Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is keeping true to his commitment to make the world a better place to live in through education and the improvement of the community. This time around, Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have invested $5 million dollars in MasteryConnect, a learning software company.
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan invest $5M in MasteryConnect for personalized education http://t.co/MH1LGTuqaO
— TechCrunch (@TechCrunch) September 23, 2015
The Facebook CEO and his wife have long been known to invest in education technology companies, and MasteryConnect is just the latest in a long string of Ed-tech companies that they are supporting. MasteryConnect develops software that teachers can use to improve their students learning outcomes. Through the software, educators can track and measure how their students are doing based on individual ratings or through test scores. The software is a big help for teachers as it focuses on formative assessments based on qualitative feedback instead of scores. The end goal is to help teachers get a realistic and honest gauge of each student’s abilities and, based on that, adapt and tweak their activities, lessons, and approach so that students learn more effectively.
“ @Socrative is a powerful assessment tool that makes it easy to gauge the progress of every learner” http://t.co/691kuuS9gO #iPadEd #EdTech — James Gibbons (@ThatEdTechGuy) June 30, 2015
According to Cory Reid, MasteryConnect ‘s CEO, it’s the teachers who are at the frontlines of education; the ones “who are in the classrooms every day that are impacting the students in America.” MasteryConnect ‘s software just helps them out by making things easier.
Reid added that their system helps meet the students’ need for personalized knowledge and the teachers’ capabilities to meet that need.
MasteryConnect ‘s app has gotten favorable feedback and has been downloaded more than 5 million times. The software is free for teachers, but costs about $7 per student every year per school.
The ED-tech company has started expanding its system and recently acquired Socrative , a student response system that will be used in tandem with its teacher-oriented apps. The $5 million investment made by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife boosted its private funds to $29 million and will help in growing its staff to more than the current 140 teachers it employs.
Most are not aware of it, but power couple Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan actually have quite a portfolio of investments in education. Chan had previously worked as a teacher before pursuing medical studies, and she has a keen understanding of the struggles that teachers go through. The couple has been quietly investing in the education sector through their for-profit Zuckerberg Education Ventures and has also committed to donating $120 million to schools in the San Francisco Bay area.
However, not all their philanthropic investments have been well received. Zuckerberg’s very public $100 million donation to Newark schools has polarized educators and parents in New Jersey, with some saying that the funds were beneficial while others say it didn’t make any difference in the quality of education.
Newark schools still struggling, despite donation http://t.co/qVTXxAQTX0
— HuffPostEducation (@HuffPostEdu) September 22, 2015
[Images by Kimberly White and Sean Gallup, Getty Images; LinkedIn ]
