Sophia Offers Many Ways to Learn Online with More Than 25,000 Free Academic Tutorials Created For Students

MINNEAPOLIS, April 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Sophia is continuing to customize the way students learn with its newly updated online platform that now offers more than 25,000 free academic tutorials taught in a variety of ways by hundreds of teachers and education enthusiasts. The enhanced ad-free platform also offers learning paths and quizzes in several subject areas including math, science and English, and provides students with the ability to assess their learning preference so they can choose content that helps them learn the way they learn best.

"With 25 million monthly online searches for 'help with math' and millions of additional searches on other academic subjects, it shows that students want and need access to credible content that is easily accessible on the Web," said Steve Anastasi, interim CEO of Sophia. "Sophia puts a fence around credible content and organizes it in a way that not only provides help with concepts taught in many ways but also has the ability to lead students on a learning journey in a particular subject."

Sophia offers more than 25,000 tutorials – bite-sized lessons created by a multitude of experts – on a variety of topics that feature a mixture of text, audio, video, slideshows and more. In addition, there are multiple tutorials on a single concept, providing students with many ways to learn. Soon the site will provide recommendations to students based on the types of tutorials they've used (much like Amazon or Pandora) that will lead them to additional lessons on a certain topic or move them to the next lesson within a subject area.

In addition, students now have the ability to complete a short learning assessment that helps determine their learning preference.

"There are a few key critical aspects that separate Sophia from other academic resources on the web," said Anastasi. "First, the size of our tutorial library and the breadth of content that covers several academic subjects including math, science, English and more makes Sophia one of the more robust resources available for parents, teachers and students of all ages. Second, our tutorials come from hundreds of excellent teachers, rather than one or two experts. And finally, Sophia makes it easy for every teacher everywhere not only to leverage our tutorial library, but to easily contribute their own tutorials – all for free."

Sophia Provides Tools for Flipping the Classroom and Pathways for Learning

Sophia launched in public beta in March 2011 and since then teachers have increasingly used the platform to flip their classroom by assigning tutorials for students to watch as homework and then providing one-on-one assistance during class time.

When flipping the class, teachers have the ability to develop their own content, choose from Sophia's library of more than 25,000 tutorials or use its newly developed Pathways feature. The Pathways feature includes a variety of learning paths – full curriculums meeting standards-aligned objectives that can take a student through an entire semester of material for a multitude of topics. Each learning path contains hundreds of tutorials, with at least five different teachers for each concept who all teach the material in different ways.

"Education is changing and we believe it is important to offer students many ways to learn by giving them the opportunity to hear from multiple teachers on a single concept," Anastasi said. "We are reversing the traditional classroom model of one teacher for many students by providing many teachers for each student."

Sophia was created in 2010 by a team of online education pioneers, academic advisers and digital innovators who have a vision to transform education from a one-size-fits-all model to a place where every student succeeds by having access to lessons that appeal to their individual learning preference. Sophia provides this in a platform that is available to anyone, anywhere, free of charge and is made possible by Capella Education Company, which supports improving access to education by using innovation to lower the cost.

To learn more, visit www.sophia.org.

About Sophia
Sophia is a first-of-its-kind social education platform that offers students many ways to learn by making free, credible academic content available to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. The site offers more than 25,000 tutorials created by hundreds of teachers and experts taught in a variety of ways. The platform further enhances the learning process by offering quizzes, assessing learning preferences and providing learning paths that lead students from one topic to the next so students of all ages can learn the way they learn best. Sophia is owned by Capella Education Company. For more information, visit www.sophia.org.

SOURCE Sophia