NEW YORK, Aug. 16, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Council for Aid to Education, Inc. (CAE), a leader in designing innovative performance tasks for measurement and instruction of higher order skills and for subject area assessments, today announced a new partnership with Otus, an integrated platform that gathers student data from its own or any third-party assessment, and enables educators to monitor and plan for academic growth, social-emotional development, and personalized learning goals.
Under this partnership, educators using both Otus and CAE’s College and Career Readiness Assessment (CCRA+) will have a holistic picture of student performance by combining CCRA+ data with other assessment data districts are collecting – all in one platform, which will ultimately help them make instructional decisions to improve student outcomes.
“Partnering with Otus, a true industry leader, will help CAE make a positive impact on the lives of more students across the country,” said Bob Yayac, president and chief executive officer of CAE. “CCRA+ is a valuable tool that can help educators identify students’ strengths and opportunities for improvement in critical thinking, problem solving, and written communication. With this relationship, educators will have a more comprehensive view of their students’ needs and the support required to succeed.”
CCRA+ is a performance-based assessment that measures student proficiency in critical thinking, problem solving, and written communication – skills that are predictive of positive academic and career success. These higher order skills are highlighted in many states’ and districts’ Portrait of a Graduate initiatives, yet most do not have an objective measure of student progress.
With the integration, CCRA+ results will go directly into the Otus platform, allowing educators to create custom reports to analyze performance trends over time by student groups such as race/ethnicity, special education status, and English language learners. Educators can also identify students who are performing below expectations and add them to a personalized learning plan that supports their growth towards future readiness.
"We are excited to join forces with CAE to introduce CCRA+ to the Otus community," said Chris Hull, president and co-founder of Otus. "CCRA+ is a highly effective assessment tool that empowers educators to better understand how students' skills can be applied in real-world scenarios. This partnership underscores our commitment to preparing every student for their future, equipping them with the necessary tools to navigate their path to success."
The partnership is a significant step forward for both CAE and Otus. For CAE, it will help to expand the reach of CCRA+ to a wider audience of educators and students across the country. The collaboration will provide Otus educators with a valuable new tool to measure their students' future readiness and improve outcomes.
A performance-based assessment, CCRA+ situates students in real-world scenarios where they must define the problem, organize information, address issues, consider and evaluate solutions, and recommend and defend a course of action. Student scores reflect a range of plausible and effective response strategies – a process that, by design, mimics real-world, decision environments.
CCRA+ can be used for formative, interim, and summative purposes, including establishing a baseline for students, evaluating how their essential skills have progressed, and showcasing their skills upon graduation. The assessment’s results include norm and criterion reference data as well as detailed subscores to provide a more complete picture of students’ progress towards Portrait of a Graduate skills mastery. CCRA+ results can be aggregated and analyzed at all levels – student, class, school, district, and state – to identify opportunities for improvement and to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions and curriculum changes.
To learn more about CAE, please visit cae.org.
For more information about Otus, please visit otus.com.
About CAE
As a nonprofit whose mission is to help improve the academic and career outcomes of secondary and higher education students, CAE is the leader in designing innovative performance tasks for measurement and instruction of higher order skills and within subject areas.
Over the past 20 years, CAE has helped over 825,000 students globally understand and improve their proficiency in critical thinking, problem solving and effective written communication. Additionally, CAE’s subject area assessments have helped millions of K12 students across the US. Supported by best practices in assessment development, administration and psychometrics, CAE's performance-based assessments include the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+) and College and Career Readiness Assessment (CCRA+). To learn more, please visit cae.org and connect with us on LinkedIn and YouTube.
About Otus
Otus significantly improves the way we support students by providing an all-in-one platform for educators to gather, visualize, and act on student data to ensure every child – no matter their learning level or background – is on a trajectory to achieve their true potential.
Otus was created and built for teachers, by teachers. It saves educators time through the streamlined integration of assessment, performance tracking, and third-party data, while its gradebook and dashboard reports make it easy for teachers, administrators, and families to understand each student’s growth. Otus has delivered improved results for more than 1 million learners. Learn more at Otus.com.
