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Letter of Invitation

Welcome and thank you for your interest in the Classroom Trials.

The Classroom Trials are designed to test the capabilities of software designed to support the instruction of writing in a classroom setting. We are limiting the products for consideration to those that include a feature of automated feedback to teachers, students and others supporting the instruction of writing in a classroom setting. The Working Group responsible for designing the trials is addressing an important challenge in the American public education system. Two emerging trends face the classroom teacher:  1) students are increasingly composing in digital environments; and, 2) demands on teachers to deliver meaningful assessment and formative instruction are climbing.  If software can help enhance meaningful review of student work, then those resources should be examined for their capability to support writing instruction.

Technologies exist today that are designed to provide teachers with tools to review student writing at each phase of the drafting process, to provide critical and timely feedback to students, and to provide some of the information teachers need to strengthen instruction. However, many emergent technologies have not yet been examined in a fair, uniform and transparent way. So, the Classroom Trials are designed to demonstrate whether selected software systems are capable of:

  1. Increasing the quality and quantity of writing by students;
  2. Supporting teachers to meet identified performance goals for writing instruction;
  3. Matching the needs of students and teachers within a typical school environment.

You are invited to participate. As you enter this website, you will learn how to apply, who is responsible for selecting the participants and how. If you are selected, you will join between 3-5 other providers, and those vendors will have opportunities to inform the final study variables. Detailed study design considerations are available for your review.

After the selection process, the 3-5 products will be analyzed according to commonalities (e.g., output data). While assessment will take place to determine how the products are used, individual vendors will not be identified in the reports issued by the Working Group. In this way, capabilities can be examined in terms by features and use cases, wherever impact can be achieved for students, teachers, parents, and school administrators.

To apply, you must submit a product description and demonstration. You must show evidence of a sufficient track record of prior use and performance. We look forward to learning more about your company and your product. We have designed the application process to ensure an open, fair and transparent experience.  If you have any questions, you can contact us directly by email at:  [email protected]

Sincerely, 

The Classroom Trials Working Group

(Members and their credentials are provided on the website)

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HOW YOU WILL BE SCORED

Please read this page to understand how your application will be scored and evaluated. Once you have uploaded your application and provided your product demonstration, each of the nine members of the Working Group will review your application. Each member will score your application, assessing it against three criteria. Each member will use the following Trait Scoring Rubric to register their scores for each of the three judging criteria. We are providing you with a working version of the Trait Scoring Rubric (see below), so that you can understand exactly how your application will be scored. To make it even more clear, you can see exactly what a particular scoring range for a particular criterion means. Take time to read and understand this process, so that you can write your application with these criteria in mind. If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].

 

JUDGING CRITERION #
1
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CLASSROOM COMPATIBILITY
(0 - 5)
Does the Product take into account the needs of schools, teachers and students in a classroom setting and support those needs with functional capabilities to address the most challenging conditions?
MARGINAL
Failed to consider most field conditions and constraints; primarily supports advanced users or other atypical classroom environments.Paid basic attention to general user needs but only representing conditions in a limited category of classroom settings.Recognized and addressed a sensible range of classroom and user types; offers tools to support multiple categories of conditions and needs.Demonstrated tailored solutions to match a wide range of teacher and student needs, across targeted classrooms and user types.Grounded by a comprehensive understanding of the widest range of user and classroom needs; applications support multiple categories of schools, teachers and students.
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INTEGRATED
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

JUDGING CRITERION #
2
:  
STUDENT ENGAGEMENT
(0 - 5)
Does the Product provide students with helpful, detailed, and appropriate feedback, allowing them to revise their writing and results according to a guiding set of educational principles?
TRIVIAL
Offered insufficient feedback to support meaningful writing instruction; applications show no substantive connection to sound teaching methods.Provided some guidance towards effective writing techniques but failed to align feedback with any comprehensive or strategic approach to good writing. Evaluated student writing and provided effective instructional support, tied to concrete goals and effective strategies for improving outcomes. Provided accurate and detailed suggestions for drafting and revising content, based on the strengths and weaknesses of the student writing sample.Delivered customized responses to detailed writing samples that align with effective methods to support the best available writing instruction techniques.
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INSPIRING
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

JUDGING CRITERION #
3
:  
INSTRUCTIONAL SUPPORT
(0 - 5)
Does the Product provide tools necessary to assess a wide range of student writing, to differentiate instructional needs for students of all abilities and to strengthen the teaching process?
CARELESS
Promoted independent functionality over integrated support of hands-on instruction; applications do not invite teachers and others into the process.Demonstrated basic tools for diagnosing student writing but failed to differentiate findings to support individualized teaching goals.Provided a realistic and efficient method for monitoring student writing, while supporting multiple approaches to intervention.Demonstrated a suite of tools that informs teachers of opportunities for targeted instruction, based on specific diagnoses and reporting.Included a robust set of reporting features to allow teachers, administrators, families and students to collaborate on improving student writing.
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INSTRUMENTAL