PreK-12 Market Headlines
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Extends Integrated Offerings To Support the Evolution of Digital Education
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt —Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Learning Village Connects Educators To Best Practices, Instructional Strategies, Lesson Plans and Resources To Measure Achievement; The Company's Digital Platform and Curriculum Content Boost Student Performance
WASHINGTON--(via BUSINESS WIRE)--Global education leader Houghton Mifflin Harcourt today outlined its vision for leadership in digital education by presenting an array of solutions at the National Education Computing Conference (NECC). The program is highlighted by an integrated set of tools that unite technology, teacher training and assessment, and online curriculum content for educators, parents and administrators to support today's generation of learners. The Company is rapidly expanding its digital offerings to meet the needs of the entire K–12 community with online educational resources, assessment tools, digital books, adaptive software, collaborative learning environments and customized content, performance monitoring, and professional development tools.
"The digital tide has turned and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is working with school districts across the United States to meet their unique needs for integrated teaching and learning programs and tools that support achievement," said K–12 President Mike Lavelle, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. "Working with educators across the globe, we continue to enhance our technology-based content, curriculum and instructional tools to raise learning to a new level."
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is committed to providing individualized solutions for educators. By bringing together all of the elements needed for success — from curriculum management and professional development to core curriculum and virtual courses — the Company's solutions are driving new educational experiences across all stakeholder communities. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt combines curriculum management and assessment solutions — such as Learning Village, Data Director and Edusoft — with its wealth of core curriculum solutions from such well-known brands as Houghton Mifflin Reading, Math Expressions, Gateways, Soar to Success, HSP Math, Experience Science and others, with interactive courseware solutions, including Destination Math and Destination Reading.
Through the creation of fully integrated curriculum solutions, school districts across the country are bridging achievement gaps and discovering the learning benefits of a blended curriculum. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is also responding to teachers' desire for a one-stop, high-value solution through a vast repository of twenty-first-century tools and resources offered in a variety of modalities — from print to digital — to help manage and optimize data-driven instruction for all curriculum areas.
Learning Village supports major school districts across the country
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Learning Village provides a curriculum management solution that enhances the teaching and learning experience by connecting educators to best practices, instructional strategies, lesson plans and resources for measurable student achievement. The benefits of Learning Village are already being realized across the country. Major school districts have adopted it to help teachers evaluate both students' needs and teaching opportunities, track progress throughout the curriculum, and identify students at risk. Learning Village provides a content-agnostic web-based platform where teachers, administrators, parents and students can access instructional content and learning resources as well as best practices and professional development materials.
Destination Math and Destination Reading boost achievement in St. Lucie Public Schools
Five years ago, St. Lucie County Public Schools (FL) embarked on a campaign to turn itself into a world-class educational system by retrofitting traditional schools with twenty-first-century technologies. To accomplish this goal, St. Lucie combined the platform of Learning Village with the curriculum content of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt products, including Destination Reading and Destination Math, along with a benchmark assessment system.
Destination Reading and Destination Math are used as supplemental instructional resources to support core instruction either as extensions of learning, practice, remediation or acceleration, or as a means to provide individualized or small-group instruction in a highly engaging, interactive learning environment. Both programs also provide a learning management system (LMS) that tracks students' performance over time. According to Assistant Superintendent Dr. Owen Roberts, the integration of Destination Reading and Destination Math curriculum content with the Learning Village curriculum management system provides cognitively rich teaching and learning resources that boost learning and increase student achievement. Coupled with these is the A2K item-bank, which is aligned to our state standards and provides teachers, students and parents with vital progress monitoring data for instructional decision-making and extended curricular support.
"School districts now have drastically differentiated classes that must meet rigorous accountability standards," said Lavelle. "Individualized learning is rapidly becoming a basic expectation. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt recognizes this critical need and is responding to meet it through technology."
Rather than simply providing the platform and curriculum content, a systemic training plan was also developed and launched in collaboration with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt over the past five years, to provide teachers and administrators with ongoing instruction and technical support across all areas of implementation.
Over the course of the campaign, St. Lucie County Public Schools has made significant inroads and systemic progress in closing the achievement gap. A study of the five-year campaign found not only student performance improvement in math and reading, but also a direct correlation between the amount of instructional time spent on Destination Math and Destination Reading and student achievement in those areas. Ninety-seven percent of teachers agreed that the model of computer-assisted instruction helped their students to master the content and skills taught in their classrooms. The district itself moved from a C-rated to a B-rated district, just shy of A, based on Florida's A+ Plan accountability system.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt at NECC
Visit Houghton Mifflin Harcourt at Booth #1618 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington DC, June 28–July 1, 2009.
About Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company is a global education leader and the world's largest publisher of educational materials for pre-K–12 schools. The Company publishes a comprehensive set of best-in-class educational solutions, ranging from research-based textbook programs to instructional technology to standards-based assessments for students and educators. The Company also publishes an extensive line of reference works and award-winning literature for adults and young readers. With origins dating back to 1832, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt combines its tradition of excellence with a commitment to innovation. To learn more about Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, visit www.hmhpub.com.
Contact: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Josef Blumenfeld, 508-333-0938, Vice President, Communications, josef.blumenfeld@hmhpub.com
