Pedagogue Blog

Proliferation of New Educational Technology Products Raises Question of Which Features Support and Spur an Inherent Love of Learning

BOSTON (March 16, 2017) – While student motivation in traditional classroom settings is well researched, materials on how digital tools are enhancing or undermining this essential factor for academic performance are harder to find. Lexia Learning, a Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE: RST) Company, has released a white paper titled, “The Importance of Intrinsic Student Motivation When Selecting Educational Technologies,” which not only focuses on well-researched methods of supporting students’ intrinsic motivation but also applies that research to educational technologies.

The white paper, written by Dr. Elizabeth R. Kazakoff, senior researcher at Lexia, highlights the three characteristics identified in Self-Determination Theory that are critical to spark intrinsic motivation in learners:

• Autonomy
• Competence
• Relatedness to the contexts of a student’s community, personal goals, interests, or knowledge base

Dr. Kazakoff points out that instead of cultivating these three pillars of motivation, many people, including some educators and makers of educational technologies, opt for external motivators, such as rewards and punishments, to drive desired behaviors. “Although these solutions may be effective in the short-term, they often undermine students’ long-term intrinsic motivation for learning,” she writes. That is especially problematic since intrinsic motivation supports lifelong learning, a vital competency in the 21st century workplace.

To help educators ensure that intrinsic motivation is supported by the educational technology solutions they choose, the white paper shares questions—based on the three characteristics identified in Self Determination Theory of autonomy, competence and relatedness/meaning—that educators can ask themselves. For example, Dr. Kazakoff recommends that educators ask, “Is it clear to the student that their work online relates to their world offline?” because students’ perception of the value that a digital program’s goal will add to their lives can greatly influence the degree to which those students will be motivated.

“Educational technology products should be rich in elements that support intrinsic motivation, rather than ‘chocolate covered broccoli’ which simply sweetens the learning with a sugar coating of badges and stickers,” said Dr. Kazakoff. “Remembering the questions shared, as well as the tenets from Self Determination Theory of competence, autonomy, and relatedness, can help parents and educators navigate the digital landscape to find educational technology tools that are engaging and effective in generating authentic learning, not just providing edutainment.”

A complimentary copy of “The Importance of Intrinsic Student Motivation When Selecting Educational Technologies” can be downloaded at http://www.lexialearning.com/download-motivation-wp.

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About Lexia Learning

Lexia Learning, a division of Rosetta Stone, empowers educators through adaptive assessment and personalized instruction. For more than 30 years, the company has been on the leading edge of research and product development as it relates to student reading skills. With a robust offering that includes solutions for differentiated instruction, personalized learning and assessment, Lexia Learning provides educators with the tools to intensify and accelerate literacy skills development for students of all abilities. For more information, visit www.lexialearning.com.

About Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE: RST) is dedicated to changing people’s lives through the power of language and literacy education. The company’s innovative digital solutions drive positive learning outcomes for the inspired learner at home or in schools and workplaces around the world.

Founded in 1992, Rosetta Stone’s language division uses cloud-based solutions to help all types of learners read, write, and speak more than 30 languages. Lexia Learning, Rosetta Stone’s literacy education division, was founded more than 30 years ago and is a leader in the literacy education space. Today, Lexia helps students build fundamental reading skills through its rigorously researched, independently evaluated, and widely respected instruction and assessment programs.

For more information, visit www.rosettastone.com. “Rosetta Stone” is a registered trademark or trademark of Rosetta Stone Ltd. in the United States and other countries.

Media Contact:
Charlotte Andrist, Nickel Communications
[email protected] | 770-310-5244

By adopting a single platform that serves as a virtual staging area for all project-based learning, Columbus Signature Academy’s New Tech High School helps connect students to real-world learning while prepping them for success in college and the workforce.

By Joshua J. Giebel

When I ponder the traditional classroom setting, where instructors use textbooks, whiteboards, and lectures to teach math, I can only imagine how difficult it must be to make the critical real-world connections that students need to be able to fully engage with the subject matter. Simply telling students that geometry will someday become an important part of their lives isn’t enough. As learning facilitators, we have to illustrate those real-world connections, give pupils hands-on experience and examples, and then help them parlay their newfound knowledge into smart college and career choices.

At Columbus Signature Academy’s New Tech High School in Columbus, Indiana, we’ve been using project-based learning (PBL) since inception. When I was hired seven years ago, I was a recent college graduate whose teaching experience involved administering daily lectures and homework assignments in a traditional classroom setting. I’d heard of PBL through a college course and the concept interested me. I went through a rigorous, week-long training course on the nuts and bolts of PBL and then jumped in feet first.

When Will We Use This in Real Life?

The question math teachers hear most from students is, “When are we going to use this in real life?” Using PBL, I can provide the applications before that question pops into the student’s mind. As I was developing my own style of teaching math, this concept intrigued me. By creating projects and problems, I can show pupils how they’re going to “use it in real life” as they’re learning. This approach pushes them to develop a skill, come up with a solution, and/or create a workable method for solving the problem that I put in front of them. They can focus on building critical thinking and problem-solving skills in a way that the traditional classroom setting doesn’t support.

This year, my high-school geometry class tackled a project involving the furniture that they use in the classroom. In an effort to get more comfortable while seated, students tend to lean back too far in their chairs, which are built with small footpads. Because of the added weight and pressure pupils create when they lean back, these footpads break quite frequently.

To get to the bottom of this problem, we analyzed the design of the footpad and of the chair itself, which is made with an arc (where the footpad goes) that’s similar to a real, natural circle. Using the breakage problem as a focal point for the lesson, we talked about the arcs of circles, arcs on segments, sectors of circles, tangents, and all of the properties that go along with finding the center point of an object. Then, using an AutoCAD program and a 3D printer, students redesigned the chair footpads.

To take the project a step further, we had panelists from the chair manufacturer come into our class and assess the various alternatives that the students had designed. As it turns out, the company was aware of the problem and had already come up with a new design that was actually quite similar to some of our student projects. That was pretty exciting.

To manage the content associated with this and other problem-based assignments that my geometry and calculus classes work on, we use itslearning as our learning management system (LMS). For about two years now, students have used the centralized platform to conduct research, submit journal assignments, do their reflections, and create and store presentations, among other things. Using Prezi, Google Slides, or another type of presentation software, they work collaboratively and store all of their materials in the LMS.

For the chair project, for example, we shot a video of a chair breaking and then uploaded it into the LMS for students to watch and analyze. They were able to see what was happening during the breakage, where the stress was being created, and other key points. Then, using dynamic geometry software like GeoGebra and Geometer’s Sketchpad, they mapped out their arcs before putting them into the AutoCAD program.

Developing Tomorrow’s Workforce with PBL

What makes PBL so engaging is the fact that it’s student-centered—a key point that our LMS enables and supports. Put simply, students don’t have to come to me for every single thing. I can post information in the LMS and students know that they can always access it—whether they need it at the time we’re talking about it or three days later. This is a huge time-saver that allows pupils to manage themselves while also allowing me to be more productive during classroom time.

By encouraging students to identify real-world problems, develop solutions, and then present those solutions using 21^st-century tools, PBL supports college and career readiness. This is important because today’s employers don’t want to hire people who are simply competent in academic areas; they want to hire people who can think critically and solve problems collaboratively.

Knowing this, our school intentionally and regularly builds in these skills to our instruction and assessment. In my view, college and career readiness is all about possessing 21^st-century skills (e.g., the ability to communicate orally and in writing, collaboration, work ethic, mindset, etc.).

Project-based learning embeds these skills into each new undertaking so that, by the time students graduate from high school, they have had more experience working collaboratively, presenting to experts, and writing professional documents than most people have in their lifetimes. And by providing students with authentic, real-world problems, we engage students in the type of work they may encounter after high school. These experiences teach students about critical thinking and provide opportunities to persevere in solving problems.

Experimenting with PBL (or jumping right in) can seem daunting and difficult for any instructor. But it’s a worthwhile endeavor, and if you set realistic goals for how often you will do projects, come up with projects that you’re passionate about, and take a risk to change the way the class looks, it will pay off. The rewards are great and center on giving ownership back to students and then supporting those efforts/projects with an integrated LMS—a critical step in helping education move in the right direction as we go forward.

Joshua J. Giebel is a mathematics facilitator at Columbus Signature Academy’s New Tech High School in Columbus, Indiana.

By: Amy Michalowski, Dean at The Virtual High School

Online and digital learning have become such an integral part of the modern educational landscape that, according to the 2015 edition of the Keeping Pace with K-12 Digital Learning report, nearly all public school districts use some form of online learning.

One of the appeals of online learning lies in the fact that a single online instructor can teach a class that spans different schools, states, and even countries. Since schools nationwide have faced deep cuts in funding, this approach allows schools to offer an enriched curriculum through shared resources. That, in turn, also eliminates the issue of how to provide for classes that serve only a small numbers of students such as Advanced Placement® (AP®) courses.

The Keeping Pace report confirms that supplemental courses (AP® as well as credit recovery, electives, dual enrollment, etc.) constitute most of the online courses used by public school districts. In fact, between the supplemental online courses offered by state virtual schools and sold by private companies to districts nationwide, the report estimates there were a total of 4.5 million supplemental online course enrollments during the 2014-15 school year.

The Appeal of Advanced Placement®

AP® courses are particularly appealing to schools because the courses yield multiple benefits for students. Like other electives, these courses give students an opportunity to delve into topics that truly interest them (albeit at a college-level rigor), increasing their engagement, cultivating their love of learning, and potentially serving as a launching pad for their future academic career.

Students with AP® scores on their transcripts often gain favorable attention from college admissions and financial aid officers. This is with good reason, as the College Board reports that students who earn a 3 or better on one or more of the AP® exams generally graduate from college at higher rates and earlier than non-AP® students¹. Many public colleges and universities award course credit for a score of 4 or 5 on AP® exams; those credits can reduce the number of college classes students take and consequently, the amount of tuition they pay.

Schools have a great deal of incentive to increase student options by offering AP® classes. Offering online AP® offerings helps schools and districts exponentially expand their catalog while helping address scheduling, resource, and budget issues.

Online AP Instruction: Three Models

Holly Area Schools, a rural district in the upper Midwest region of the United States, has creatively expanded AP® offerings for students at Holly High School. Prior to 2009, AP® offerings at Holly High were limited to five face-to-face courses. That year, one of the school’s gifted students asked to take AP® European History, prompting the school to consider different avenues through which new courses could be made available to interested students.

For the first few years, Holly High worked with an array of online providers, including K-12 focused agencies and post-secondary institutions. Partnering with multiple providers was a challenge for students and the school, because of differing learning management systems, digital platforms, policies and procedures, and grading philosophies. School leaders felt continuing in this manner would limit their ability to expand course options.

Their strategy began shifting in 2011, when a student expressed interest in AP® Music Theory. Holly High School obtained the course from The Virtual High School (VHS), a non-profit, online collaborative and one of the few providers that offered the course. Satisfied with the breadth of offerings and instructional model at VHS, Holly High School consolidated the number of providers, focusing on delivery with two organizations. This reduction streamlined delivery of courses and allowed for manageable expansion of AP® offerings.

Partnering with the collaborative presented Holly High with a platform to expand offerings outside of the AP® program as well. Holly High took advantage of VHS’ private offering solution to customize curricula for their academic calendar and utilize their faculty to instruct the courses. Combined with access to the full catalog of collaborative courses, the private offerings have increased Holly’s capacity to personalize offerings to student needs and have improved the faculty’s comfort and performance with technology-enhanced instruction. Holly’s online instructors benefitted from the collaborative’s rigorous, six-week professional development program that modeled cohort-based, online learning and increased their appreciation for their students’ experiences.

Benefits of Effective Implementation

In 2011, the last year of the school’s working with several providers, Holly students took an AP Economics class that was basically a “read this and take a test” format. Eleven students took that AP test, but only one passed.

On the other hand, when the school opted for online courses like AP English Literature and AP English Language from VHS, students showed a growth in scores of 3 and above from the “pre-online” phase through to the present, from 66% to 93% for English Literature and 62% to 84% for English Language. In fact, scores of 4 and 5 rose from 20% to 54% for the language course.

The AP English Language teacher, Charles Gragg, concluded that the online activities force students to actually read the class materials and also write as much as 60,000 original words (the length of an average novel). Another major contributor to improved performance is the fact that students and teachers participate in weekly open-ended, asynchronous discussions. Gragg reports that the online discussion forums allow students to debate each other in an environment that gives them plenty of time to reflect and compose their thoughts, minimizing the risk of embarrassment. He also found that students are more motivated to submit outstanding work because their online assignments are often shared with classmates through peer reviews and blogs.

The evolution of Holly’s AP models has significantly expanded students’ options. While the school currently has two online models, experience is showing which attributes universally bolster online learning success. Additionally, online classrooms’ balance of global interaction and independent coursework enables students to hone 21st century skills such as collaboration and self-regulation. Enhancing all these attributes will better prepare students to pursue their interests and careers following their high school experience.

1. Morgan, R. & Klaric, J. (2007). AP® students in college: An analysis of five-year academic careers (College Board Rep. No. 2007-4). http://research.collegeboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012/7/researchreport-2007-4-ap-students-college-analysis-five-year-academic-careers.pdf.

Community service is an important aspect of National Honor Society membership. In fact, it’s part of the NHS motto: “Scholarship, leadership, character, and service.” To honor this motto, many high schools require their NHS members to take part in a certain number of service hours each year. Keeping track of all these hours and activities for every student can be a real hassle for NHS administrators—but a software platform called x2VOL can help.

With more than 14 million approved hours recorded via this online system, x2VOL is the most widely used service tracking platform in K-12 education. And a growing number of schools are using the platform to keep track of their students’ NHS service activities.

Jeff Schroeder, math curriculum director and National Honor Society sponsor for Westside High School in Houston, describes his old process for documenting students’ service hours as “a big mess of paper.”

“I would be getting slips of paper all the time, every day, where students had some sort of signature verifying their service hours for different activities,” he says. “I’d hand all those papers to one of the NHS leaders, and they’d put the information into a database.”

This homegrown system could tell Schroeder how many hours each student had completed, “but it didn’t really say what they had been doing,” he observes.

Schroeder, who became Westside’s National Honor Society advisor two years ago, was looking for a way to improve the process. His wife works at another school that used x2VOL, and she told him about the platform.

Not only has x2VOL improved the tracking of NHS service hours at Westside; it has made it easier for students to find opportunities to volunteer and to get their service hours approved. What’s more, it has improved communication between Schroeder and NHS participants.

“I would say it has revolutionized how we run the program,” Schroeder says.

Streamlining the process

At Westside High School, National Honor Society members are required to take part in 40 service hours per year in their junior and senior years. At least 20 of these hours must be spent on school-sponsored activities, such as volunteering to help out during special events at the local middle or elementary schools. Students also can find activities of their own to volunteer for, such as helping out in church or volunteering at a soup kitchen.

Schroeder used to post service opportunities on a student-created website. Now, he can post opportunities through x2VOL—and students can see on a map exactly where they have to go.

“When I put an event up, there will be slots for students to sign up,” he says. “If they sign up, then when the volunteering opportunity is over with, x2VOL sends an email to the person who’s in charge, and that person can confirm or deny whether the students were there and for how many hours.”

Students can enter non-sponsored volunteer activities into x2VOL as well, and the system will email the designated supervisor for confirmation. And for every service activity, the system prompts students to reflect on what they have learned from the experience.

“You can’t submit hours without reflecting,” Schroeder says. “If you leave it blank, the system won’t let you submit it.” He says he goes in and reads what students have to say from time to time, and it’s clear from their reflections that they are learning the value of service to their community.

x2VOL has made it much easier for Schroeder to track his students’ progress toward their service requirement. “I can set goals and track their progress toward those goals,” he says. “I can very easy see whether students are on track for meeting their required hours. I check in the middle of the year and then send a reminder to students who are behind.”

The system also helps Schroeder provide information for NHS members’ college and scholarship applications—including details about all of the activities they completed. What’s more, it has improved communication within the NHS program.

“I can send a group email to students who have signed up for an activity,” Schroeder explains. “If, at the last minute, the sponsor of the activity tells me, ‘Make sure they wear a blue shirt,’ I can instantly send that information out to everyone who will be there, whereas I couldn’t do that before. I can let them know about last-minute changes, or I can even let the sponsor know who’s supposed to be there ahead of time.”

It’s not just high schools that are benefiting. Cathy Adkins, a reading lab teacher and National Junior Honor Society faculty advisor for Hunt Middle School in Frisco, Texas, uses x2VOL to track the service hours of her 120 eighth grade NJHS members—turning what she describes as a “nightmare” into a very simple process.

Adkins says having x2VOL ensures that students in her school have an official, verified report of hours they gave during their middle school years. They can print a comprehensive list to give to their high school counselor when they move up to ninth grade. Depending on the school, those hours might count toward earning their community service honor cord or scholarship and college applications. There are many motivated students who give hours to community service in their younger years and x2VOL ensures those hours don’t get lost in the transition from middle to high school.

Students are grateful as well

NHS students at Westside High School have noticed the value of x2VOL as much as Schroeder does.

“Once all our members are all set up and in the proper groups, it is super easy for them to navigate the website and record service hours,” says Syed Raza, a Westside senior and NHS officer. “The layout is simple, the directions are clear, and the hours are recorded seamlessly.”

The software makes it easier for NHS officers to track and manage their members’ hours, Syed says. “We can look at individuals and see if they are meeting their requirements just by searching their name,” he explains. “We can also see which opportunities and events they volunteered at and evaluate their entire profile.”

Having an opportunity to reflect on service activities within the software is another valuable feature, he adds, noting: “Usually, paper systems for recording service hours do not ask for a reflection, but x2VOL’s requirement of a reflection makes students really evaluate what they learned from the volunteering opportunity.”

In the process, Syed has learned “that self-reflection is critical in evaluating yourself and truly learning what you are passionate about.”

Virtual Reality (VR) has become a hot topic in education as of late with the arrival of many options for the technology in the video game world. Whether or not video games can teach children has been a long debate, but the addition of VR has possibly complicated or alleviated the situation further. According to a survey completed by GFK, 85 percent of teachers are ready to include VR in their classrooms. At the same time, 84 percent of teachers believe using VR could enhance the one thing that has seemed to be lost in classrooms in recent years: student motivation. These statistics come as no surprise considering how many students are so familiar with the technology, and two out of three teachers claim to be technology innovators for that very reason.

How Ready are Teachers and Classrooms?

 Many teachers claim to be ready, but they might not see the amount of training and preparation it takes to use VR. Also, there is the concern of whether or not school districts can even afford the technology. So far, the cheapest route to go is headsets that work with Smartphones. However, with budget cuts across the board and technology that is already out of date being in classrooms, the concern of how to fund upgrading to this technology remains.

What is Currently Used and What Does Funding Look Like?

At current, most schools only make use of laptops, computer labs, iPads, and SmartBoards. Some of this technology has been provided by teachers themselves due to the lack of funds. Through this method, many applications have come into existence, and several successful start-up companies have been born. However, it is not fair to teachers to expect them to fund everything out of their own pockets much longer, especially as technology becomes more expensive and demanding in the classroom.

How Can VR be Used? What is the Hold Up?

There are many advantages to using VR in classrooms, though. Studies indicate that science and social studies classes would benefit from using VR the most because of the ability VR offers to simulate situations throughout history and in laboratories. For these simulations to occur, though, some technology programs currently available on the market need also to expand to meet the potential demand for these programs shortly. Even though students are ready for such technologies, and teachers crave having them in the classroom, current school curriculum just cannot seem to keep up with either situation. This is a shame considering the effect VR can have on students’ learning experiences and opportunities.

One Teacher’s Story

One teacher, in particular, Erin J. Merrill, has found a way to bring VR into her social studies classroom at the middle school where she teaches, though. She was able to find VR headsets on Amazon for as cheap as $10.00 each, which was helpful to find in a school that allows teachers to bring their own devices into the classroom. She also stated that each student does not have to have their VR headset as a group can share throughout a lesson. She requested students to use their on Smartphones to find 360-degree videos on YouTube and to download other applications found through Orbulus, Trench Experience VR, and Google Cardboard. Merrill foresees writing a grant in the future for a 360-degree camera of her own to have in the classroom for the sake of making her videos and experiences since students found the lesson plans revolving around VR to be so enlightening and eye-opening.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, due to the funding situations of most school districts that have previously been mentioned, most teachers who are ready to include VR in their classrooms will not have any other choice but to look into grant funding for such technology. Students are ready for it. Most teachers are ready for it. Therefore, the curriculum and budgeting in school districts should find a way to be ready for it, too.

The English-learning company is seeking teachers in the United States and Canada to provide English language instruction to Chinese students over the internet

(New York, New York) March 14, 2017 — 51Talk, the award-winning online English-learning platform, is pleased to offer educators in the United States and Canada the opportunity to teach English to students overseas, all from the comfort of their own homes. Through 51Talk’s new American Academy program, English-speaking educators have the ability to interact with and teach students in China using a live, one-on-one video conferencing platform.

51Talk’s vision is to make English-language education accessible, enjoyable, and affordable to millions of learners in China. Founded in 2011, 51Talk now has more than 100,000 active students and more than 10,000 teachers worldwide.

“We offer teachers an easy and fun way to earn money by teaching from home, and to make a positive impact in the lives of many students while doing it,” said James Stewart, who manages 51Talk’s operations in North America. “In China, speaking English is a vitally important tool for getting ahead, and brings with it many educational and professional opportunities. 51Talk is not only helping English learners improve their lives, but helping to connect China with the international community. It’s also an excellent way for English-speaking teachers to hone their craft, learn about another culture, and challenge themselves to experience a new way of teaching.”

51Talk offers teachers an easy way to make extra money teaching, and to form relationships with students from another culture. Teacher choose their own hours, as long as they are available to teach at least 7.5 hours per week. 51Talk offers initial and ongoing professional development training for all its teachers.

About 51Talk
51Talk (pronounced as “five-one-talk”) when spoken in Chinese can also sound like “I want to talk,” which encapsulates our students’ aspiration to master the English language. 51Talk is the largest professional online English learning platform in China. In June 2016, we became a publicly listed company on the New York Stock Exchange. 51Talk was named the “Most Influential Foreign Language Education Brand” at the Netease Golden Wings Award Ceremony in 2016, and one of Forbes China’s “Fastest-growing Technology Companies” in 2015. Our mission is to make quality education accessible and affordable, and in doing so we enable our students to talk to the world. To learn more, please visit us at 51Talk.com.

Press Contact:
Jacob Hanson
PR with Panache!
[email protected]
(970) 560-0856

For many education professionals, the thought of implementing technology into the classroom can often be a worry. Not wanting to offer learners new distractions that will hinder their progress, teachers are wary of using education technology. However, if implemented in the right way, technology can be used as a tool to facilitate both teaching and learning inside and outside of the classroom. Here are ten ways that education technology can be used for both you and your students.

1) Shift the Focus in the Classroom

Traditionally, focus in the classroom is directed at the teacher, usually placed front and center. The teacher has an active role in giving information that the passive learner is then expected to retain. The use of education technology can allow learners to take a more active approach to learning, creating a learner-focused classroom. The learners are given responsibility for their learning, through the use of technology, that creates a more engaged classroom.

2) Organization of Course Content

Through online syllabus’, teachers can outline course content which gives students clear and progressive learning goals. This further implements a more learner-focused approach to teaching and learning that gives power to the students. Both teachers and learners can keep up-to-date with the progress of the course, changing it as needed.

3) Encourage Collaboration

While group projects aren’t new, when it comes to creating a collaborative classroom education technology can have a real impact on how learners communicate. With collaborative tools such as those found in the Google Apps, teachers can invite learners to share, edit and present findings in real-time. A collaborative effort is needed when deciding on information, design and presentation, while still allowing learners the freedom to work separately in the physical sense.

4) Fast Feedback

Getting useful feedback can often be a difficult and time-consuming task for teachers. Using an online polling tool means teachers can get fast, efficient feedback. Collecting feedback in this way can help a teacher to be more considerate of their students, adjusting the trajectory of the course where necessary without taking time away from learning.

5) Broaden the Horizon

The internet provides a plethora of information on any subject. Exposing learners to different perspectives on their subject matter encourages them to develop their analytical skills. Building the learners own perspective on the subject through exposure to a broader pool of information encourages critical thinking and discussion in the classroom.

6) Expand the Learning Environment

Education technology effectively takes learning out of the classroom. With the collaborative resources and independent study programs, learners can take charge of their study schedule. Learners can make the most of their time by studying on-the-go while still being connected to their virtual classroom.

Moreover, the teacher can send learners out on assignment while still keeping connected through real-time updates on online documents.

7) Teach at the Learner’s Own Pace

A traditional classroom is often split between students who need more time on a subject, students who are on track and students who are excelling and need more challenging material. Through the use of education technology, teachers can tailor the course to meet the students needs rather than risk leaving some students confused or some students bored.

By providing resources that are easily accessible online, teachers give learners the option to study at their own pace. Recording lectures and posting them online, providing online quizzes that have different difficulty ratings and providing information in a variety of multimedia options allows learners to choose the learning style and pace that best suits them.

8) Tech Saves Time

Education technology tools that help teachers to grade and track progress are great time-savers. Self-grading quizzes aid teachers by saving them time while also providing learners with instant feedback on their progress. Taking education technology one step further and harnessing the learners’ collaborative efforts can also open up the option of self-grading. Learners are able to give each other feedback by commenting on and editing each other’s work. This can encourage learners to share ideas or even just proof-read each other’s work, whether they are working separately or as a team.

9) Practice Makes Perfect

Using technology can simulate real-world situations which learners can benefit from. Practical study allows students to learn by doing. This approach can improve problem solving skills and give learners valuable experience in their field of study.

10) Express Yourself

The multitude of different education technology tools available means that learners can present their work however they choose. By being allowed to express themselves freely in their work, whether through images and animation, video, text or audio, learners are encouraged to think outside the box and get creative with their studies.

If edtech can facilitate the teaching and learning process in any way, it is by changing the relationships built in the classroom. Teachers become enablers for the learners who are in charge of learning in their own preferred style.

Hopefully this approach will encourage a more productive and engaged learning environment for both to benefit from.

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

Retention affects more than just students. What do you think is the cost of retention to schools, educators, communities and society as a whole?

Research on the impact of retention dates back to the initiation of the practice – the point when educators and policymakers believed it to be an effective means for managing student non-achievement. A recent evaluation of retention research, however, suggests that the lack of accounting for differences in social, emotional, and academic characteristics between promoted students and their retained peer, allows for any number of “vulnerabilities.”

Numerous and hard to track, these vulnerabilities may be the cause of negative post-retention outcomes, rather than retention itself. Using higher levels of quality controls for pre-retention characteristics of promoted and retained students also tends to indicate less negative effects. Even so, enough evidence exists to make student retention a questionable practice.

Cost of Retention to Students

In the wealth of research about the costs of retention, it is the cost of retention to students that researchers most often discuss. Not surprisingly, retention often leads students to have negative feelings about school, as well as a sense of low self-esteem when it comes to the ability to perform well academically. Some children find the fact that they have been retained embarrassing and may feel ashamed about being separated from their age-grade peers.

Retained students may become unmotivated and disengaged in school. They may also develop behavior problems (particularly at school) and become involved in bullying, either as a perpetrator or as a victim. Children often feel stigmatized by retention, and there is an increased possibility that retained students will end up dropping out, their long-term trajectory totally undermined.

Research shows that a retained child does not generally “catch up” academically to his or her grade-level peers. While there is some indication that achievement among children retained in elementary school does improve, for older children there appear to be no significant benefits.

Cost of Retention to Schools

In addition to the negative influences of retention on children, school systems struggle a great deal when their retention rates are high. They may end up with large numbers of children in retention checkpoint grades and thus also experience difficulty to manage them. When schools find themselves retaining the same children repeatedly, they may also end up with substantial numbers of over-aged students in certain grades. This is another obvious problem, of course, regarding retention consequences, but one that has long escaped true attention from educators at the policy level.

With specific grades established as retention points, it’s not uncommon for students to essentially create something of a backlog. In practical terms, this creates an imbalance in maturity and a potentially irregular experience for teachers and students in the grade level as a whole. At the very least, students who are beyond the typical age for elementary or middle school present a very particular challenge for school districts regarding placement and services. Should established policies place these students with typical-aged elementary and middle school students? Should separate policies apply to students who have reached a certain age within either elementary or middle school systems – who have aged out, as it were?

Retention strains school district and state financial resources, particularly when a large number of students are retained. The additional costs of educating grade-repeating students are evident when you multiply the average annual cost per pupil by the number of students retained in any given year. Texas, for example, spent more than $2 billion to educate the 202,099 students retained during the 2006–07 school year. With budget cuts prevalent across the nation, the problems of continuing these sorts of difficulties indefinitely are readily apparent.

Cost of Retention to Society

The social cost of retention is directly influenced by the increased number of dropouts. Students who leave school prior to receiving a diploma tend to have lower earnings over their lifetime, which means they will pay fewer taxes, and may even be more dependent on social services. A significantly high number of incarnated individuals are dropouts, as are those who tend to commit certain crimes. The cost of retention for society clearly has an impact.

When examining the impact and cost of student retention, do you feel it is even worth considering as a sound education policy?

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

What, if anything, can be done to address the high rate of retention at schools with a significant number of at risk students? Will additional resources, after school programming and increased parental support change retention rates?

Schools with higher populations of students at risk for retention will likely have higher retention rates. In 2010, the Spencer School in Chicago, retained one-third of the third-grade class. The number of third-grade classrooms also increased during the subsequent school year, with each classroom containing twenty-eight students. While the school principal and staff were committed to addressing the problem of a large number of retained students, their strategies needed to work within the context of existing structures and resources.

Volunteers came in to help retained students, as well as those students who displayed low achievement when entering third grade as new students. A school enrichment teacher also worked with students who were reading above grade level, so that teachers could concentrate on students working at or below grade level. Low-achieving students could receive additional help at an after school program, although attendance was voluntary and tended to be low.

Educators at Spencer made attempts to get parents more involved, and they appeared to meet with some success in this. After all, it’s true that parents are quite motivated to intervene and assist their children when possible, especially when there is guidance from teachers and other educators. Considering the rate of third-grade retention alone, however, there appeared to be insufficient parental involvement: approximately 40 parents, out of 116 third graders, came to an information session designed to let parents know what they could do to support their child’s education success.

Students and faculty at schools with high numbers of retained students experience significant stress and strain outside of the normal range associated with school experiences and testing. So much more is on the line when retention is the norm, instead of an exception. Preparation periods for tests to determine promotion are particularly stressful and supports for students and teachers are often lacking.

The pressure experienced by traditional schools because of high retention rates does not necessarily exist at charter schools, where retention rates tend to be higher. Charter schools report retention rates of 23 percent, compared to 1–4 percent retention rates in urban centers like New York and Houston. A 2008–09 retention report from thirty-one charter schools in New York City indicated that 16 percent of sixth graders were retained.

This compared to 1 percent of seventh and eighth graders in the city as a whole (city sixth graders were not included in the comparison since the sixth-grade retention policy did not begin until the following year). The Knowledge as Power Program (KIPP), which is a network of charter schools throughout the nation, also has a retention rate higher than traditional public schools. The organization proclaims that its retention rate is a result of strict policies – unbending rules about holding students to a higher standard of performance than traditional public schools.

Charter schools, however, do not necessarily alleviate the high retention rate, though. In fact, the elevated numbers of students repeating a grade level may be symptoms of a rigorous academic program and high expectations set for students. Leaders insinuate that retention at charter schools is different from retention at traditional public schools, and deny that retention has a negative impact on students in the charter school context. They also suggest that retention is such a common practice at charters that students do not necessarily feel stigmatized.

While high retention rates may be the result of strict adherence to requirements for mastery, a parallel outcome is that charters such as KIPP can report high college attendance rates. Some low-performing children weed themselves out by returning to traditional schools once they become aware of their retention. Charter schools also exclude these retained children from their graduation rates. On the other hand, some low-performing children do better as they repeat a grade. Occasionally, however, there is an indication that the improved achievement is short-lived.

Various researchers have concluded that retention is not the solution for social promotion. Retention and social promotion policies are less about learning, overall, and more about maintaining the structure of schooling as it exists today. Some retention policies come with interventions that are meant to support education policy and not necessarily a high level of student learning.

Do charter schools have the right idea in their approach to retention? What could public schools learn from the way charter schools view and endorse retention?

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

As an educator, how should potentially “at risk” students be identified? Is there a sector of the student population that should receive more attention based solely on their disadvantages or lack of support?

Fundamentally, both social promotion and retention work on the principle that typical children should master certain material according to an age-grade classroom structure. In other words, both policies assume there is such a thing as a typical child, and that most children are typical.

They also assume there is a ready way to gauge how typical children develop. While this last contention is fairly reasonable and is foundational to a whole range of developmental research, the merits of the other two are debatable. Are they reasonable enough to be a foundation for education? For an entire institution of public education?

We can at least agree that the emphasis on what is “typical” is an obvious limitation of both policies. Is it logical to base an education policy on this notion? At best, there is an applicable range for developmental trends and abilities. Those trends and ranges serve to help parents, educators, and even health practitioners garner a basic idea of how a child should be developing. But there is always a scale, and there’s seldom the expectation that every child will meet the same developmental criteria at the same time. That is, in any area except education.

Retention often takes place in earlier grades, with most retention occurring in grades K–3. The vast majority of these retentions take place in kindergarten or first grade, which is consistent with the focus of state-level retention policies. Children with certain background characteristics are at a higher risk for retention, inevitably creating a public policy issue for the public education system.

Perhaps most strikingly, we see that children from low socioeconomic backgrounds and children of color are more likely to be at risk for retention. Research shows that boys are more likely to find themselves retained than girls. Children with attention issues, behavior issues, or delayed development are also more at risk for retention, as are students whose families tend to be more mobile. Children from single parent homes, or homes where parents have low educational attainment, are also at higher risk for retention.

Children who are young for their grade level and children are who are small for their age seem to have a higher risk of retention, although the evidence for this is inconsistent. The increasing population of English Language Learners constitutes yet another group of children at risk for failure. For children with multiple at-risk characteristics, the incidence of retention increases.

Because of the varying strategies for addressing learning issues by state, students are also at a relatively higher risk for retention in certain states. Those states employing more regular and rigorous assessments by age tend to create a greater risk for retention for students. These assessments are interventions in their ways, though, further clouding the actual benefits or disadvantages inherent to retention.

Given that retention is so often based on testing, there are inevitable risks based on whether students are good exam takers. Some exceptional students just do not perform well under exam conditions. In addition to this, we see some disparity in terms of subject testing, since there are different assessment types and methodologies depending on the knowledge area or skills under examination. Subjectivity comes into play to some degree, with written assessments and even non-test-based assessments, for which retention policies rarely make allowance.

In the states that administer high school exit exams, there are pass rates between 70-90 percent. For states that report disaggregated data, a substantial gap exists between pass rates for white students and students of color. For example, there are gaps ranging from 13-36 percentage points between white and African American students on mathematics tests, and 8-19 percentage points on tests of English Language Arts.

The differences between white and Hispanic students range between 2-23 percentage points, and 9-19 percentage points, respectively, for mathematics and English Language Arts. High school exit exams leave no time for improvement, however. Poor performance on state high school exit exams often leave students discouraged, and many end up dropping out of school rather than opting to retake the exam. The obvious problem being that students may be permanently set back as a result of a single test or because of a single area of struggle.

How do you feel educators can impact at risk students best? Should different instructional methods be utilized for various at risk student groups? Further, how does one determine which instruction techniques will be best suited for the particular group of students needing intervention?

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

The goal of retention policies is to ensure that students who move to the next level of learning have mastered the required knowledge and skills. The accompanying exemptions and alternative paths surely beg the question: do retention and the various related supported elements thwart social promotion?

The problem is simple: some children may progress from grade to grade without reaching state required benchmarks. Most states and school districts worry about the number of students who are retained without alternative avenues for promotion being made available. The consensus, spoken or not, is that retention does very little to solve the underlying problem of retention and social promotion.

The retention policy path in Chicago, for instance, provides an overt example of the challenges associated with the implementation of retention policies, and how social promotion can creep into well-intended policies meant to discontinue the practice.

The Chicago Public School System (CPS) developed a retention policy where none existed at the state level. CPS believed that a retention policy would result in students working harder, receiving more attention from parents with respect to their schooling, and experiencing more focus from teachers when at risk for retention.

Initiated in 1996, the CPS policy required students in the third, sixth, and eighth grades to reach specified scores on standardized tests for reading and mathematics, or face retention. The policy also included a summer school attendance requirement for students – the top method for avoiding retention and a transition program designed to improve reading skills of eighth-grade students. The goal was to ensure that upon entering high school, students would be able to read high school level textbooks. By 2011, the retention rate had shrunk from 15 percent (at the time the policy was initiated) to 4 percent.

However, reduced retention rates have reportedly not been the result of improved achievement among students. Both implementation and structural components of the policy have weakened over the years, which in effect compromised the policy’s original intent. CPS did not have effective means to enforce consequences for children who were not meeting policy promotion requirements. Students who were obligated to pass summer school to avoid retention were allowed to enter the next highest grade, without attending summer classes. High school freshmen were required to pass all freshmen level classes, however, and to achieve certain scores on standardized tests, or attend summer school to escape retention. Following later adjustments, all students who did not meet the freshman promotion requirements after their summer school attendance went into a class for failing students when they returned to school in the fall.

Given that summer school was an instrumental component of the CPS’s policy, there was concern that if too many students were scheduled for retention, the number of summer school slots would be insufficient to handle the volume of students required to attend. The number of students performing below grade level was already substantial at the inception of the policy. Setting unattainable expectations for performance on standardized tests would simply result in an imbalance in the number of students required to attend summer school and slots available to accommodate them. Ultimately, the CPS made it easier for students to avoid retention despite poor academic performance. Achievement test scores needed for promotion were lowered so that more students were eligible to move ahead.

In the end, summer school and other interventions outlined in the CPS retention policy proved insufficient to support the number of children affected – which was somewhat inevitable, based on early number projections. Further disaster followed, with budget cuts that reduced the impact of the policy even further. As a result of the CPS budget cuts, summer schools were in session for fewer days. Summer school class sizes also increased, undermining the potential for teachers to give proper attention to students. Budget cuts also meant a redistribution of funds initially slated to add additional teachers to schools with high numbers of retained students. Various tutoring programs were either cut or discontinued through the process. As is the case with many retention policies today, educators went ahead and promoted students if the alternative was retention for more than one year.

Social promotion was not the primary problem facing CPS, though. Replacing social promotion with retention did not address the paramount and critical objective of the system: to increase learning among more students.

The CPS retention program is a good example of noble intentions gone awry. What can we learn and apply from the CPS initiative moving forward?

In this multi-part series, I provide a dissection of the phenomenon of retention and social promotion. Also, I describe the many different methods that would improve student instruction in classrooms and eliminate the need for retention and social promotion if combined effectively.

While reading this series, periodically ask yourself this question: Why are educators, parents and the American public complicit in a practice that does demonstrable harm to children and the competitive future of the country?

What type of interventions would you want provided to your child if they were struggling with early literacy? Based on the state you live in, various early interventions are not only offered, but in some cases required.

Colorado leads the way for early literacy interventions and a 2014 follow-up study was conducted to evaluate progress. Colorado’s READ Act and mandated Response to Intervention (RtI), which was especially concerned with students who had learning disabilities, showed that the initiatives focused on literacy did have a dramatic effect.

Colorado had intentionally moved the initiatives out of the realm of special education. As Dr. Ed Steinberg, former Assistant Commissioner and State Director of Special Education, explains: “We took bold action, but knew from the beginning that for RtI to be effective on a larger scale, it could not ‘live’ in special education. Instead, it had to be seen as integral to improving student achievement.” In other words, the focus encompassed the entire educational system, and literacy and retentions were better incorporated into a comprehensible structure based on defined principles.

Six states – Delaware, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, and Missouri – allow exemptions for literacy levels, and these exemptions apply to students who have already been retained based on reading deficiencies alone. In North Carolina, a student can be exempt from retention for the third time. Eleven states exempt special needs students. Seven exempt English language learners or those who are not fully proficient in English.

Some states bypass state assessments and go with local ones to determine reading proficiency. Those states include Maryland, Missouri, Vermont, and Virginia, which only test students in literacy in or after third grade. Since most testing begins in third grade, we have to keep in mind that there is a missed opportunity for early identification of children with learning issues. Retention is not effective in increasing learning if the ability is absent, or other outside factors are strongly impacting the individual student’s learning potential. By contrast, Arizona and Florida test students beginning at pre-kindergarten.

Many states have recommended interventions specifically aimed at reading, to try to avoid retention on the basis of reading issues. Specific interventions vary by state, however, and there are even differences regarding the number of interventions required before retention is allowed. Some states require the use of up to four interventions. Connecticut, for example, tries to minimize retention by requiring the use of a certain number of interventions first, before educators can consider retention. Idaho requires instruction outside of normal school hours as the only specified intervention. Arizona and Florida, however, are the only states so far to enforce annual reading assessments for prekindergarten to third grade. The idea behind this approach is that initial assessments might help identify those who are struggling early on to receive prompt assistance.

Mandated reading assessments are commonplace among the states. The District of Columbia, Georgia, Iowa, Louisiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have annual reading assessments from kindergarten to third grade. Idaho, Ohio, and South Carolina have opted for assessments from first to third grade; California from second to third; Delaware, Maryland, Montana, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia have reading assessments for third grade. New York and Rhode Island opt to screen students before entry to school. Again, the goal is to assess reading skills up front and thus establish reasonable expectations, targeting struggling students early on.

Fifteen states require supplemental reading instruction during regular school hours, and another three recommend it. Six states require summer school as a means of literacy intervention, and eleven states, plus the District of Columbia, just recommend it. Five states require academic improvement plans (AIPs) for struggling readers. Five states require parental involvement in choosing intervention strategies, and the District of Columbia is making this a recommendation. Eleven states and D.C. recommend individual or group tutoring as an intervention and North Carolina requires it, again as a means of actively trying to prevent retention being necessary for struggling students. Since these policies demand that the school districts or the state education departments provide the resources, including tutoring resources, the benefits should not be overlooked.

Eight states also require instruction tailored specifically to student deficiencies. Two states, plus D.C., also recommend tailored instruction. Arizona requires online or computer-based instruction, and three states recommend it. Three states also require assignment to a different teacher if retention takes place. Ohio and D.C. recommend this strategy as well.

If you’re the parent of a student who struggles with literacy, you no doubt want as many interventions offered to them as possible. Do you feel honing in on concerns early on will allow more students the chance to improve enough for grade level mastery?