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Alabama State Department of Education (ITB): 06-DLC 2016

Jonathan Schmalzbach - jonathans@Accelerate.Education

866-705-5575 x 701

General Information

Letter of Intent

Alabama State Department of Education

Dear Evaluation Committee,

Accelerate Education is pleased to respond to Alabama’s IFP for ACCESS Virtual Learning Online Courses and/or Course Modules.

Expressly, we are a company that has a full catalogue of K-12, courses, we’re designed to allow our partners in to modify our courses, work well in the Desire2Learn platform, have core and honors courses aligned to Alabama standards, and offer adaptive credit recovery courses.

We hope our presentation will demonstrate to you that we qualify to be one of your partners; we hope even more that when we partner there will be great benefit to Alabama students and teachers.

Accelerate Education is a corporation. The company’s address is:

Accelerate Education

3655 W Anthem Way

Suite A-109237

Anthem, AZ 85086

The name and title of the person who will

Be authorized to make legal representations is:

Michael Axtman

CEO and Owner

3655 W Anthem Way

Suite A-109237

Anthem, AZ 85086

The person acting as the contact for matters concerning the proposal is:

Jonathan Schmalzbach

8221 Manor Road

Elkins Park, PA 19027

Email: jonathans@accelerate.education

Phone: 215.284.3859

Accelerate Education meets and exceeds the minimum requirements of the RFP and will comply with all terms and conditions of this RFP which will be shown in our answers to the qualification and proposal sections of the RFP.

Signed,

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Jonathan Schmalzbach

Legally authorized agent for Accelerate Education

TABLE OF CONTENTS

General Information…………………………………………. . Page 2

Part I: Company Qualifications/Experience Pages 4-31

Part II: Technical & Other Requirements; References Pages 32-39

Part III: Modifying Courses…………… Page 40-42

Part IV: Cost………………………………….. Page 43-45

Part VI: Catalog and Demo Access……………. Page 46-52

Part VII – K-8 Model School Offering & Proposal ……….Page 53-59

Company Qualifications

And Answers to Specific IFP Questions

Accelerate Education has over six years’ experience in providing virtual and blended learning solutions for states, districts, intermediate units, and virtual schools of all sizes as well as individual schools. We have students in every state as well as an international presence.

Accelerate Education provides a full catalog of K-12 courses, a credit recovery catalog, blended learning solutions and the Ideal Learning Library. The Library is a collection of assets that can be assigned to individuals or groups to support personalized or accelerated learning.

The company is a producer of comprehensive digital courses and curriculum used for the K-12 audience. We work with large districts, intermediate units, virtual schools, districts of all sizes as well as individual schools. Accelerate Education courses are widely used for original credit, credit recovery, remediation, intervention, acceleration, and exam preparation.

The company is a national organization serving 70,000 students in nearly every state. The company also has a large cohort of students in Africa.

The principals of the organization have been working in digital curriculum since the late 1990s and between them have run four online education companies.

The company is going into its 7th year of operation and employs between 50 to 75 veteran workers in the education space.

Accelerate’s mission is to provide flexible solutions to help close the achievement gap, reduce the dropout rate, improve student outcomes, and most importantly serve schools, teachers, and students.

Nationally Recognized Standards

Accelerate Education is accredited by the AdvancED Accreditation and certified by Quality Matters. We have been accredited since June 30, 2009 with AdvancED. Our accreditation runs through June 30, 2018.

We also have many of our courses approved by Quality Matters.

Accelerate also aligns to iNACOL standards for course design and our courses are recognized by that organization.

Furthermore, we are aligned to Common Core State Standards. We also consulted key national organization guidelines (NCSS, NGSS, NCTE and ACTFL) as well as best practices as recommended by online organizations (ISTE) in our course design.

Additionally, this proposal includes alignments to Alabama state standards. All of our alignment is done by a third party to ensure objectivity.

As our company is newer than many in the digital curriculum space, we were able to design our courses to iNACOL and Common Core standards directly instead of fitting existing courses to meet these requirements.

Part I of the bid will address IFP questions that center on Design Philosophy, Exemplars, and Team

Part II will address other IFP and technical questions

Part III will address Modification

Part IV will address price

Items highlighted in orange are Alabama specific requests which are followed by our answers.

Instructional Design Philosophy

And Answers to Specific IFP Questions

• The bid should describe the procedures and processes used in content development and review to ensure that the content included in all courses and/or modules contains a clear and explicit alignment between objectives, activities, assessments, instructional strategies, and technology.

Program Development Steps

• Creation of scope and sequence based on standards and objectives and informed by best instructional design practices (Addie, Gagne’s 9 events, Cognitive Learning Theory)

• Formation of development team that will consist of instructional designers, classroom teachers, our experienced development staff, graphic designers and assessment experts.

• Course assembly with multiple review iterations built in by internal and external reviewers (Review occurs bi-annually after a course is published.)

• Technical and content QA

Creation of our scope and sequences is based on standards and objectives and informed by best instructional design practices including Addie, Gagne’s Nine Events, and steeped in Cognitive Learning Theory.

Gagne is particularly important with digital curriculum as the “events” grab a learner’s attention, are clear about signposting objectives, build on prior learning and allow for significant amounts of practice, feedback, and opportunities to assess performance.

Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction

1. Gain attention

2. Inform learners of objectives

3. Stimulate recall of prior learning

4. Present the content

5. Provide “learning guidance”

6. Elicit performance (practice)

7. Provide feedback

8. Assess performance

9. Enhance retention and transfer to the job

How Does It Look?

Take this example from a lesson – Evaluating Algebraic Expressions Containing Exponents -- in Algebra 1. In order to gain attention, we use a video example of this with two students exchanging rumors, which is an authentic model and example of algebraic expressions with exponents.

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A screen grab from the video – peers are exchanging rumors.

Once the video is complete, which includes presenting the math around rumor-spreading we ask the student to solve a problem. This is the same guidance a teacher would provide in the classroom and includes a visual element.

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This is followed by more video instruction, done by a state certified math teacher on our staff and more guided instruction that allows students to see if they have grasped the concept.

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This is followed by more instruction and practice.

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There are two opportunities with modeling to practice the concept.

An offline activity gives student a chance to further practice the concept (while getting students away from the screen for a time, which has been shown to be effective in learning.)

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Overall, this single, lesson contains 3 more videos (five in total) and multiple practice opportunities.

Students also have to complete a worksheet that is assessed.

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Section of the worksheet

Students take a quiz in the lesson as well. Before taking an online quiz, the student has a chance at self-assessment with remediation. This allows students to understand their readiness for taking the quiz.

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Sample question

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Personalized feedback based on incorrect answers. This is new information.

To summarize, in one lesson, the student has been shown five videos been given multiple times and multiple ways to practice and get feedback. This leads us to Cognitive Learning Theory.

Cognitive Learning Theory

Cognitive Learning Theory gives learners efficient ways of processing information – repetition, graphic organizers, summaries, mnemonic devices, and opportunities to discover and practice. These all lead to reinforcement for better transfer to long-term memory.

Cognitive theory believes that before transfer occurs, multiple exposures to a concept must happen. This may take up to 14 exposures to the concept.

As can be seen from above, students are exposed to a concept many times and in many ways.

Importantly, students are also participating in hand’s-on interactives – they are doing as part of their learning.

• The bid should describe initiatives in typical course and/or module design that support and enhance student engagement and student motivation.

Motivation refers to the desire, reason, or predisposition to become involved in a task or activity, engagement refers to the degree to which a student processes text deeply through the use of active strategies and thought processes and prior knowledge.  (Improving Adolescent Literacy, 26)

Engagement refers to a deep disposition toward learning. Engagement is best served by giving students active learning – giving students the opportunity to meaningfully learn through doing. Each lesson provides multiple opportunities for students to observe, inquire, practice, confirm, and self-assess. In our lessons, there is also direct instruction, formative practice on every page of instruction, review, video, confirmation through diagramming, and then self-assessment. Formative feedback – much like a teacher would provide in a classroom – appears at the end of most pages to confirm learning.

Other factors that promote motivation include the flexible nature of the courses so students can work anytime and anywhere. The courses are self-paced – students will not feel deadline pressure.

Moreover, students are presented with copious amounts of video and multimedia. Students enjoy and are motivated and by doing. There are many interactive opportunities for hand’s-on interaction.

• The bid should describe how higher levels of understanding, thinking, problem-solving, and meta-cognition are incorporated into the courses and/or modules.

Metacognition reductively means thinking about one’s thinking. In Accelerate English courses for example, the student has an opportunity to “see” a successful thinking process modeled, be it in essay writing or text handling. The student is then led through a guided practice of that thinking process. The modeling and guided-practice is followed by a chance to try the process alone and then self-assess with a rubric.

All Accelerate courses are rich in opportunities for the student to learn to think about his or her thinking, and to become adept at making confident and competent decisions that will extend far beyond the academic skill of reading. This design decision was made to lead each student to the point of becoming an independent learner who will be successful in a wide variety of situations, both academic and otherwise, and whose independence will produce a curiosity about the printed word and life in general.

Motivation can be stimulated by difficult but achievable tasks that engage individuals to use their higher-order thinking skills and exert effort over an extended period of time (Brandt, 1998).

Problem-based learning and inquiry-based instruction are two practices designed to engage students in challenging activities (Bransford et al., 2000).

Motivation to learn can also be stimulated by personally relevant goals, which can be developed when individuals have personal choice and control (Brandt, 1998). Adolescent learners benefit from activities they perceive as relevant to their lives and from those that build confidence.

As students take increasing responsibility for their own learning, the possibility of transferring their new learning to future situations will increase. Instruction that integrates metacognitive skills—self-assessment, reflection, sense-making, and self-regulation—into the curriculum across multiple subject areas can help students take increasing control of their own learning (Bransford et al., 2000)

The importance of coherence in the design of curriculum for developing student understanding was advocated by Jerome Bruner in his 1960 classic The Process of Education:

The teaching and learning of structure, rather than simply the mastery of facts and techniques, is at the center of the classic problem of transfer. . . . If earlier learning is to render later learning easier, it must do so by providing a general picture in terms of which the relations between things encountered earlier and later are made as clear as possible. (p. 12)

Students develop understanding of a discipline by engaging in challenging activities that allow them to see how, where, and when the important ideas and facts are relevant (Bransford et al., 2000). Students can acquire more factual knowledge when it is connected to meaningful problem-solving activities.

Conversely, problem solving cannot be taught without a base of factual knowledge making students’ thinking visible is to help students develop metacognition, or active monitoring of their own learning (Bransford et al., 2000). Metacognition includes making sense of new content, assessing one understanding and reflecting on one’s learning—practices that increase students’ responsibility for their own learning and increase their ability to apply new knowledge to different situations. Online curriculum increases opportunities for students to engage in learning that integrates

One of many examples of this can be found in our Biology course. Here a student is asked to analyze risk factors in cardio-vascular disease. This poses an authentic situation which has the student reflecting on a relevant topic, solving a problem, making recommendations, and using higher order thinking skills such as application of concepts, synthesis, drawing conclusions and citing evidence.

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The bid should list examples of videos, animations, audios, simulations, and graphics typically used in course and/or module design and describe how these directly support and enhance student learning in the courses and/or modules offered in response to this ITB

As can be discerned form the above examples, Accelerate courses have dozens of certified-teacher made videos as well as Discovery Education videos in every course.

Our teacher-made videos are particularly powerful because 1) they have been created by certified classroom teachers 2) are not taking head videos. Instead they show what the student needs to learn without a droning teacher being filmed in front of a camera. This focuses student attention where it belongs – on the material being taught. Then, like a good teacher does, giving the student an opportunity to see if he/she has understood the material.

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Meaningful interactives allow students to test their understanding of concepts as this one from the biology course in which student create a food web.

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Sharp graphics and image figure frequently throughout all our courses. In the example below, from biology a food chain graphic is followed by an interative that allows students to test their understanding.

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Most importantly, our multimedia and interactives focus on how to prepare students for high-stakes testing. In this interactive from English Language Arts 10, a student reads informational text and answers a series of questions with formative feedback. These items are modeled on ACT and PARC tests.

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• The bid should describe typical efforts to include resources that extend the scope of the course and/or module content and describe how students are made aware of these resources.

There are two major ways that Accelerate extends scope of lessons:

• Off-line activities

• Links for further exploration

In this example from Physical Science, students are given instruction on gears. Then they are asked to go to Duke’s Exploratorium to practice what they have learned.

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At the Exploratorium, students can do many things including calculating velocity given grade, weight etc.

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An offline project from the same course has students making cardboard gears.

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• The bid should describe how external Web links are selected and how the organization will ensure that the links are reliable, valid, and functional.

Web sites are chose using an algorithm that measures the following:

• Academic integrity

• Up-time reliability

• Appropriate grade reading level

• Usability in blended or distance situations

• Will it meaningfully extend a lesson or concept

• Does it ask students to do something

• The bid should explain how student learning styles and interests are taken into consideration in course and/or module design.

We are disciples of Neil Fleming’s VAK/Vak model. Fleming believes that learning styles fall into four sensory modalities.

• Visual

• Auditory

• Read/Write

• Kinesthetic

We believe the best approach is having a combination of all learning modalities available to students.

• For visual learning we concentrate on video, charts, graphs, diagrams and symbols.

• Auditory learners have the option of listening to every page as well as taking in videos and discussions.

• Tactile learners have dozens of opportunities for moving, touching, or doing. Active exploration is emphasized in projects and assignments. There is also a surfeit of interactives for students to learn by doing or via practice.

• We also pay attention mathematical/logical learners with many exercises involving patterns, lists, problems and games.

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All of our pages have audio capability. Students can hear the entire page read to them – this is an important scaffold for struggling readers and ELL students.

• The bid should describe how the content is organized effectively to facilitate student learning.

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The image above is from our Algebra 1 Semester-A course. This is one module of six in the A semester and takes approximately three weeks for a student to complete.

Every folded over icon in the image represents a lesson, like the one you saw snippets from above. Following most lessons is a computer-scored quiz or a teacher-graded written assignment. This helps facilitate student learning as assessment appears right after direct instruction. During each lesson there are multiple times formative feedback appear in no-stakes feedback. Quizzes are graded and also contain feedback.

Here are a couple of examples of formative feedback, of which there are dozens in any given unit:

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There are many check-ins during each lesson. There is an opportunity for students to reach out to teachers at any time; teachers can see granular data down to the individual quiz items to see where student have made mistakes and offer feedback.

Finally, there is a good balance between, no-stakes, low-stakes, and authentic assessments which facilitates student learning.

• The bid should describe how formative and summative assessments are embedded in the courses and/or modules offered in response to this ITB.

Examples of formative assessment are given above. Summative computer scored exams appear at the end of every module. There are also summative mid-terms, benchmarks, and final exams in the course.

Teacher-scored activities integrate instruction with assessment through the opportunity for formative feedback assessment parallels the curriculum-building strategy where students are first helped toward a solid footing in the lower-level skills and then challenged upward in the skill hierarchy by introducing exercises that require more generative work – that is, activities that require students to generate more in-depth responses (such as through essays or diagrams) rather than reciting facts learned.

Assessment Philosophy

The introduction to each lesson clearly establishes learning objectives for students.

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An example from Geography

Bloom’s classical six-level taxonomy for assessment is at the root of Accelerate’s working theory for evaluation. The following six-level hierarchy guides the development of assessment items within our courses.

1. Knowledge: Can the student recall the information?

2. Comprehension: Can the student explain ideas or concepts?

3. Application: Can the student use the knowledge in another familiar situation?

4. Analysis: Can the student differentiate among constituent parts?

5. Synthesis: Can the student generalize from known facts?

6. Evaluation: Can the student justify a decision or a course of action?

Levels 1 through 4 are generally tested using objective, computer-scored instruments such as multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and true-or-false questions, with results immediately available to both students and teachers. More subjective, open-ended, teacher-scored testing tools are incorporated to evaluate the higher order and critical thinking skills associated with levels 5 and 6.

The bid should list all assessment types (multiple choice, open-ended, etc.) that will be supported in the courses and/or modules.

Teacher-scored assessments include essay questions, research assignments, problem statements, mathematical proofs, scientific inquiry, and demonstrated application of skills and concepts. Answer keys and grading rubrics with extensive modeling of answers and stepping out of solutions are provided for all teacher-scored assessments. Students are required to demonstrate what they have learned through Unit Tests and Semester Exams. These high-stakes assessments include both computer- and teacher-scored tests. Computer-scored tests offer convenience but when thorough assessment requires that responses be written or the thought process behind an answer illustrated, teacher-scored test are necessary.

Teacher Scored and Computer Scored Assessment

Computers are able to assist with certain aspects of assessment in an instructional program.

Assessment items that test recall, basic comprehension, and simple application can draw on technology for fast, efficient scoring and for collection of assessment data that suggests students’ success or struggles as they move through instructional content. But teachers play a role in higher order, formative assessment that computers cannot. The inclusion of teacher scored activities in Accelerate Learning courses are based on the following assumptions and values:

( Balance: A balanced program gives students multiple ways to show what they know. Beyond a demonstration of knowledge, balance respects the importance of open-ended tasks in the learning space — tasks where problem solving, creativity, reflection, and communication are required and valued.

( Higher-Order Thinking: The actions most often associated with the demonstration of higher-order thinking are difficult, if not impossible, to assess with technology alone.

( Literacy Development: Higher-order tasks require communication and create important opportunities to build skills with language and literacy.

( Mentorship: The inclusion of teacher-scored activities demonstrates and supports the unique value of the role of teacher/mentor/adult guide in the learning experiences of adolescents.

The bid should list the approximate percentage of assessments that 1) pull from a test bank of at least 3:1; 2) have at least some randomized sections; and 3) contain only question items that can be automatically graded (MC, TF, MAT).

Computer-scored assessments are pulled from a large test bank which has 3X item count for all items. The questions types include Multiple Choice, True/False, Matching, and Put in Order.

Discussions

• The bid should describe how the courses and/or modules will establish a learning community among course participants in all courses and/or modules offered in response to this ITB.

Learning communities may be established in several ways including Discussions and Clubs.

In Discussions, students must post and respond to prompts. The example below is from the World History course.

The Silk Road played a major role in the development of classical cultures. The main purpose of the route was to provide a means for transporting goods--material objects--for sale. However, the most significant effect of the Silk Road was cultural. Civilizations who used the route for trade also brought back new ideas, beliefs, and customs.  They used the money they earned while on the Silk Road to build legacies impressive enough that they still affect us today.

Does anything like the Silk Road exist today? If so, will it have the same impact on culture that we see with the Silk Road? On a sheet of scrap paper, make a list of things from life in the 21st century that might have an impact on us that is similar to the impact of the Silk Road on classical civilizations.  Your list can consist of objects, locations, events, trends, or activities.

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Once you have your list, ask your teacher how to participate in an online discussion for this course. Choose one item from your list, describe it in the online discussion, and explain your reasons for thinking of this item or event as a 21st century Silk Road. Then, read some of your classmates' answers and respond to their ideas.

• The bid should list and describe all pre-learning activities that will be available to students in all courses and/or modules offered in response to this ITB (e.g., self- assessments, checklists, orientations, tutorials).

We pre-teach each lesson’s key words so that students will know the words when they encounter them. We use discussion time to review each lesson’s objectives, concepts and key words before students take the lesson quiz.

As discussed above there are dozens of opportunities for self-assessment throughout each lesson.

Orientation tutorial videos provide students information on:

• Announcements

• Submitting Assignments

• How to submit to a discussion board

• How to read and use rubrics

• How to contact your teacher

• How to check grades

• How to complete your course

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Screenshot from video on how to turn in work/submit assignments

Accelerate also provides best practice guidance for students on how to use an online course.

Checklist

The topics covered in this brief lesson are shown below.

If you are reading this, then you are enrolled in an online course or a course that makes significant use of online materials. Before you get started, you will need to complete the following checklist to make sure that you are ready with tools and skills to be successful. Explanations for each of these items can be found on the pages within this lesson. To see those pages, click on the Table of Contents button in the upper-left corner, or the next and back buttons to navigate from page to page.

• Do I have the necessary hardware, software and computer skills to be a successful online student?

• Do I have the necessary software and equipment for this course?

• Do I have the ability to be self-motivated in an online course?

• Do I have an adequate workspace?

• How do I study in an online course?

• How do I communicate effectively with my teacher and classmates?

• How do I clear the cache?

Labs

The bid should thoroughly describe how lab activities in applicable courses and/or modules are to be conducted, including the name, description, and additional costs of all third-party products or tools embedded or used in the courses and/or modules offered in response to this ITB.

Virtual lab activities are integral to Accelerate science courses such as Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics. The cost of the labs is included in the course cost. We partner with Smart Science to present these labs.

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Smart Science’s built-in scientific inquiry facilitates student discovery of science. Smart Science lab lessons provide a sophisticated model for investigations, including all-important hypothesis-formulation. Students are required to gather data that isn't inherently 'clean' by being canned in advance.

Accelerate also offers “kitchen-table” labs where students do hands-on work. Here is an example of working through an Animal Vertebrate Lab.

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• The bid should describe the procedures and processes used in content development and review to ensure that the content included in all courses and/or modules contains a clear and explicit alignment between objectives, activities, assessments, instructional strategies, and technology.

Best Practices in Course Design

This document identifies questions to ask and answer by instructional designers and production leaders as they work together to research, plan, propose, and produce new Accelerate Education courses. This is a draft document to be amended and expanded upon as needed by the Content Development team.

Design by Domain

All new courses will fit into a domain, whether it is an academic domain, the electives domain (or both). Courses must take their places within the existing domain philosophy and represent the domain values and commitments.

• What values and commitments are expressed in the domain philosophy and how will this course adhere to them?

o What is their basis in research? Where is that documented?

o What is the evidence of those values in the course design?

o How will the student recognize/experience those values? (This is essential! If your domain has core values, the largest investment in training time, production time and money should be spent motivating and engaging students around those values. Are they clear to you? Your team? Your writers? How do you make them clear to students? How do you make them interested in what you value most?)

• Are there additional values or commitments unique to this course? How are these to be reconciled with the existing domain philosophy?

o (same as above)

• Are there pedagogical trends or shifts in practice on the national level within the domain that suggest a new approach be taken in the design of a particular course? If so, what is that trend or shift? How can it be accommodated? How will it be accommodated in ongoing maintenance across the domain as a whole?

Course Design

All new courses need to conform to national and state requirements, pathway metrics and requirements, and design best practices.

• Do all general studies courses meet standards at grade level?

• Do Foundations, Elective, and AP courses address strands and standards required by requisite academic boards and organizations (APA, College Board, NRP, IRA, NCTM etc…)

• Do semesters conform to pathway metrics and requirements?

• Do activity types, scores, and durations conform to standard Accelerate Education practice?

• Are learning objectives identified? (see figure below)

o How do objectives map to activities?

o How do objectives map to assessments (including diagnostics)?

o How do they map to key terms?

• How do concepts and skills build logically?

• How is scaffolding of higher order concepts and processes achieved?

Review by Design

• Is the content clearly focused on the learning objectives?

• Are those objectives obvious to students (page titles, signposting, assessments, TERM repetition, scriptoids, printables...)?

• Is the media tied to learning objectives and values?

o If I’m at this point in a teaching cycle, what media is most effective?

o If the objectives are _____, how are my biggest investments in media focused on them?

• Do page elements/assets align?

• Are page and text control metrics in place?

• Do Studies follow an effective cycle of pedagogy?

• Does the instruction proceed logically?

• Do printables (if any) extend logically from the content?

• What is the relationship between printables and assessments?

• Do students have enough time and opportunity to practice and lock down concepts and skills?

• Is the approach active and engaging?

• Is the voice accessible, interesting?

We front-load the design process with the above guidelines. This ensures a tight nexus between objectives, assessment, instruction, media, and technology.

• The bid should describe how the content of courses and/or modules offered in response to this ITB meets or exceeds the rigor, depth, and breadth of traditionally delivered courses and/or modules.

In summary, Accelerate courses are designed to meet/exceed the rigor and depth of traditional courses. Our core courses are designed for 70-90 hours/semester of seat time. Our Honors courses are between 90-110 hours/semester of seat time.

The amount of computer- and teacher-scored work exceeds that typically seen in classrooms. There is a multiplicity of assignment types ensuring that a plethora of skills are met. Courses are designed around Depth of Knowledge levels so students are responsible for all types of activities from Recall, Skill/Concept, Strategic-Thinking and Extended Thinking.

• The bid should include a narrative of the content development process used by the organization, including any applicable internal and external reviews by content specialists. The narrative should include the titles and credentials of members of content development teams for any courses and/or modules offered in this ITB (e.g., instructional designers, content experts, graphic artists, and media designers). The bid should also describe the organization’s requirements and criteria for content developers.

Leanne Stapleton, Director of Curriculum

Leanne has over 11 years of experience in online education and virtual instruction. Her proven ability to lead Online Curriculum and Instruction strategy from inception through development to implementation, including oversight of international and national teams of technical, instructional, and project management experts. She brings an extensive and diverse background in all areas of online education, school operations, and technology management. Leanne has managed large curriculum development budgets and many projects at once. Before Accelerate Education, Leanne was the Director of Curriculum Design & Development for Aventa Learning for 6 years. Prior to her time at Aventa Learning she was the Associate Director of Curriculum & Instruction at 21st Century Cyber Charter School for close to 5 years

Artists, graphic designers’ content experts have worked with Leann on average of over 5 years. These include many state certified teachers who contribute to content design and review.

Michael Axtman, President/CEO

Michael Axtman has been a leader in the K-12 online learning industry for more than 15 years.  Before Accelerate Education, Michael was the President of Aventa Learning and a Vice President at KC Distance Learning where he managed 9 Statewide Virtual Schools for the iQ Academies. Michael is currently the President of Aventa Learning, Inc. and was a driving force behind the growth of Aventa Learning's K-12 online course offerings of more than 100 subjects. Prior to Aventa Learning, Michael was the Vice President in charge of content development, technology and sales at Apex Learning.  Prior to Apex Learning, Michael was the President/CEO of AXC Interactive, a software development firm catering to Fortune 500 companies located in Seattle, Washington.  Michael Axtman is responsible for the overall management of Accelerate Education as well as the strategic direction of the company and will play a key role is the service of the contract for the RFP.

Part II – Technical and Other Requirements

The bid should list any applicable e-learning standards to which content adheres (e.g., SCORM, IMS).

BrainHoney is Common Cartridge 1.0 compliant as well as IMS QTI

 

 BrainHoney is LTI 1.1 compliant

 

Technical Requirements

BROWSER

● Download Firefox or Chrome

● Enable JavaScript Directions

● Accept 3rd-Party Cookies Directions

● Disable Pop-Up Blockers Directions (toolbars blockers too)

PLUG-INS

● Adobe Acrobat Reader (Update)

● Flash Player 10 (Update)

● Shockwave Player (Update)

● Java 2 Runtime Environment (Update)

● WINDOWS (pc)- Install Windows Media Player (Update)

● MAC (apple) - Install QuickTime (Update)

● MAC (apple) - install Flip4Mac (Update)

SYSTEM

● Resolution: 1024 x 768 (minimum) 1280 x 1024 (optimum)

● Internet Connection: High Speed (Broadband) (1.5 MB or higher)

● Operating Systems:

● Windows 7, Windows XP, Windows Vista

● MAC OSX Version 10.5.4 or later

● Audio: Speakers and Microphone

SOFTWARE

● Word Processing Software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

● Microsoft Office (2007 or higher optimum, older versions can

download the compatibility pack) (Download)

● Free Options

■ Open Office (Download)

■ Google Docs (Download)

● Skype (synchronous teacher support) (Download)

● Audacity (create recorded audio files) (Download)

*Course specific technical requirements, equipment, or materials are shared in the course syllabus

2013-­2014

Bias, Learning Strategies, Timeliness

• The bid should describe how the organization ensures that instructional strategies vary according to the desired type of learning outcomes.

Diverse Learners

Put simply, education can be said to have two goals:

• Meet students where they are

• Develop their capacities

As students enter the classroom with diverse needs, interests, learning styles, and academic skill sets, these simple goals represent the greatest challenge faced by K-12 education today. Responding to this challenge requires differentiating instruction to meet diverse needs.

Our Mission: Enabling new models of school and classroom to better support every student in achieving his or her potential:

1. Providing curricular pathways tailored to students’ strengths and abilities

2. Attending to diverse learning styles and aptitudes in the design of all courses

3. Freeing up teachers to work one-on-one with their students and to dedicate their professional time to instructional practices that require their expertise

Accelerate also provides scaffolding throughout courses that will help those who are below proficient readers. One significant example is audio support provided on every page

Why is audio support important? Audio assistance scaffolds comprehension of text. A multi-modal learning environment seeks to support students with different learning styles and strengths. The option to listen to instructional text can benefit capable students with aural learning preferences. It can also offer scaffolding for fluency and pronunciation to struggling readers and English language learners.

Bias

The bid should address the organization's commitment to and requirements used to ensure that content in courses and/or modules are accurate, up-to-date, organized, free of bias, culturally diverse, and sufficient to meet stated learning goals.

Bias is treated with the utmost probity. Full consideration of gender, age, race, religion, nationality, economic status, physical characteristics, and sexual orientation are considered in use of text and images to insure inclusivity and influence students constructively.

Timeliness

All Accelerate Education courses are reviewed every two years with an eye toward timeliness, integration of new and relevant theories in the sciences, and being current in history and English courses.

Here is an example from our American History course on the hot-button topic of immigration.

In order to combat future threats to American interests, the United States would need to remain strong, and a vibrant economy would be key to that strength. Unfortunately, the Great Recession hit in 2008, and while the American economy stabilized itself a few years later, it may be a long time before it recaptures its past strength.

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|Globalization has resulted in |

|social problems like racism |

|against immigrants, who may work|

|for less money than other |

|Americans. |

One reason for the delay is globalization, the gradual process of connecting all countries around the world. Most people used to make products for use in their communities or their countries, but in the modern economy, people can quickly exchange goods with people anywhere. In the 1950s and 1960s, the United States was full of factories and steel mills that employed American workers and made American goods. Now, because of globalization, we can get those products cheaper from overseas, so American manufacturing jobs have mostly disappeared.

As the United States adjusts to the new global economy, many Americans will have trouble finding meaningful work, and that will result in social problems like unemployment, poverty, and political extremism. In the future, Americans will have to learn new skills and train themselves for the global marketplace.

Other Bid Requirements

• The bid should include a statement addressing copyright compliance and a statement of policy about intellectual property rights to course and/or module materials.

• The bid should include a statement relating to content conformance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the provisions made to ensure that course and/or module materials are universally designed for accessibility by diverse learners (VPAT preferred).

Title to Licensed Materials

 

Customer acknowledges and agrees that Accelerate shall retain all right, title and interest in and to the all products licensed to Customer hereunder, including without limitation all content, curriculum, delivery systems, documentation, including releases and code bases, which Accelerate may from time to time provide to Customer hereunder (the “Licensed Materials”) and which Customer and Accelerate agree shall be added to Exhibit A. Nothing herein transfers or conveys to Customer any ownership right, title or interest in or to the Licensed Materials or to any copy thereof or any Accelerate Intellectual Property therein.

“Accelerate Intellectual Property” includes everything which Accelerate makes, conceives, develops, discovers, reduces to practice or fixes in a tangible medium of expression, alone or with others, pursuant to the terms of this Agreement, including without limitation any courses created by Accelerate, and all intellectual property that Accelerate has or will develop, including developments, concepts, ideas, procedures, and original works of authorship, including but not limited to interim work product, outlines, modifications and derivative works, and all similar matters, whether or not copyrightable, and also includes all records and expressions of those matters

3 The bid must describe the technical support (broken links, upgrades, response methods, content issues, tracking/ticketing system, etc.) and course management assistance to be provided to the SDE, students, course instructor, and school coordinators.

Accelerate support is available 24-7. In terms of specific technical support:

Links: We utilize a link “pinger” that monitors that links are live. If in the instance a customer finds a link down that hasn’t been caught by the pinger, we will update within one business day.

Ticketing: Accelerate is very responsive to customer requests and operates a ticketing system for issues as they arise. We strive to attend to any issue within 3 business days.

Course Management Assistance: Accelerate provides customer training on course management, enrollment, and all administrative matters to instructors and admins. After training, our support team will still be available to answer ad-hoc questions.

• The bid must permit SDE to migrate vendor courses/content to the LMS of an Alabama school district/school participating in an SDE franchise agreement for blended learning.

Accelerate Education courses run natively on Agilix’s Brain Honey LMS. However, we will work with customer to perform all LTI needs to migrate to Alabama’s servers.

• The bid should describe how the organization ensures that supplemental materials will be adaptable and flexible to meet the individual needs of students.

• The bid should clearly list any software, hardware, texts, or other supplemental materials and costs, which are required for courses.

The only courses that require supplemental material our the English Language Arts suite. Materials are listed below;

Materials

Required Novels:

• Romeo and Juliet (Semester A)

• To Kill a Mockingbird (Semester B)

Optional Novels (Choose 1 per semester):

• The Old Man and the Sea

• House on Mango Street

• Fahrenheit 451

• The Odyssey

• Ender's Game

• Speak Of Mice and Men

Grade Level

10

Materials

Required Novels:

• Animal Farm (Semester A)

• Night (Semester B)

Optional Novels (Choose 1 per semester):

• Catcher in the Rye

• The Bean Trees

• All Quiet on the Western Front

• Lord of the Flies

• Twelfth Night

• Farewell to Manzanar

• Antigone

Grade Level

11

Materials

Required Novels:

• The Scarlet Letter (Semester A)

• The Great Gatsby (Semester B)

Optional Novels (Choose 1 per semester):

• Death of a Salesman

• A Farewell to Arms

• My Antonia

• A Lesson Before Dying

• Black Boy

• The Island

• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Grade Level

12

Materials

Required Novels:

• Wuthering Heights

• 1984

• Cry, the Beloved Country

Optional Novels (Choose 3):

• Brave New World

• Othello

• Hamlet

• One Hundred Years of Solitude

• Frankenstein

• A Tale of Two Cities

• The bid should provide references in the form of a current list of clients and a contact with information (e-mail or telephone number) for each reference listed.

|Customer Name |Contact Information |

|CAOLA – Capital Area Online Learning |Holly A. Brzycki |

|Association |Supervisor of Online Learning |

| |Capital Area Intermediate Unit |

| |55 Miller St |

| |Enola, PA 17025 |

| |717-991-5876 |

|University of Miami Global Academy | |

| |Dr. Craig Wilson | JD PhD |

| |Associate Dean | Strategy and Innovation |

| |Division of Continuing and International Education |

| |Adjunct Professor |

| |School of Education and Human Development |

| |Founding Head of School |

| |Global Academy online middle and high school |

| |University of Miami |

| |111 Allen Hall |

| |5050 Brunson Drive |

| |Coral Gables, FL 33146 |

| |Email: cdw@miami.edu |

| |Phone: (305) 284-2727 or 2980 |

|Virtual Community School of Ohio |Dr. Ruth Teeters |

| |Assistant Superintendent of K-12 Education |

| |VCS Ohio |

| |614-501-9473 EXT. 2003 |

|IU 13 -PA |Colette Cairns |

| |Supervisor of Online Learning |

| |Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13 |

| |1020 New Holland Avenue • Lancaster, PA 17601 • 717-606-1600 •  |

|Red Clay School District |Burton Watson |

| |Director of District Services |

| |Red Clay Consolidated School District |

| |1502 Spruce Avenue |

| |Wilmington, DE 19805 |

| |302-552-3751 |

| | |

Part IV –Modification

The intent of this ITB is to solicit bids that will allow the SDE to maximize its potential to deliver needed courses and/or modules to Alabama public school students. The SDE has a contract currently with Brightspace/Desire2Learn (D2L) to serve as its learning management system (LMS) and is seeking bids for courses and/or modules that can be successfully migrated to this LMS, as well as multiple LMS platforms statewide. The SDE will retain exclusive rights to courses and/or course modules purchased under this ITB. A perpetual license that allows the SDE to revise, edit, or modify purchased courses to align with State standards is requested for all courses and modules.

Accelerate courses are designed to be modified and customized. Teachers can MODIFY, EDIT, or AUGMENT any page in our content package. This is accomplished through the Ideal Learning Library.

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To summarize: Teaches can search out database of lessons and assets and assign them directly to students. This can help struggling learners by giving them remedial information. For example, take a student who is having trouble with fractions. That student’s teacher is able explore our entire library from grades 3-12 to find any lessons or page that could be helpful. So, this student may need deep remediation and be assigned a page from a 5th grade course. (The student never knows it’s from 5th grade, only that he was assigned to go through the lesson.) In this way student have access to ALL Accelerate courses.

Freedom to Customize, Edit and Create

With the IDEAL Learning Library, teachers can also customize and edit existing lessons and assessments, create individualized learning plans to address each student’s specific needs. Teachers can share these with other teachers in their school or district.

Moreover teachers can edit any given pages in our courses. In the example below, a teacher name Lis has gone into a lesson on prokaryotic cells. She used the option to open any page, delete material, add material such as content, images, links, photos – anything – through our editing tool. In this case she even renamed the first page.

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In this page, Ms. Liz has added a comment in red that she wants amplified.

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Once the page is published, it becomes part of the lesson.

In summary, teaches can create a syllabus, assign individual lesson or edit any given page. This allows teaches to emphasize what’s important in Alabama, use their experience gleaned in the classroom and PERSONALIZE LEARNING.

Part V: Pricing

The bid should provide various pricing models or options, including a perpetual state license and/or a tiered perpetual license (based on enrollment). Please provide pricing models for the following:

• 0 to 20,000 users

• 20,001 to 30,000 users

• 30,001 to 50,000 users

• More than 50,000 users

High School / Middle School Online Courses

User License Fees

|Grades 6-12 |Individual Course |Premium Course |Full Time Seat |

|Content, Hosting & Support |55 |99 |350 |

|Instruction |150 |150 |1800 |

• Individual and Premium Course Fees are Per Student / Per Semester / Per Course

• Full Time Seats include up to 12 semester courses / Per Student / Per School Year and do not include Premium Courses

• Above Offerings Can be Purchased as a Package or Individually

• Physical Materials not Included

• IDEAL Learning Library is included if hosted by Accelerate Education

Elementary Online Courses

User License Fees

|Grades K-5 |Individual Course |Premium Course |Full Time Seat |

|Content |45 |99 |290 |

|Instruction |150 |150 |1500 |

• Individual and Premium Course Fees are Per Student / Per Semester / Per Course

• K-2 Premium Course Fees are Per Student / Per Year / Per Course

• Full Time Seats include up to 10 semester courses / Per Student / Per School Year and do not include Premium Courses

• Above Offerings Can be Purchased as a Package or Individually

• Physical Materials not Included

• IDEAL Learning Library is included if hosted by Accelerate Education

Adaptive Credit Recovery Online Courses

User Licensing Fees

|Grades 9-12 |Individual Course |

|Content, Hosting & Support |40 |

|Instruction |40 |

• Individual Course Fees are Per Student / Per Semester / Per Course

• Above Offerings Can be Purchased as a Package or Individually

• Physical Materials not Included

• IDEAL Learning Library is included if hosted by Accelerate Education

Training

|Online Teacher Training |1 Day Onsite |$2,500 |

|Online Teacher Training |3 Hour Virtual |$600 |

|Mentor Training |2-3 Hour Virtual |$500 |

• Includes Expenses

Volume Discounts –

Discounts available for Content, Hosting and Support based on the number of Pre-Purchased Individual Course Enrollments or Annual User Seats

|Enrollments |Discount |

|0-20,000 |Included in Pricing |

|20,001-30,000 |25% Discount |

|30,001-50,000 |30% Discount |

|More than 50,000 |40% Discount |

Part VI -- Course Catalogs

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Middle School

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Elementary

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Credit Recovery

Accelerate also offers personalized, adaptive credit recovery courses.

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To access all of these Accelerate courses go to your demo account at:



UN: Alabama

PW: Access

Part VII -- K-8 Course Offering Proposal

Additionally, the SDE is seeking bids to provide a model for local school districts serving students in Grades K-8. This model would provide grade appropriate online course offerings for students in Grades K-8 under the same State licensing contract and at no additional costs to the districts. Alabama public schools and school systems will be allowed to purchase services from awarded contracts of this ITB.

Accelerate Education has both a K-5 course catalog as well as a 6-8 catalog. Courses in our elementary catalog are being used successfully by thousands of student in virtual and blended implementations. The courses were created three years ago by elementary teachers working with our staff of instructional designers.

Specific attention is paid to student experience in our elementary courses.

Art and graphics are age-appropriate without being cloying.

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Students are given clear information on what they need to do, communication from teachers, returned assignments, and any other pertinent messages.

Each course has a consistent and persistent design as explained below. Student navigation is persistent; student expectations are consistent

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There is clear signposting on what students need to do on any given page. In this page below, from an ELA grade-3 course, it’s clear to students that they are distinguishing “ow” and “ou” sounds. There is also an opportunity to listen to several examples of each word. Note too, the speaker icons. The student can LISTEN to each page read to them if they choose.

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Much of the work students do in K-5 courses is offline. Many studies have demonstrated that a balance between on and offline work is key to student success. The page below is from a PDF in the course that the student (or teacher) can print out. It models handwriting.

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Meaningful interactivity figures heavily in the course. In this page, student will test their knowledge of spelling words. Students learn by doing and by practice

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Accelerate also embeds Reading A to Z and IXL math in our courses. This gives students great opportunity for math practice via IXL and reading of informational texts in Reading A to Z.

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Connecting Well on High-Stakes Testing

CAOLA

School Districts in Pennsylvania’s IU Capital Area region came together as the Capital Area Online Learning Association (CAOLA) to enter into contracts for services, develop courses, and administer a viable, cost-effective and quality online learning solution for students. Since its inception in 2009 CAOLA has expanded to 12 other Intermediate Units and districts across Pennsylvania.

Accelerate has been CAOLA’s elementary partner since 2010. Thousands of CAOLA students have taken and passed Accelerate Elementary courses for credit. Those students have done very well taking the PSSA – Pennsylvania’s System of School Assessment tests. Results from 2015 can be seen below.

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