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Product Development & Classroom Design Adtalem Global Education
Four Steps to Implementing a Holistic EdTech Strategy to Support Student Success
Living through a recent pandemic, education had to under go many changes, and the term “edtech” is now part of our everyday language. For higher education institutions that were already servicing students either fully or partially with an online curriculum, the pandemic drove us to advance technology even more to achieve a better and more successful student experience. With more investors than ever before, available new technology significantly increased across the education spectrum.While higher education noticeably benefits from this boom, a positive impact has also been evident not only in online education, but the overall teaching and learning field. However, making sense of the thousands of technology-based products recently developed to determine which products best support an educational organization’s efforts to spur on student success can be overwhelming.
During the last 30 years, I have served in various executive leadership roles overseeing digital product design and development at K-12 and higher education institutions. I have seen the importance of implementing a holistic edtech strategy to support student success. The following four-step approach is one I have found particularly effective in ensuring an organization’s edtech investments offer the greatest opportunity to implement solutions for student success.
Step 1: Identifying Student Success Gaps
Nearly everyone I know can relate to the experience of attending a professional conference and being “wowed” by the latest edtech products. It’s easy to understand why an educator might be convinced that a new approach to adaptive learning, a novel virtual reality product, or a technology solution for essay grading might have the potential to enhance the teaching and learning process.
Although it is certainly possible to discover a viable product at a conference (or a promising edtech solution from a vendor’s mass market email), a more thoughtful approach necessitates a focus on identifying specific gaps based on current organizational efforts to support student success. What issues do students feel prevent them from mastering key learning outcomes? What deficits hinder an organization’s capabilities to address students’ needs? What concerns do faculty repeatedly voice? A focus on these questions and identifying gaps in current offerings will help ensure an organization’s approach to edtech is fueled less by the latest shiny gadget and more by a concerted effort to support student success.
Step 2: Evaluating Options to Address the Gaps
After identifying the gaps that exist between current efforts and the needs your students possess, the next step is to evaluate the options that exist to address those gaps. Whether engaging a Google search to learn about available solutions, reviewing lists of vendors compiled by industry leaders, or consulting with an established edtech firm, it should be relatively easy to devise a comprehensive list of potential solutions to address identified gaps. Even more important than where to find a list of products is how to evaluate the products to determine their value to your organization. Several excellent rubrics are available to support an organization’s evaluation of potential edtech solutions. More important than which specific rubric you select is the commitment to using a predetermined set of factors for evaluating the options that could have the greatest impact on students.
A more thoughtful approach necessitates a focus on identifying specific gaps based on current organizational efforts to support student success
Step 3: Engaging in Low-Cost, Time Limited Pilots
After evaluating options to address identified gaps, engaging in low-cost, time limited pilots of the identified solutions is the next step. Trying out the product with actual students can provide three key factors: student satisfaction with the solution, the efficacy of the solution in specifically addressing the identified gap, and the cost-benefit analysis associated with the solution. To the extent possible, be sure to evaluate more than one option for each identified gap.
Step 4: Scaling When Ready
When the most significant gaps that exist between current organizational support and student needs are identified, edtech solutions using a preferred rubric are evaluated, and the most promising available products with students are piloted, you can then determine which solution should be scaled across the student population. Avoid settling on a solution until there is strong confidence in the product’s ability to effectively address identified gaps. One of the worst mistakes you can make in the world of edtech is to prematurely scale a product that has not yet proven its value or worth.
Whether these specific steps or other recommended processes are implemented, what’s important is that your edtech strategy focuses on thoughtful consideration of student needs, gaps that exist in addressing those needs, and a commitment to evaluating various options before aligning the organization around a particular solution. Doing so will help ensure your edtech approach yields the outcomes that will make a real, meaningful difference for your students and support their success.
