Sophia Launches New Licensed Versions of Online Platform for K-12 Schools, Colleges and Universities

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Sophia, a first-of-its-kind online social teaching and learning platform that offers academic content to anyone, anywhere, free of charge has developed private license learning solutions for schools, colleges and universities to improve student success, retention and engagement.

"These new offerings provide the conduit that enable teachers and learners to share information, provide and receive individualized instruction, and monitor student progress and comprehension like never before," said Don Smithmier, founder and CEO of Sophia. "Historically, teachers have taught to the middle third of the class but now we can enable differentiated instruction based on where a student's at with a subject, and truly keep pace with their learning ability. The result is a student more engaged in the learning process."

Sophia Pathways™ delivers a roadmap to student success

Sophia Pathways is a private adaptive learning system for K-12 schools seeking individualized instruction for students to supplement and enhance the classroom experience. Sophia Pathways allows teachers to differentiate instruction to individual students within a class by delivering multimedia lessons that match each student's needs and learning preference.

Sophia Pathways currently offers 22,000 math lessons created by hundreds of educators, which are 2-5 minutes in length and cover 3,000 different topics from basic arithmetic to college algebra. For each topic there are five to 15 teacher-developed videos that teach the material in different ways.

Using a robust learning preference assessment engine, students are first evaluated based on their response to ten criteria including pictures, humor, seriousness and pace. Lessons are presented in a way that matches their unique learning style preference, which is continually adjusted based on each student's ongoing interactions with the program. Teachers also can filter lesson curriculum based on the individual needs of the student.

Students are then tested on their comprehension of a subject through quizzes that are linked to the video lessons. Students receive immediate test results, and real-time progress reports are available to teachers, parents and the student. Pathways offers more than 60,000 quiz questions on a variety of math topics.

In addition, Sophia Pathways content is aligned to national common core standards, a variety of state standards and also can be tailored to a school's chosen textbook.

"Imagine looking at a page in a textbook and having the ability to immediately access a video that explains that lesson," Smithmier said. "Sophia Pathways delivers content in a multimedia format that kids are accustomed to, which ultimately improves student success."

Pathways also provides lessons that focus on test preparation for the ACT, SAT and some state standardized exams.

Sophia Pathways currently offers math lessons and an equally robust offering of science and English content will be added within the next year.

Create a unique social learning community with a private license version of Sophia.org

Sophia is also offering a private license version of its Sophia.org platform that will enable schools and universities to create and easily manage their own social learning community. The platform, which will be branded by the school, will provide broader peer group collaboration within the site as well as the ability to create and share content.

The private license version of Sophia.org provides a Web 2.0 platform that allows faculty to create supplemental learning materials that can be shared on an as-needed basis. It also allows students the ability to create their own multimedia learning modules to teach each other, demonstrate their knowledge of concepts and enhance learning retention through interaction in a social media environment. In addition, instructors can monitor student usage to determine their engagement and understanding of the topics discussed.

Materials created on the site also can remain indefinitely and be used by future classes and instructors.

"We developed Sophia to connect teachers and learners in a whole new way to make education better," Smithmier said. "Utilizing any of the Sophia tools provides students with content the way they want it, when they want it. Social teaching and learning is a positive disruption to how we educate our students today. The possibilities are endless."

Pricing for the private license offerings varies depending on the size of the school and the volume of usage. For more information, visit Sophia.org.

About Sophia

Sophia is a first-of-its-kind social teaching and learning application that makes free, credible academic content available to anyone at anytime at www.sophia.org.  Sophia also provides private learning solutions for schools, colleges and universities.  The Sophia Pathways™ program offers a private adaptive learning program for institutions wanting to individualize the instruction to each student's learning preference and skill level. Pathways™ provides assessment tools for teachers to monitor progress and adjust lessons according to each student's need. In addition, the Sophia social learning platform can be licensed by universities, colleges and K-12 schools to create their own unique social learning community. For more information, visit Sophia.org.

SOURCE Sophia