculum and Assessment with new ‘Teachscape XL’
Student achievement is central to instructional effective system that improves teaching and learning
Washington, DC, June 28, 2009 – In its mission to provide an integrated instructional analytic system that has real impact on improving teaching and learning in K-12 education, Teachscape has expanded its web-based Teachscape XL professional learning platform. The platform now includes curriculum mapping to the core concepts and critical skills found in standards, varied student assessments that provide timely data for teachers, Classroom Walkthroughs for measuring instructional practices against modern research, and a host of online learning modules for driving classroom instructional practice.
Teachscape XL now includes four components designed to provide one system for using research and data to ensure students are progressing down a learning path. It provides the tools to assess student progress, analyze teaching strategies, recommend corrective instruction, and align curriculum to standards.
“Educators are faced with one of the toughest jobs in the world. They must help every student learn content that is defined by national, state and local standards. Often these same teachers are asked to do this without understanding how those standards break down to instructional practice” said Mark Atkinson, Teachscape’s CEO. “With Teachscape XL, we have created an integrated system that looks at all components of student learning together, instead of in isolated chunks of information – what needs to be taught, student knowledge acquisition, instructional practices, and research. Arming teachers with the resources to be successful, which ultimately leads to increased student achievement and teacher job satisfaction.”
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Teachscape XL components:
Curriculum SuiteThe Teachscape Curriculum Suite starts with the vertical articulation of core concepts and critical skills needed to master the standards. It includes instructional pacing guides for each course and grade level, as well as test blueprints for state, benchmark, and formative assessments. The curriculum framework ensures that all students have access to rigorous expectations for what they should know and be able to do. This application also provides tools to build and share units and lessons within and across districts.
Assessment Suite – The Teachscape Assessment Suite captures and analyzes multiple measures of student performance from traditional testing and grading to rubrics. It includes the importing of state test data, a benchmark assessment system with page scanning of results, a standards-based grade book, and rubrics for evaluating students on work products or tasks. Learning Profiles provide graphically rich views of student performance without having to query for data. Profiles are generated for student, class, school, and district and disaggregated by subgroups. Standards-based report cards are also generated for each student and can include multiple measures of performance.
Classroom Walkthrough Suite – The Teachscape Classroom Walkthrough Suite provides tools for analyzing the actual instructional strategies that teachers use within the classroom to enable them to understand how their strategies measure up against research and to evaluate the impact they are having on different groups of students within their classroom. Methods for conducting Walkthroughs are provided, along with indicators or “look fors” for assessing instruction and engagement.
Professional Learning Suite – The Teachscape Professional Learning Suite is a site that hosts a collection of more than 100 online professional learning modules designed to showcase research-based classroom practice for teachers and instructional leaders. With the Custom Publishing Tool, more than 10,000 professional learning artifacts can be re-assembled, customized, localized, and republished in unique ways to create differentiated professional development for coaching and instructional improvement.
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Teachscape XL is a platform and set of tools designed to help districts strategically define what educators should teach and when they should teach it. As a result, this technology allows schools and districts to trace student success in particular curriculum areas to specific instructional strategies, and map interventions that support continued student growth.  In addition, the program’s ability to determine which professional development activities result in improved student outcomes supports teacher growth and effectiveness.
“These new comprehensive, media rich, information resources will empower districts to pull their staff together to work collaboratively towards school improvement and student success,” said Atkinson.
Availability and Training
Teachscape XL in its new format is available now. To assist district leaders, Teachscape will provide a four-day strategic planning session during which districts begin the process of assessing their alignment needs of curriculum, instruction, and assessment with professional learning. For a complete catalog of the content offerings available, visit www.teachscape.com.
About Teachscape
Teachscape is a technology-enabled instructional effectiveness company that provides research-based, data-driven, and outcomes-oriented professional learning for educators throughout a school system. As a strong proponent of the National Staff Development Council’s standards, Teachscape’s mission is to improve the quality of teaching and instructional leadership through data systems, professional learning, and services that support effective practice. Teachscape has partnered with respected institutions including Stanford University, McREL, the Concord Consortium, the University of Texas and others to shape its approach to professional learning. For more information, visit Teachscape at http://www.teachscape.com.

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