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personalized learning

IXL, Wyzant and Miami-Dade County Public Schools Partner to Provide Personalized Math Instruction

SAN MATEO, Calif.  — December  7, 2021 — IXL Learning, developer of personalized learning products used by more than 12 million students, announced an agreement with Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) to supply two of its award-winning platforms to the district’s 334,000 students and 17,500 teachers. More than 500 schools will use IXL to supplement math instruction and approximately 20,000 students can access one-on-one virtual tutoring opportunities through Wyzant, the nation’s largest tutoring network. 

Miami-Dade County Public Schools is the largest K-12 school system in Florida and the Southeastern United States, and the 4th-largest district in the country. It strives to provide a diverse community with learning experiences that improve academic achievement, emphasize social and emotional well-being, and enable all students to reach their full potential. To meet its goals, M-DCPS sought rigorous resources that enable educators to recover unfinished learning, track student progress and boost achievement in math. The district also needed tutoring support to help students hone math skills outside of school hours when parents or teachers aren’t available to help.

After a thorough search, M-DCPS realized that a large number of its educators were already successfully using IXL’s powerful platform and that its robust math curriculum was perfect for augmenting daily instruction. In addition, the district deeply appreciated that IXL Learning’s tutoring service, Wyzant, could seamlessly connect its students with experienced instructors to grow their math skills away from the classroom.  …Read More

3 simple—yet powerful—practices for student-centered learning

It is encouraging to observe an increasing number of educational leaders calling out the importance of student-empowered, student-owned, and student-centered learning.  A.J. Juliani, John Spencer, Katie Martin, and Alan November, to name a few, are inspiring the shift that so many educators already know needs to happen–from a mechanical, soulless approach to learning to an inspired, student-honored approach. 

Personalized learning defines a learning experience for the student and teacher that is intrinsically motivated and student empowered/owned. True personalized learning occurs when the student is a partner with the teacher, not only in student voice and choice, but a partner in content and curriculum creation as well. 

The necessity for students to have a student-centered learning experience at school directly addresses three specific areas of educational need:…Read More

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IXL Wins 2021 CODiE Awards for Best Math and English Language Arts Solutions

SAN MATEO, Calif., July 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ —  IXL Learning, developer of personalized learning products used by more than 12 million students, announced that the IXL platform won two  SIIA CODiE Awards in the Best Advanced Mathematics and Best Foundational English Language Arts (ELA) categories.

The CODiEs honor the most innovative educational technology products around the world. IXL’s recent achievements mark its sixth CODiE win in five years: IXL secured a second consecutive Foundational ELA win and is also a three-time winner of the prestigious  Best Educational App award.

“It’s incredibly rewarding that IXL Math and English Language Arts are recognized by the CODiE Awards as the most effective ways for learners to master essential concepts,” said Paul Mishkin, CEO of IXL Learning. “These honors underscore IXL’s commitment toward addressing the evolving needs of educators and reinforce our deep sense of responsibility to inspire all students to excel.”…Read More

How to take personalized learning to scale

iNACOL defines personalized learning as “tailoring learning for each student’s strength, needs, and interests—including enabling student’s voice and choice in what, how, when and where they learn—to provide flexibility and supports to ensure mastery of the highest standards possible.” Dr. Monica Burns, curriculum and educational technology consultant and founder of ClassTechTips.com, in a recent edWebinar, echoed this iNACOL concept. Before designing learning experiences that are personal to individual students, it is critical for classroom teachers and school leaders to identify student engagement, student interest, student choice, student voice, cross-curricular connections, and differentiated resources.

When it comes to student engagement, Burns said, “We want to make sure that we are capturing student attention by having students’ eyes where we want them to be or their hands where we want them to explore.” At the same time, it is essential to recognize that engagement looks different for every student in a classroom. By listening to what students are excited about and identifying their needs, teachers can provide a flexible learning environment that supports, energizes, and engages all individual learners.

Student choice and voice happens when students have opportunities to share what makes their interests unique and are active participants in conversations around success criteria and curriculum-based norms. How students demonstrate what they’ve learned and celebrate their learning journey is as important to the personalized learning process as engagement, interest, voice, and choice.…Read More

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McGraw Hill Acquires Kidaptive, an Adaptive and Personalized Learning Company

McGraw Hill today announced that it has acquired Kidaptive, Inc., an adaptive learning platform company with industry-leading expertise in learning science, early learning, and data analytics worldwide.

Kidaptive’s world-class team of learning scientists, psychometricians, data scientists and engineers will join a new Center for Innovation within McGraw Hill’s School group, led by Chief Innovation Officer Dr. Shawn K. Smith, who joined the company in November 2020. The team is focused on developing smarter and lighter student-centered solutions that will power even more personalized learning experiences.

“We see tremendous potential in this combination of McGraw Hill’s content development expertise, vast curriculum inventory and extensive student interaction data with Kidaptive’s ability to pinpoint each student’s position on a personal learning journey,” said Sean Ryan, President of McGraw Hill’s School group. “This is about delivering precision at scale to the benefit of students, teachers and families.”…Read More

IXL Learning Agrees to Acquire Wyzant Tutoring Marketplace

IXL Learning, the K-12 personalized learning platform used by 11 million students, today announced it has agreed to acquire Wyzant, the nation’s largest marketplace for online tutoring. The addition of the Chicago-based company will expand IXL’s capacity to address the needs of all students with personalized, one-on-one mentoring. 

Founded in 2005, Wyzant offers an expansive digital network of more than 65,000 tutors from a broad spectrum of academic and professional fields. Wyzant seamlessly connects students to the perfect tutor for online or in-person lessons geared toward their unique needs. Wyzant tutors serve learners of all ages and backgrounds, offering in-depth guidance on topics including English, language arts, physics, calculus, coding, LSAT test prep, music and more. 

“Wyzant expertly brings together students and world-class instructors. We’re excited to welcome Wyzant’s talented team to IXL and build a strong partnership rooted in a love of learning,” said Paul Mishkin, CEO of IXL.  …Read More

Rhode Island Approves IXL for K-12 Blended Learning and Assessment

IXL Learning, the K-12 personalized learning platform used by 11 million students, has been approved by the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) for use under two statewide initiatives. Schools and districts in the state can now support blended learning with IXL and implement the Real-Time Diagnostic to assess students’ knowledge levels in math and reading. IXL serves approximately 67,000 students in Rhode Island, which accounts for more than 40 percent of learners in the state.

RIDE’s mission is to provide equitable educational experiences to more than 300 K-12 public schools and 140,000 students across Rhode Island. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, state leaders began searching for a digital assessment that would reliably measure student growth during distance learning and identify potential knowledge gaps throughout the year. RIDE also recognized it needed a flexible, skills-based program to supplement daily instruction and fit seamlessly into any educational environment.

Pinpoint knowledge with the Real-Time Diagnostic…Read More

Laredo Independent School District and IXL Partner to Support In-Person and At-Home Learning

IXL Learning, the K-12 personalized learning platform used by 11 million students, today announced a three-year agreement with Laredo Independent School District to bring its award-winning program to approximately 23,600 students and 1,100 teachers. Through this partnership, all 33 schools in the district will use IXL to supplement math, English language arts, science and social studies instruction.

Laredo ISD is located in Laredo, Texas, on the border with Mexico. The district is home to eight National Blue Ribbon Schools and serves a large bilingual and English language learner population. Laredo ISD began piloting IXL in 2019 to complement its high school English language arts instruction and to identify areas where students were struggling. When the COVID-19 crisis took hold, its leadership turned to IXL for a robust remote learning experience that would empower all its students to learn from anywhere.

One of the district’s priorities was to fill knowledge gaps that arose during school closures. School leaders were thrilled to find that students had access to an entire K-12 curriculum in one place, allowing learners to quickly catch up on previous grade-level content at any time. Laredo ISD highly valued IXL Analytics and Live Classroom, which give educators the ability to accurately monitor student growth in real-time from home. The district also appreciated IXL’s ability to work as both a synchronous and asynchronous platform, as mandated by the Texas Department of Education.…Read More