AcademicMerit Intros Upgraded Professional Development Platform

AcademicMerit has updated its cloud-based professional development platform FineTune. The new release aims to help educators enhance their writing evaluation skills.

FineTune 2.0 comes with an improved user interface and "offers teachers embedded professional learning modules linked to each of the five categories of writing in the rubric," according to AcademicMerit. Teachers can access the modules from any web-enabled device.

Duxbury Public Schools in Massachusetts has adopted FineTune 2.0 for its English and Social Studies departments. The solution is helping "English and Social Studies teachers calibrate their evaluation of student writing, while at the same time gain a better understanding of the Common Core writing standards," said Karen Baynes, English language supervision for the district, in the prepared statement. "Not only does it make our scoring of assessments more efficient, but it facilitates an important dialogue among teachers about what makes for effective writing."

Additional information about the platform is available online.

About the Author

Kanoe Namahoe is online editor for 1105 Media's Education Group. She can be reached at [email protected].

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