Grounded in your course
It works from your syllabus, readings, and rubric, so students get help that matches what you taught and you get feedback in your own terms.
We help schools improve student outcomes.
The NextStep platform drafts grading and feedback for teachers to approve, in the NextStep LMS or on the Canvas they already use. Every student gets real feedback, faster.
Start with what’s due. Keep one clear next step.
NextStep intelligently creates plans to meet your goals and deadlines around your courses and performance.
Demo of the NextStep Workspace desktop app: assistant in the middle column with a task list, school Canvas gradebook on the right, drafts waiting for instructor approval.
NextStep Workspace
Grade argument essays
ENGL 101
Grade the argument essays against my rubric and draft feedback. Don’t post anything.
On it. Working through 12 submissions with your rubric now. Scores and comments stay drafts until you approve them.
Gradebook
SpeedGraderSearch Students
Search Assignments
Student Name | Classical Argument EssayOut of 100 Manual | Midterm QuizOut of 50 | Discussion 4Out of 20 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avery Kim akim24 | 94 | 46 | 18 | 93.5% |
| Ben Ortega bortega | 87 | 42 | 17 | 85.9% |
| Maya Chen mchen19 | 48 | 19 | 92.9% | |
| Jordan Ellis jellis | 40 | 16 | 82.4% | |
| Priya Natarajan pnatarajan | 45 | 18 | 89.4% | |
| Sam Whitfield swhitfield | 38 | 15 | 77.1% |
Backed by
Core technology
Built from the ground up for education.
NextStep is built for the way you work. The same foundation powers the LMS and Workspace, shaped around your courses, your rubrics, and how you run a class.
It shows its work
Every answer links to the reading behind it, and every score to the rubric line and the sentence that earned it.
It knows its limits
When it isn't sure, it says so: it points students back to you, and flags shaky scores for your review.
Review and approval
You’re in control.
NextStep takes the first pass, so grading and feedback are already drafted when you sit down. The judgment stays yours.
- 01
Draft
NextStep scores the work and drafts feedback in your voice, against your rubric.
- 02
Review
Read the reasoning behind each suggestion, edit anything, and approve one by one or in bulk, across the LMS and agents.
- 03
Approve
Nothing reaches a student or a gradebook until you sign off.
Privacy
Private by architecture.
A learning platform holds the identities of students, their private questions, and the daily evidence of how they learn. That protection is built into the architecture, so it never depends on a promise.
Never used for training
Your courses, your students' work, and every conversation stay yours. None of it trains a model, at NextStep or anywhere else.
Unreadable, even to NextStep
Student conversations stay sealed the moment a student writes them. Instructors still get the visibility they need to teach.
Physically isolated, school by school
Each school runs on physically isolated NextStep infrastructure. A breach at one school cannot cascade into another.
Products
Two ways to start.
For schools and districts
NextStep LMS
The full course platform: courses, assignments, grading, tutoring, and early signals when students fall behind, in one system, on infrastructure isolated for your school.
Explore the LMS
For instructors on Canvas
NextStep Workspace
A desktop app that puts an AI assistant beside your Canvas. It drafts grading and feedback for you to approve. Download it, sign in the way you already do, and start today.
Get NextStep Workspace macOS and Windows
Company
An engineering company, top to bottom.
There is no one between us and the product. We answer for how every part of it works, alongside the instructors and students who use it.
01
Engineering-first
The people who decide what to build write the code and sit in classrooms. Nothing gets lost in the handoff.
02
No private equity
No private-equity owner, no exit clock. We build for the next decade.
03
We own the whole stack
One platform, built end to end. Security, reliability, and classroom workflows are designed together from day one.
Talk to the team.
Explore the LMS“The NextStep Workspace has allowed me to clean-line my LMS workflow process, particularly in data-driven decisions and suggestions for content and delivery improvements. The assistant additionally saves immense time with autograding, and in providing original or revised assignment instructions and rubrics based on existing content in my Canvas courses.”