An online educational company that started life at UConn and was nurtured into maturity by the UConn Research Development Corporation, has been sold to a national software company that specializes in personalized education technology solutions.
Renzulli Learning, one of the first companies to be developed, spun-out, and sold by UConn’s R&D Corp., was acquired recently by the Austin, Texas-based CompassLearning, a leading provider of personalized education software in the U.S. for more than 40 years.
“This is really a milestone for us,” said Mark Van Allen, president of the UConn R&D Corp., a science and technology-focused subsidiary of the UConn Foundation whose mission is to create new business start-ups based on innovative technologies developed by UConn researchers. Although the financial terms of the sale were not released, Van Allen noted, “This was a multi-million dollar deal.”
“To have a success such as this is great validation of the commercial model we use,” Van Allen said. “Renzulli Learning is based on more than 30 years of confirmed research that has been validated through years of practical experience with diverse populations.” It led to the development of a marketable online enrichment software program for personalized learning now being used in more than 2,500 schools nationwide, he added.
Renzulli Learning was co-founded in 2004 by UConn professors Joseph Renzulli and his wife and partner, Sally Reis, at the Neag School of Education’s National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented. Mike Daversa, a software entrepreneur, teamed with Renzulli and Reis through the R&D Corp. to build the business. Their work with gifted students led to the creation of a series of assessments and teaching materials to identify students’ interests, learning styles, and preferred modes of expression.
Eventually they developed Renzulli Learning, an interactive, online program that engages students by producing a customized learning profile that then matches educational enrichment resources to students’ learning styles so that the kids have a custom library of material for review of school topics.
This “search engine” was classroom tested and developed to keep kids engaged and challenged in school. Prior to being sold, Renzulli Learning had grown into a company with 30 employees.
“The original team, including R&D Corp., helped the company get a foothold in the marketplace, and it’s now being acquired to take the products to a new level,” Van Allen said. “This acquisition brings recognition to the University of Connecticut, gives university faculty an opportunity to see their research have major impact in the marketplace, and provides some financial rewards for all those involved.
“But most importantly,” Van Allen emphasized, “this will allow the benefits of UConn research to now help thousands more school children in the United States and throughout the world. This sale will really take this company’s products around the globe.”
“This is excellent news for the University and for the education community,” said University President Philip E. Austin. “It is also a great tribute to the outstanding, groundbreaking work of professors Renzulli and Reis, whose contributions to gifted and talented education have been a source of tremendous pride to UConn over many decades.”
UConn faculty disclose about 90 inventions a year that the UConn R&D Corp. is able to consider for possible commercial opportunities such as this, Van Allen noted. UConn R&D is currently managing five companies in various stages of development, and has a number of projects underway that may result in additional start-ups being formed. In each case they offer the potential to support UConn’s economic development mission through new job creation and revenue generation for the state of Connecticut.
CompassLearning specializes in customized solutions for students with products that support specialized instruction. The company’s flagship product, Odyssey, is a K-12 software-based curriculum that assesses each student’s understanding of key concepts and prescribes a personalized learning path consisting of research-based activities. Odyssey has served more than 11 million students in more than 20,000 schools nationwide. It is a winner of multiple awards, most recently the 2010 EDDIE and BESSIE awards for high-school level Chemistry, Algebra II, and World Geography.
The Renzulli Learning model complements Odyssey’s current approach, said Joseph Renzulli, co-founder of Renzulli Learning. Combining the two approaches to personalized instruction will provide the tools to permit greater opportunities to tailor the learning experience to each student’s needs, he said.
“Joining forces with CompassLearning is the next logical evolution in Renzulli’s approach to the personalized learning model,” Renzulli said. “We started with a gifted-and-talented program model and extended our approach to ensure we are able to impact all students through a strength-based pedagogy.”
“As we talk to educators across the country, it is clear they need an adaptive learning environment that is unique for each student, constantly evaluating effectiveness and student performance in order to fine-tune the learning experience,” said CompassLearning CEO Eric Loeffel. “We look forward to unleashing the full learning power of every individual student by creating a highly customized environment that promotes increased achievement through engagement and differentiation in learning.
“This acquisition helps expand and advance relationships we already have in place,” Loeffel added, “while enabling us to move closer to our vision for a comprehensive adaptive learning system.”
He emphasized that existing relationships with Renzulli Learning customers, including technical support and professional development, will continue uninterrupted and, in fact, in many cases will be enhanced. Both CompassLearning Odyssey and the Renzulli Learning System will continue to be available to educators as stand-alone products.
