(Folsom, CA, Thursday, May 14, 2020) – Today, PowerSchool announced its new Unified Insights^TM Student Learning release, a first-of-its-kind tool, giving educators a holistic view into data they’ll need to help ensure all students can stay on track following the shift to distance learning. This new tool is part of PowerSchool Unified Insights family of products and brings together data from their Student Information System (SIS) and Schoology Learning Management System (LMS) to help users of these solutions to better understand a whole view of their students. The analytics will help educators make informed decisions about broader gaps districtwide as well as give teachers the help they need to support individual student learning paths.

The company has seen the incredible job educators have done to manage the sudden move to distance learning and the innovation and resilience they have demonstrated in the face of this dramatic change. Nothing can replace being together in a classroom, but they have shown what’s possible as schools are now prioritizing and accelerating their readiness for blended learning. Already, we have seen those schools using LMS for blended learning prior to school closures experiencing strong student engagement and some positive results. Here’s what we’ve seen in the last seven weeks:

• A significant increase in students, parents and teachers actively engaging in driving learning outcomes through distance learning. For example, during this time our Schoology LMS saw over one trillion student interactions, a 400% increase from the same time last year.
• This included 145 million assessments, and a huge increase in course materials, assignments and discussions. For districts with more advanced blended learning models who were already using Schoology, we saw up to 95% student participation.
• An early sign of the learning gap, however, is how engagement varies. Many districts were not as prepared to implement and scale their distance learning initiatives. When looking at the national landscape of all customers using our LMS, the average participation is considerably lower with an average of just 52% of students

Unified Insights Student Learning was sparked by input from school leaders and teachers across the nation who approached us with their concerns regarding these gaps. The new tool builds on the work the company has done to help districts across the country make the sudden shift to distance learning and use data to make better, more informed decisions. This release will help schools and districts to:

• Understand the adoption levels, engagement, and effectiveness of distance learning initiatives at a district, school, grade, course, and even a student-level
• Identify any gaps in equity, access or distance learning engagement by demographics, socio-economic level, and/or special education status so districts can better assist in delivering equitable access to distance learning resources
• Identify at risk students with learning and achievement gaps that have resulted from low engagement and require intervention planning
• Strengthen initiatives tied to social and emotional learning by identifying trends in student participation and interaction
• Ensure that all staff including teachers benefit from the same access to data as they strive to understand the “whole student” while creating and delivering personalized learning experiences

PowerSchool Unified Insights Student Learning will be available on June 1 to existing customers already using both LMS and SIS from PowerSchool. You can see a demo of the new Unified Insights Student Learning at powerschool.com/unifiedinsights-studentlearning-demo.