New Acuity Auto-Assign Feature Delivers Personalized Student Instruction Automatically

MONTEREY, Calif., Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- CTB/McGraw-Hill, a leading provider of PreK-12 and adult education assessments, today announced the release of several enhancements to the Company's award-winning Acuity® InFormative Assessment™ solution. These new capabilities, developed in response to user feedback, are designed to provide maximum support for data-informed instruction, and make it easier and more efficient for educators to provide targeted instruction tightly aligned with assessment results.

"Acuity is a tremendous asset to our district," said Tim Foster, Elementary Math Coordinator for Clayton County Public Schools, in Georgia. "The targeted instructional resources, which teachers can use for intervention and review, are irreplaceable. Our students are greatly benefiting from having their individual needs met."

Foremost among the updates is a new feature that automatically assigns instructional resources to students based on their Acuity Assessment results. Available with Acuity's Predictive, Diagnostic, and Custom Assessments in Math and English Language Arts, this feature personalizes the instructional content delivered to each student. The assigned instructional resources each include three-parts: personalized instruction, guided practice items, and a final evaluation assessment. The final assessment provides teachers with another data point to determine whether a student needs additional instructional support, or remediation.

"Customer feedback is an important part of product development at CTB. The automatic assignment of instructional resources is in direct response to educator requests," said Ellen Haley, president of CTB/McGraw-Hill. "Acuity's frequent improvements continue to help educators deliver on the promise of personalized instruction, delivered efficiently and cost-effectively."

Additional Acuity updates include:

• Self-Service Roster – Multiple improvements to self-service rostering have been incorporated, including a feature that enables administrators to back-date students into classes, enabling more comprehensive reporting views, and keeping Acuity synchronized with rapidly changing student populations.
• Custom Test Builder – Several improvements give educators more flexibility in creating custom assessments. New enhancements include a save-as-draft feature, a mouse-over passage preview, and the ability to select multiple standards and sub-standards, skill groups, genres, and subgenres to be included on a custom assessment.
• Embedded Professional Development Videos – Provide immediate, free access from the Acuity Help Menu to 19 topical, online videos detailing how to perform specific tasks, such as how to interpret predictive reports, score constructed-response items, or add new students to a class.

As a Web application, Acuity enhancements are available immediately to all current clients without product installation.

About Acuity

The groundbreaking Acuity InFormative Assessment solution helps teachers gauge student performance and deliver tailored instruction for every student. Used by more than 65,000 teachers and 1.5 million students nationwide, Acuity heralds a new generation of assessment, enabling educators to deliver true data-driven instruction. Acuity contains four elements of a comprehensive assessment system: ongoing skills measurement, in-depth reporting, data analysis, and resources for individual instruction and intervention. CTB/McGraw-Hill also offers comprehensive professional development, online community forums, implementation, and support services. Acuity won the CODiE award in 2009 and 2010 for Best Student Assessment Solution and is recognized by Outsell Research as a "rising star" in their 2009 K-12 Testing and Assessment Review. For more information, visit AcuityforSchool.com or call 800.538.9547 to schedule a live presentation.

About CTB/McGraw-Hill

CTB/McGraw-Hill has an 84-year record of innovation and excellence in assessment, and serves more than 18 million students in all 50 states and in 46 countries. One of the first American publishers to introduce objective, standardized achievement tests to schools, today CTB/McGraw-Hill is a leader in testing with recognized products for online formative, adult, and language proficiency assessment. Dedicated to advancing the use of student performance data to inform instructional decision making, CTB/McGraw-Hill's innovation continues today with technologies that include Web-based assessment and reporting, student response device (clicker) software, and artificial intelligence for automated scoring of student essays. CTB/McGraw-Hill is part of McGraw-Hill Education, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies (NYSE: MHP). McGraw-Hill Education is a leading global provider of instructional, assessment and reference solutions that empower professionals and students of all ages. For more information, visit CTB.com.

SOURCE CTB/McGraw-Hill