How to Best Leverage Evidence when Choosing your Next EdTech Tool
With the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requiring federal funding and stimulus dollars to be used for "evidence-based interventions,” evidence should be accessible to all districts and educators, but reality is not always that simple. Dr. Daniel Stanhope, LearnPlatform by Instructure’s Founding Researcher, joined Tarro Funches, English Learner Coordinator at Canton Public Schools in Mississippi for a conversation hosted by Off2Class, a company serving ESL teachers and students. The conversation focused on how educators can more easily identify research-based interventions leveraging ESSA-aligned research, and how administrators can leverage research to determine if, how, and when a product might work in their districts.
With the number of education technology tools used in classrooms not showing signs of falling, understanding what works in a specific context is imperative when choosing the appropriate tools for a particular group of students. Historically, this data has not been readily accessible to or easily interpreted by educators, but they are beginning to ask for it. Lately, more solution providers have also taken heed to the heightened need to have actionable evidence readily available for districts.
“Evidence is more critical than ever in education. One driver of this criticality is the proliferation of edtech solutions and the increased digitization of the modern learning environment. Education organizations and product providers need consumable information to inform decisions and support effective practices,” Stanhope said.
As an English Learner Coordinator, Funches makes many of these edtech decisions for her district, balancing challenges that include using federal funds wisely, supporting educators in their use of purchased tools and ensuring tools are both compliant with requirements and safe for students. Funches looks for evidence that a tool will support improving student outcomes, but most evidence she finds lacks context-specific details that would be most helpful in her role.
Off2Class recognized this gap and wanted to find a way to collaborate more easily with their educator partners on research and comply with federal requirements at the same time.
“You’ll put kids in front of things for 8 hours a day and you’re not always sure what's the research basis – it has a disproportionate impact if you give them something that's not research based.” - Nathan Martin, Head of Marketing, Off2Class
LearnPlatform's Evidence-as-a-Service program provided the Off2Class team with a solution.
Off2Class worked with LearnPlatform to develop a logic model that satisfied the “demonstrates a rationale” requirements set forth in ESSA Level IV. Having the logic model lets districts know that not only is a provider committed to ongoing research and product development but also summarizes how a product is intended to work and how it leads to desired results.
“It’s not one size fits all for learning,” Funches said. Funches goes on to expound upon the importance of collecting evidence in each unique context and then using that evidence to make important decisions that affect learning.
As part of their work with LearnPlatform by Instructure, Off2Class also earned IMPACT-Ready™ certification which, in part, means that Off2Class will share data with districts to do their own research. This would offer educators like Funches with a pathway to answer the all-so-important question, “How well does this product work in our classrooms and for our students?”
Learn how you can modernize your approach to research with LearnPlatform.
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