Letter of Invitation
Welcome and thank you for your interest in the Classroom Trials.
The Classroom Trials are designed to test the capabilities of software designed to support the instruction of writing in a classroom setting. We are limiting the products for consideration to those that include a feature of automated feedback to teachers, students and others supporting the instruction of writing in a classroom setting. The Working Group responsible for designing the trials is addressing an important challenge in the American public education system. Two emerging trends face the classroom teacher: 1) students are increasingly composing in digital environments; and, 2) demands on teachers to deliver meaningful assessment and formative instruction are climbing. If software can help enhance meaningful review of student work, then those resources should be examined for their capability to support writing instruction.
Technologies exist today that are designed to provide teachers with tools to review student writing at each phase of the drafting process, to provide critical and timely feedback to students, and to provide some of the information teachers need to strengthen instruction. However, many emergent technologies have not yet been examined in a fair, uniform and transparent way. So, the Classroom Trials are designed to demonstrate whether selected software systems are capable of:
- Increasing the quality and quantity of writing by students;
- Supporting teachers to meet identified performance goals for writing instruction;
- Matching the needs of students and teachers within a typical school environment.
You are invited to participate. As you enter this website, you will learn how to apply, who is responsible for selecting the participants and how. If you are selected, you will join between 3-5 other providers, and those vendors will have opportunities to inform the final study variables. Detailed study design considerations are available for your review.
After the selection process, the 3-5 products will be analyzed according to commonalities (e.g., output data). While assessment will take place to determine how the products are used, individual vendors will not be identified in the reports issued by the Working Group. In this way, capabilities can be examined in terms by features and use cases, wherever impact can be achieved for students, teachers, parents, and school administrators.
To apply, you must submit a product description and demonstration. You must show evidence of a sufficient track record of prior use and performance. We look forward to learning more about your company and your product. We have designed the application process to ensure an open, fair and transparent experience. If you have any questions, you can contact us directly by email at: [email protected]
Sincerely,
The Classroom Trials Working Group
(Members and their credentials are provided on the website)