Demonstrating the impact of educational technology and improving classroom efficiency are both critical to student success and teacher effectiveness. Instructure and ChalkTalk have partnered to collectively enhance teaching and learning while providing evidence-based insights that link learning outcomes to using ChalkTalk’s personalized learning solutions. This partnership has enabled ChalkTalk to significantly expand its reach, helping more students and teachers across the country.
The Challenge
In a crowded edtech market, demonstrating impact through evidence is crucial. However, collecting data and compiling evidence reports can be time-consuming and costly, and there are concerns about objectivity when proving product efficacy. ChalkTalk, an educational technology company setting out to be the ‘ultimate teaching assistant,’ needed a solution that allowed them to attain evidence while continuing to drive their mission forward.
Eddie Vaisman, Chief Operating Officer at ChalkTalk, described the company’s goal as helping teachers and students succeed in an efficient way by providing teachers with tools and resources that make differentiation easy, and keep the teacher at the front of instruction.
Key Insights
Outsourcing evidence research allowed ChalkTalk staff to continue to focus on the organization’s mission and save on overhead costs.
Instructure’s research expertise empowered ChalkTalk to differentiate its solution in the market and unlock funding opportunities by achieving ESSA validation in a timely, cost-effective manner.
The partnership with Instructure helped ChalkTalk build evidence and credibility, which led to their work with some of the largest districts in the country.
“We’re giving teachers back a ton of time and allowing them to focus on the human aspect of teaching ...We believe that education is human and it’s about the connection between the teacher and the students, and the students with each other that really enables them to learn,” said Vaisman.
The team had received plenty of great feedback from educators about ChalkTalk's role in enabling this tailored, personalized learning, but they wanted concrete data to validate that feedback.
ChalkTalk turned to Instructure’s Research team to uncover the rigorous data institution leaders look for when determining which products to use in their districts. At the same time, they were also able to get unique insights into their solutions’ usage and impact.
We’ve been making impact studies at the end of our implementations showing quantitative impacts. With Instructure, we’re taking that to the next level and getting an ESSA [level III] certification to show that this is third-party verified; this works as a program for students achieving their goals.
Eddie Vaisman,
Chief Operating Officer, ChalkTalk
The Solution
ChalkTalk recognized that third-party evidence was the key to showcasing the impact of their solution, while continuing to help teachers achieve a higher return on instruction and improve student outcomes. Outsourcing research and data analytics to Instructure expedited the process for ChalkTalk to achieve ESSA Level III evidence while keeping costs low, freeing the team to focus on growing its mission without disruption. The educator-friendly ‘research brief’ style reports generated by Instructure also gave district leaders confidence in the ChalkTalk product and a clearer understanding of intended implementation.
The Value Of Evidence
Instructure and ChalkTalk share a vision of how evidence transforms the edtech landscape.
“We’re moving away from where research has to be done in multi-year cycles to a place where a teacher can try an intervention, see how effective it was, and try another strategy either in that class or the next one. We’re really reducing the iteration time here– the feedback loop to teachers and educators on efficiency– from decades to days,” Vaisman shared.
Some of the studies Instructure’s team has completed for ChalkTalk consider metrics like graduation rates and high-stakes test score improvement compared to the national average. In targeted populations where ChalkTalk helps with students’ graduation requirements, the company was able to determine their impact in helping thousands of students graduate.
Just last year, Miami-Dade county had its highest graduation rate ever. Elena Cabrera, one of the Executive Directors of Curriculum & Instruction, said “ChalkTalk played a big part in that.” ChalkTalk’s 2018-2022 Global Impact Study also showed that “students who used ChalkTalk improved their ACT scores by an average of 2.2 points– 2x more than national average score improvement in only 29% of the time, and improved their SAT scores by an average of 160 points– 2.4x more than the national average score improvement in only 27% of the time.”
ChalkTalk was able to leverage Instructure’s Evidence as a Service to build rigorous, ESSA-aligned evidence supporting the efficacy of their product, all while keeping costs in check and maintaining focus on their mission of preserving human connection in the classroom. Check out the EdTech Collective to explore how Instructure helps companies grow their reach.
Beyond improved test scores, ChalkTalk is also making a difference in the classroom environment. Stephanie Thiele, a teacher from Denison Independent School District, shared, “ChalkTalk helps me do my job successfully by creating this adaptive practice for kids that is differentiated for them, scaffolded for them, and giving them the biggest return on investment of their time and mine as well.”
Partnering with and renewing some of the largest districts in the country is something we’ve been able to do because of the focus on evidence-based research. We’re able to tie impact directly to platform usage.
Eddie Vaisman,
Chief Operating Officer, ChalkTalk
The Result
Through a partnership with Instructure, ChalkTalk gained access to a dedicated team of research experts that ensured credibility and objectivity in their evidence studies. “That’s a lot of hiring and management overhead that we wouldn’t have been able to afford,” noted Vaisman. The evidence Instructure’s team built also allowed ChalkTalk to assess the impact of specific features and activities on the platform. This insight allowed the team to identify areas for future development and targeted resource investment.
ChalkTalk was able to successfully demonstrate its solution’s value and achieve ESSA validation.
“Partnering with and renewing some of the largest districts in the country is something we’ve been able to do because of the focus on evidence-based research. We’re able to tie impact directly to platform usage,” Vaisman closed.
Download Case Study