Acuity® puts a robust set of interim and formative solutions into your classrooms—and the right support  will ensure your teachers are able to spot learning gaps and address them quickly with targeted instruction.

Acuity Professional Development empowers your educators with a complete range of turnkey professional development options. Choose from offerings like Acuity PhD for online, on-demand, and interactive courses, or work with CTB to deliver professional development courses in a format that meets your needs.

Acuity Professional Development enables you to:

• Receive high-quality professional development and training
• Choose on-site, web-based, or on-demand professional development and training
• Enroll in hands-on courses and apply a data-driven approach to your instruction
• Meet your teaching and learning objectives with customized options

Let us help you plan your professional development. Call CTB today at 800.538.9547 to register for Acuity Professional Development and/or training designed to help you improve student achievement for your school or district.

Professional development from CTB supports your educators with a full range of options for a variety of audiences.

CTB offers the following types of professional development to support classroom teachers, principals, district representatives, and academic testing coordinators/directors:

• Acuity PhD online, on-demand, and interactive courses are developed by experienced educators in assessment and instruction
• Required introductory training designed to acquaint users to basic Acuity functions
• On-site training for continued professional development focused on Acuity data and its application in the classroom
• Live web-based training—or webinars—designed to provide convenient access to a variety of topic-specific courses
• A variety of additional topic-specific tutorials are available within the help text and the Acuity Community

Certification training is available and designed to support educators who wish to provide training to staff related to Acuity.

Finally, customized training workshops can be scheduled to meet your individual school or district needs.

Acuity PhD is a collection of on-demand, online, and interactive professional development courses for teachers, assessment coordinators, and school and district administrators.

High-quality professional development courses are developed by the assessment experts at CTB along with mission-driven educators to help you strategically use data to improve student achievement. Four courses are available from CTB for teachers, assessment directors, and school and district administrators. (Teacher/educator, two-hour course; assessment director, 45-minute course; school administrator, one-hour course; and district administrator, one-hour course).

Acuity PhD makes improving student achievement easier with:

• High-quality professional development that helps busy educators use data to improve achievement
• Detailed tracking and performance reporting provide easy, at-a-glance tools to support self-assessment and the requirements of Title I, Title II-D, and stimulus funding
• Complete Web-based access anytime/anywhere makes real turnaround in your school or district easier with 24/7 access to courses and unlimited usage by all personnel in a building with site licenses

Download the Acuity PhD brochure (PDF, 1.1MB)

On-Site Acuity Professional Development Can Be Conveniently Delivered To Your School Or District.

Introduction to Acuity

This required Acuity course gives participants an overview of Acuity Assessments and other basic features that help improve achievement for all students. Teachers and district representatives will learn how to navigate Acuity and access reports that drive classroom instruction. Educators will also learn to view, edit, and add student and/or educator information, as well as learn to easily assign new students to classes and create a custom class.

• One six-hour day; maximum of 25 participants
• District representatives or teachers

Acuity Data Analysis: Understanding Reports

This course helps you access, understand, and use Acuity Reports and graphic organizers to analyze student and group performance data and create short- and long-term action plans.

• One six-hour day; maximum of 25 participants
• District representatives or teachers
• Pre-Requisite: Introduction to Acuity for District Representatives or Classroom Teachers

Advanced Acuity: Linking Assessment and Instruction

In this course, you will learn to use data as a collaboration tool to drive instructional planning and differentiate instruction. Educators create action plans and instructional strategies to improve student achievement or provide enrichment opportunities. Compare building/class and district data, and identify "cut points" for each content strand for each grade. Discuss probable causes for student performance results, and build accountability measures to track progress. Please note: Each day focuses on one subject—English language arts or math only. If you choose one day, the workshop focuses on only one subject selected by the district.

• Two recommended six-hour days; maximum of 25 participants
• District representatives or teachers
• Pre-Requisite: Introduction to Acuity for District Representatives or Classroom Teachers, and Acuity Data Analysis

Acuity Certification and Recertification for Trainers

This annual professional development workshop for Master Trainers reviews new Acuity features and functions and system enhancements. It helps ensure ongoing successful and effective use of the assessment system to improve student performance. It is intended for districts desiring to provide training directly to their end users in a Train-the-Trainer model.

• One six-hour day; maximum of 10 participants
• Offered only to Acuity certified educators

Cost-effective live webinars from CTB provide you with expertise in specific Acuity functions. Each webinar is about 60 minutes in length and accommodates about 15 participants.

Webinars are provided on an ongoing basis to encourage consistent and knowledgeable use of the Acuity solution. Registration and attendance are convenient—make a simple telephone call and CTB will arrange a time and day to meet your busy schedule. To participate in a webinar, you only need access to a computer with a Broadband Web connection and a speakerphone.

Topics include:

• Scoring Acuity Constructed-Response Items
• Acuity Roles and Permissions
• Preparing for an Acuity Assessment
• Acuity Reports Overview
• Creating an Acuity Custom Test
• Acuity Item Authoring
• Assigning Acuity Instructional Resources

CTB is pleased to work with you to create tailored Acuity workshops—on any topic you choose—to help address achievement goals that are specific to your school or district.

These workshops extend the regular Acuity Professional Development course options to provide a comprehensive understanding of using Acuity and data-driven instruction to improve student achievement. Developing a custom workshop in your school or district can be an effective way to build consensus around your teaching and learning objectives and develop achievement plans. Note: custom workshops require at least four weeks advance notification.

Acuity Professional Development ensures that you are using Acuity successfully to diagnose and assess student skills, track progress, create powerful reports, and move students forward with engaging and targeted instructional practice.

As a precursor to professional development, CTB also delivers one- to five-minute instructional videos, available 24/7 from the help menu in Acuity. These videos demonstrate how to perform functions in Acuity and new topics are continuously added for all users.

Download the Acuity Professional Development brochure (PDF, 192KB)

Download the Acuity PhD brochure (PDF, 1.1MB)