Schoology, now a PowerSchool Unified Classroom product, is a learning management system (LMS). Schoology’s platform is built specifically for the needs of K-12 students, teachers, and administrators. Schoology aims to combine as many parts of the learning process as possible into a single platform. By doing this they aim to simplify the learning experience for students, parents, and teachers.
The Basic Package is free for instructors and includes features such as an Academic Activity Dashboard, Instructional Tools, and a Native Document Grader. The Enterprise Package includes the Basic Package and additional features such as Systemwide Administration, User Management, and Workload Planning.
PowerSchool acquired Schoology in late 2019.
Overview of Schoology Features
Schoology focuses on student mastery of learning objectives by offering a proficiency model of grading and traditional numeric grades. Through their online platform, it is simple to deliver assessments to students regardless of their location. Assessments are flexible and can be quick quizzes, locally-created benchmarks, or district-wide assessments.
Through Schoology’s built-in data and analytics, educators can determine what is working and what is not at several different levels. The reports generated give information at both the class and school level and can be used by teachers to determine how their students are doing, as well as administrators to ensure that all students school-wide are on track. Reports can be shared via a secure URL, and access is filtered based on staff permissions
Schoology aims to ensure effective communication between parents and educators. Teachers can send weekly digests about classroom activities. Parents can instantly access their students' grades to get an idea of their child’s full learning experience.
Per the vendor, Schoology is easy to use in combination with other learning tools and comes with over 200 native integrations. Educators can use said tools to quickly create assignments. Courses can be built from scratch, or educators can use Schoology’s content library that contains over 300 applications. Courses can be easily shared with other teachers or can be re-used across multiple academic years.
Collaboration is encouraged between teachers through the Public Groups pages on Schoology. These are community pages where educators can share ideas, ask questions and learn from each other.
Tailored Education Solutions
Schoology aims to create a highly tailored educational experience for students that ensures that they meet learning objectives in the way that works best for them. By offering personalized pacing, students can work through the material at the speed that suits their individual needs.
Educators also have the option of creating lessons that give students a choice in how they learn the material. Students can select the tasks that suit their learning style, and a grade for that lesson appears in the grade book, regardless of which task was selected.
Schoology also emphasizes the importance of collaboration between students, even in a remote learning environment. The Groups feature allows students to communicate and store resources about sports, clubs, etc. outside of their course modules.
