“Smart Library”
Aligns Content to Learning Goals for Personalized Instruction
IOWA CITY, Iowa—ACT, the maker of the ACT® test, today unveiled a “smart library” of online resources to help educators align classroom content to learning goals. The resources are an expansion of ACT® Academy™, the free online learning platform that was launched in March to help students improve their core academic skills for success in college and career.The library will allow educators to discover their students’ academic strengths and determine areas for improvement by providing them with the most relevant, effective content when and where they need it most—in the classroom. Learning goals can be personalized to each student or to the class as a whole.
“The beauty of the smart library is that it enhances teachers’ ability to do what they do best: help their students learn,” said ACT Chief Commercial Officer Suzana Delanghe. “By providing over 500,000 of the best educational videos, games, assessments, homework assignments and lesson plans, all in one place, ACT Academy takes the guesswork out of lesson planning, so that teachers have more time to teach and students receive more effective, personalized instruction.”
ACT Academy is designed to integrate easily with existing learning management systems, allowing teachers to assign ACT Academy homework content and quizzes to students, view individual performance and progress and assign resources recommended by ACT Academy, which are tailored to students’ areas of need.
With ACT Academy, implementing a blended learning environment in the classroom is simplified by providing personalized resources based on student gaps as well as robust classroom reporting that pinpoints areas of need across groups.
Teachers may visit act.org/academy to access the smart library and begin utilizing ACT Academy resources in their classrooms.
Additional Tools to Help Teachers
ACT’s social and emotional learning assessment system, ACT® Tessera®, has also been improved this fall to better aid teachers in the classroom. Teachers now have greater clarity and insight into where their students are struggling and how they can take action to help them succeed, with enhanced scoring capabilities, redesigned reports, the addition of school climate questions and a new digital, interactive Teacher Playbook.Similarly, ACT® CollegeReady™, a student support tool—used by both secondary and postsecondary institutions to improve placement outcomes and student preparation—has been updated to provide users with improved accessibility support for students with disabilities and increased Spanish language support. New segmentation options for teachers and administrators allow users to better track progress by class, section, teacher and more.
ACT’s latest offerings reinforce the nonprofit’s commitment to equity and innovation, allowing the organization to level the playing field for more students. These enhancements are part of ACT’s transition to a learning, measurement and navigation organization.
