Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Test Prep Program to Develop This Semester

After launching its partnership with Grockit, an online interactive test-prep service, in October, the university is looking to expand the pilot program this spring.

According to Randy Bass, executive director of the Center for New Designs in Learning & Scholarship, the purpose of the partnership is to understand students’ natural learning patterns and better monitor their study habits.

The university has been working to implement the program since the fall but will soon began to solicit feedback.

The relationship between the university and the company began when the administration reached out to the test-prep company last fall.

“In doing research across campus, we found the company that was doing really innovative stuff and got a lot of success, and we just wanted to explore what they were like,” Chief Innovation Officer Michael Wang said.

Grockit, founded in 2007, is a study program for standardized tests, including the GRE, LSAT and GMAT.

“It tracks every learning step you’ve taken. … It’s this constant system that gives you constant feedback toward all of your questions … so you can understand what problem you’re having and the concepts behind them,” Wang said.

Wang, Bass and Victor Reinoso, senior adviser for new project development to the university president and CFO, are helping carry the initiative forward under the newly appointed chief information officer, Lisa Davis.

According to Bass, the partnership is a means of necessary innovation.

“No longer can a university afford the self-perception that it alone can provide all the services needed for a robust learning environment through its own IT services. Creative partnerships are absolutely necessary,” Bass wrote in an email.

Grockit uses social and collaborative study tools — Facebook study rooms, audio conferencing and chat room peer tutoring, for example — that Bass believes are invaluable to the power of social learning.

“I also think that Georgetown students, while ambitious, are more cooperative than competitive,” Bass wrote. “So the social tools and collaborative study capacities seem well suited to what I have found to be a widespread generous intelligence of GU students, in general.”

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