CompassLearning and the Odyssey Community

The motto of CompassLearning is "engage, think, learn." The company realizes that students today not only engage with learning differently, but that the educational opportunities are vast.

In July 2010, a study completed by Yahoo! determined that individuals between the ages of 13 and 24 are spending 16.7 hours a week on the Internet. Odyssesy Community meets students in their comfort zone. By taking advantage of social media, Odyssey is encouraging students to really engage in their education. This interactive community facilitates teacher-student and peer-to-peer interaction and allows the teacher to guide learning in a safe environment. Odyssey Community is a prime example of Web 2.0. It empowers students, is interactive, engaging, motivating and has differentiated instruction.

"CompassLearning progresses at a pace unique to each student and challenges students without intimidating them." CompassLearning is a program to use if you are following the Response to Intervention (RTI) model to address the needs of struggling students. There are 4 steps to the RTI model in CompassLearning.

Step 1 - Diagnosis: The assessment provides the teacher with the student's strengths and weaknesses.

Step 2 - Instruction: Instruction is scaffholded, individualized and allows students to work at their own pace.

Step 3 - Progress Monitoring and Reporting: Any special education teacher knows that data collection can be overwhelming and intimidating. CompassLearning automatically collects data on student work and notifies teachers when adjustments in instruction need to occur.

Step 4 - Rejoining Mainstream: Due to the constant assessment of student progress, teachers are aware when students are mastering concepts. Students can then be transitioned to peer level work.

The Odyssey Community offers students a low-stress way to access all features of their educational program. The anxiety of the fear of social interaction or competency in an academic setting complicates the educational process and makes learning more difficult. By taking away the immediacy of face to face group work, students have the time to collect their thoughts and participate in activities at their own pace.

To find out more about CompassLearning, please visit their website.

Statistics taken from: MSNBC

*Note: I am in no way being compensated for my review of CompassLearning. Should they wish to supply me with a license free of charge, I'd be happy!