Overview
SCORE! employs distinguished and unique methods of helping students meet various academic goals, as described below:
Positive reinforcement
SCORE! employed methods of positive reinforcement to help students set and achieve academic goals. After ten-minute computer lessons, called "learning workouts", students obtained SCORE! cards, small magnetic squares emblazoned with the SCORE! logo, which were earned for scoring over 70% on a lesson or making basketball shots. Students saved these cards at home or redeemed them for prizes (balls, Disneyland tickets, etc.). Because students spent most of their time at the computer, basketball shots broke up the lessons and allowed students to let out active energy. Shots were awarded for doing well on lessons or completing a full hour of lessons. The SCORE! coaches also awarded students with high fives. With help from their SCORE! coaches, students set long-term goals in an academic subject, measured against national curriculum standards. Students tracked their long-term progress on the "SCORE! Mountain" located in the learning center—a "goal program that rewards completion, helping students to set and pursue academic goals: students attained bronze, silver, gold, and even 'top of the mountain' goals when they completed a certain number of sessions, advancing them up a wooden mountain to the summit." [2] Positive reinforcement was a strong part of the corporate culture, as documented in Harvard Business School Case Studies in 1999 and 2000. [3]
Personalization in educational software
By developing a retail business model to deliver educational software for a monthly fee, SCORE! made available to individual consumers access to a large personalization software system that was originated by Stanford professors, Patrick Suppes and Richard C. Atkinson, and was previously only available to select schools and the Education Program for Gifted Youth. In 1963, IBM had established a partnership with Stanford University's Institute for Mathematical Studies in the Social Sciences (IMSSS), directed by Suppes, to develop the first comprehensive CAI elementary school curriculum which was implemented on a large scale in schools in both California and Mississippi. In 1967 Computer Curriculum Corporation (CCC, now Pearson Education Technologies [4] ) was formed to market to schools the materials developed through the IBM partnership. As a student worked on the CCC software, the system learned the user's strengths and weaknesses and created customized lessons based on criterion-referenced testing that produced on a personalized profile for each student. [5] The instructional design, based on automated personalization, was considered innovative in the early 1990s, compared to the traditional classroom model of instruction where students would cover educational material together at the same pace. [6] Based on computer-generated progress reports that CCC measured against national curriculum standards, typical students at SCORE! who worked for six months, or forty computer-hours, increased the equivalent of approximately two years in a classroom in math or reading. [7]
History
Startup years: 1992-1996
Company founder, Alan Tripp, a graduate of Stanford University, opened the first SCORE! Educational Center in Palo Alto, California, in November 1992, and hired the company's first two Directors, Kai Drekmeier and Ingrid Stabb, who helped Tripp further develop the SCORE! concept and company culture throughout the startup years. In the summer of 1993, Stabb opened the second center in Menlo Park, California, established profitability for the first time for the SCORE! center business model, [8] and addressed customer attrition issues in the model by developing SCORE! Mountain.", [2] the company's first long-term customer loyalty program for the students with a reporting system for their parents. Drekmeier opened the third center in Los Altos, California, beginning a period of rapid growth for the company. SCORE!'s early success was attributed to personalized educational software provided by Computer Curriculum Corporation (CCC), the corporate culture fueled by energetic SCORE! coaches, [3] and the loyalty business model. Glenn Tripp, Alan Tripp's brother, joined the company and opened the sixth center, in San Jose, California in 1994. Glen Tripp soon joined the executive management team and helped lead the company to further successes and operational efficiencies. Other professionals who played early leading roles in shaping the start-up company in 1993 and 1994 included (in alphabetical order) Ben Besley, James Cleveland, Gail Derecho, Allison Don, Sarah Hainstock, David Hannigan, Rich Kelley, Thomas Layton, Elizabeth Phythian, and Ann Smith.
After 1995, the company expanded its cadre of center directors and SCORE! coaches and grew to 19 centers serving thousands of students throughout California. With a chain of prime retail locations secured, the firm sought to increase revenue per center by investing in two new services: SCORE! Learning Adventures and Personal Academic Tutoring. In 1996 CCC decided not to sign an exclusive licensing agreement with SCORE! and instead awarded licensing to Kaplan. This limited SCORE!'s ability to expand, as the initial deal only allowed Alan Tripp to expand to eight more centers. In order to bypass this limit, on 17 April 1996, Kaplan acquired SCORE! in a deal worth less than US$10 million. In 1999, Tripp went on to found another educational services business, InsideTrack focused on coaching college students.
A decade of national expansion: 1997-2006
Once owned by Kaplan, Inc., the company expanded to over 165 locations in eleven states at its height. The division moved its headquarters from San Francisco, CA to Jack London Square in Oakland, CA. By 2005, the learning centers had helped more than 250,000 students since it first opened its doors in Palo Alto, CA. [9] By 2006, the centers served 82,000 students per year. [10] The division headquarters moved again to Chicago, IL.
Decline and demise: 2007-2009
In 2007 Kaplan and SCORE! released SCORE! Mountain Challenge Workbook Series and interactive companion.
The same year, likely due to continued weak results in revenue, [1] Kaplan made the decision to close 75 Score! centers, nearly half of the total 160 centers as of the end of 2007, eliminating entirely the regions in San Diego, Orange County, Texas, and Georgia among other centers in the remaining regions. [1] The closures were focused primarily on centers that solely offered only one of Score!'s programs (either the Advantage Program or the Personal Academic Tutoring program.) The company restructuring resulted in certain management and terminating certain employees from closed centers. The remaining centers offered both programs to increase revenue opportunities. [11] By the end of the year, Score! operated 80 centers in eight states.
Score revenues declined 41% in the first quarter of 2009, and operating losses at Score increased from $3.7 million in the first quarter of 2008 to $17.6 million in the first quarter of 2009, inclusive of restructuring charges. At the end of March 2009, the Washington Post Company approved a plan to offer tutoring services, previously provided at Score, in Kaplan test prep centers. In conjunction with this plan, 14 existing Score centers will be converted into Kaplan test prep centers and the remaining 64 Score centers will be closed. The plan is expected to be substantially completed by the end of the second quarter of 2009. Washington Post recorded $11.5 million in asset write-downs, severance and accelerated depreciation of fixed assets in the first quarter of 2009, including a $9.2 million write-down on Score's software product. Additional operating losses of approximately $19.2 million are expected to be recorded during the remainder of 2009; these estimated losses are related to the wind-down period of the 64 Score centers to be closed, including $15.0 million related to lease obligations, severance and accelerated depreciation of fixed assets. Poor upper regional management and internal weak structures eventually led to a class action lawsuit for violating labor laws brought on by Score! employees which settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. [1]
Educational software is a term used for any computer software which is made for an educational purpose. It encompasses different ranges from language learning software to classroom management software to reference software, etc. The purpose of all this software is to make some part of education more effective and efficient.
Blended learning is an approach to education that combines online educational materials and opportunities for interaction online with traditional place-based classroom methods. It requires the physical presence of both teacher and student, with some elements of student control over time, place, path, or pace. While students still attend "brick-and-mortar" schools with a teacher present, face-to-face classroom practices are combined with computer-mediated activities regarding content and delivery. Blended learning is also used in professional development and training settings.
Kaplan, Inc. is an American for-profit corporation that provides educational services to colleges and universities and corporations and businesses, including higher education programs, professional training and certifications, test preparation and student support services. Headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Kaplan was founded in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Graham Holdings Company, formerly known as The Washington Post Company.
PLATO was the first generalized computer-assisted instruction system. Starting in 1960, it ran on the University of Illinois' ILLIAC I computer. By the late 1970s, it supported several thousand graphics terminals distributed worldwide, running on nearly a dozen different networked mainframe computers. Many modern concepts in multi-user computing were originally developed on PLATO, including forums, message boards, online testing, e-mail, chat rooms, picture languages, instant messaging, remote screen sharing, and multiplayer video games.
This is an index of education articles.
Technology integration is the use of technology tools in general content areas in education in order to allow students to apply computer and technology skills to learning and problem-solving. Generally speaking, the curriculum drives the use of technology and not vice versa. Technology integration is defined as the use of technology to enhance and support the educational environment. Technology integration in the classroom can also support classroom instruction by creating opportunities for students to complete assignments on the computer rather than with normal pencil and paper. In a larger sense, technology integration can also refer to the use of an integration platform and APIs in the management of a school, to integrate disparate SaaS applications, databases, and programs used by an educational institution so that their data can be shared in real-time across all systems on campus, thus supporting students' education by improving data quality and access for faculty and staff.
"Curriculum integration with the use of technology involves the infusion of technology as a tool to enhance the learning in a content area or multidisciplinary setting... Effective integration of technology is achieved when students are able to select technology tools to help them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize the information, and present it professionally to an authentic audience. The technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions—as accessible as all other classroom tools. The focus in each lesson or unit is the curriculum outcome, not the technology."
John Katzman is an American EdTech pioneer. He has established a number of companies which assist students with their studies and career choices, including Princeton Review, 2U, and Noodle Partners. The last two companies are online program managers (OPMs). Katzman has also authored books on the subject.
Alan H. Tripp is an American entrepreneur. Tripp founded multiple venture-backed education companies, including SCORE! Educational Centers, InsideTrack, and Motimatic. He is a regular speaker and contributor to the national discourse on educational technology, motivation and improving student outcomes.
An intelligent tutoring system (ITS) is a computer system that aims to provide immediate and customized instruction or feedback to learners, usually without requiring intervention from a human teacher. ITSs have the common goal of enabling learning in a meaningful and effective manner by using a variety of computing technologies. There are many examples of ITSs being used in both formal education and professional settings in which they have demonstrated their capabilities and limitations. There is a close relationship between intelligent tutoring, cognitive learning theories and design; and there is ongoing research to improve the effectiveness of ITS. An ITS typically aims to replicate the demonstrated benefits of one-to-one, personalized tutoring, in contexts where students would otherwise have access to one-to-many instruction from a single teacher, or no teacher at all. ITSs are often designed with the goal of providing access to high quality education to each and every student.
Patrick Colonel Suppes was an American philosopher who made significant contributions to philosophy of science, the theory of measurement, the foundations of quantum mechanics, decision theory, psychology and educational technology. He was the Lucie Stern Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Stanford University and until January 2010 was the Director of the Education Program for Gifted Youth, also at Stanford.
Personalized learning, individualized instruction, personal learning environment and direct instruction all refer to efforts to tailor education to meet the different needs of students.
Futurekids, Inc. is a privately held internationally franchised K–12 educational software company headquartered in El Segundo, California, which focuses on technological literacy and computer literacy.
Knewton is an adaptive learning company that has developed a platform to personalize educational content as well as has developed courseware for higher education concentrated in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The company was founded in 2008 by Jose Ferreira, a former executive at Kaplan, Inc. The Knewton platform allows schools, publishers, and developers to provide adaptive learning for any student. In 2011, Knewton announced a partnership with Pearson Education to enhance the company's digital content, including the MyLab and Mastering series. Additional partners announced include Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Macmillan Education, Triumph Learning, and over a dozen others.
A virtual learning environment (VLE) is a system that creates an environment designed to facilitate teachers' management of educational courses for their students, especially a system using computer hardware and software, which involves distance learning. In North America, a virtual learning environment is often referred to as a "learning management system" (LMS).
Adaptive learning, also known as adaptive teaching, is an educational method which uses computer algorithms as well as artificial intelligence to orchestrate the interaction with the learner and deliver customized resources and learning activities to address the unique needs of each learner. In professional learning contexts, individuals may "test out" of some training to ensure they engage with novel instruction. Computers adapt the presentation of educational material according to students' learning needs, as indicated by their responses to questions, tasks and experiences. The technology encompasses aspects derived from various fields of study including computer science, AI, psychometrics, education, psychology, and brain science.
Cambium Learning Group is an American technology company which creates computer software and hardware products serving students ranging from pre-kindergarten to adult; and enabling educators who help them learn. As of December 2018, it is owned by Veritas Capital, a New York-based private equity firm.
The School of One (SO1) is a middle school mathematics program of the New York City Department of Education. It began in 2009 and is currently operating in six schools in Manhattan, The Bronx, and Brooklyn. Its innovative program integrates the use of technology in the development and implementation of personalized curriculum and learning as well as the use of technology in the learning environment.
A virtual learning environment (VLE) in educational technology is a web-based platform for the digital aspects of courses of study, usually within educational institutions. They present resources, activities, and interactions within a course structure and provide for the different stages of assessment. VLEs also usually report on participation; and have some level of integration with other institutional systems.
DreamBox Learning is an online software provider that focuses on mathematics education at the elementary and middle school level. DreamBox Learning provides pre-kindergarten through 8th-grade students with over 2,000 lessons presented as animated adventures, games, and challenges.
Information Communications Technology is usually included in the Home Economics and Livelihood Education program in grade school and taught through the Technology and Home Economics program in high school. The recent status of ICT education in the Philippines, along with other Southeast Asian countries, was surveyed by the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) in 2011. Using the UNESCO model of ICT Development in Education, the countries were ranked as Emerging, Applying, Infusing or Transforming. The Philippines were ranked at the Infusing stage of integrating ICT in education, indicating that the country has integrated ICT into existing teaching, learning and administrative practices and policies. This includes components such as a national vision of ICT in education, national ICT plans and policies, complementary national ICT and education policies, professional development for teachers and school leaders, community or partnership and teaching and learning pedagogies. A 2012 study reported that public high schools in Metro Manila had a computer to student ratio of 1:63. While 88 percent of schools have internet connections, half of the students claimed not to be using it.
