To accelerate learning for all children and adults of all ability levels and ethnic and social backgrounds worldwide.
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Our mission is to accelerate learning for all children and adults of all ability levels and ethnic and social backgrounds worldwide.
Across all Renaissance products, we aim to produce content that is fair, appropriate, and free from bias. Our products seek to provide all students with a “mirror” so they may see themselves uplifted in the content, and a “window” so they may learn about others’ cultures, customs, and practices. In doing so, Renaissance products reflect our multicultural society composed of unique individuals and do not portray different groups in adverse or inappropriate ways.
Globally recognized
Renaissance has been honored with the first annual CODiE Award for Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in EdTech.
Accelerating learning for children of all ethnic and social backgrounds calls for cultural competence in our content development teams and cultural responsiveness in our products.
Here are the steps we’re taking to increase both:
Sharing best practices
Our team is dedicated to understanding and sharing best practices when it comes to developing culturally responsive large-scale education products.
Cultural Relevance Versus Construct Relevance: How Do We Create Culturally Responsive Assessments?
Renaissance’s Content Quality Advisory Committee is focused on increasing representation of diverse people in our products.
Freckle has been working to increase representation and inclusion in our content. We have added a diverse range of hairstyles and accessories to the avatar store and recently engaged in a comprehensive DEI training with the Disruptive Equity Education Project to further our understanding of DEI and apply it to the content in Freckle.
Star focuses each content development cycle on increasing representation of specific racial and ethnic groups to increase the cultural relevance reflected in question items. We also analyze performance on all items to check for and eliminate items containing potential bias.
Accelerated Reader is increasing representation and inclusiveness through strategic curation practices. We have also established quality assurance processes to ensure appropriateness and sensitivity when writing quizzes for books with sensitive content.
myON has curated booklists for commonly searched DEI-related keywords. We also continue to seek out publishers that feature underrepresented authors as well as diverse characters and topics.
Lalilo conducts regular reviews of student performance and teacher feedback to ensure cultural and linguistic responsiveness. We have also begun auditing content, including images, to ensure diverse representation.
Nearpod develops culturally relevant content and ensures cultural responsiveness by considering the ways students from different cultures prefer to demonstrate their understanding. We also provide a wide selection of lessons focusing on diverse cultural groups.