Three lessons from data on the best ways to give feedback to students
Proponents of computerized instruction often point out that software can give instant feedback to students. And that helps students learn more. That’s why a personal tutor can be so powerful. He or she can immediately react when there’s a misunderstanding and provide an explanation or a hint. But the truth is, educators don’t really understand […]
Getting boys — and girls — interested in computer coding
Thanks to the glorification of Silicon Valley riches and a desire to inspire more of the next generation of children to pursue science and technology careers, computer coding instruction for children is spreading like wildfire around the United States. Code.org , an industry-financed group that is promoting computer coding in schools, says that 31,000 kindergarten through […]
Study finds taking intro statistics class online does no harm
Online education has grown so fast that more than a third of all college students — more than 7 million — took at least one course online in 2012. That’s according to the most recent 2014 annual survey by the Babson Research Group, which has been tracking online education growth since 2002. Yet nagging […]
Princeton undergraduate finds no improvement in student performance at California charter schools after converting to blended learning
Many schools across the country are experimenting with blended learning, where students are taught by a combination of computers and human teachers, but it is such a new phenomenon that there is little empirical evidence to prove that students learn more this way. One Princeton undergraduate looked at the test scores of 35 California schools […]
Study shows that high-tech schools run into budget troubles and cut tech spending
Preliminary findings from a two-year study of new charter schools that were given extra funds to combine computer-based learning with teacher instruction show that schools quickly ran into budget shortfalls and pulled back on their technology plans. The study was written by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington and published […]
Internet instruction favored more by wealthy than poor Americans
A fascinating opinion poll released January 29, 2014 by Harris Interactive and Everest College says that high-income Americans are more open to learning over the Internet than low-income Americans. Both groups prefer hands-on learning as their first choice (52% of Americans listed active participation through hands-on training as the best learning method). But the Internet […]
Data show students who race through a typing app learn less, but possibly more in a reading app
A big selling point for a lot of educational software is that it’s engaging like a video game. Students are motivated to progress from level to level and so they pay attention and work hard. Some kids, and this is particularly true with competitive boys, are so motivated that they race against each other to […]
Is Ed Tech Investment Slipping?
The Forbes 30 under 30 confers celebrity status to a bunch of twentysomethings in more than a dozen fields — including education. Many of them are trying to get rich at the public trough by selling educational software and high-tech tools to schools. But what caught my eye was a tally of investment dollars going […]
More than 80 percent of U.S. states are producing high school feedback reports
The Data Quality Campaign issued its annual survey, Data for Action 2013, of how states are collecting and using education data on Nov. 19, 2013. The advocacy group argues that using data more would improve education policy and classroom instruction. It reported that two states, Arkansas and Delaware, were using data the most. But they’re […]
Student participation in K-12 online education grows but fewer states run virtual schools and classes
It’s really hard to get a handle on the growth of online education. Schools are experimenting with all forms of it in a very decentralized way. One teacher might assign a Khan Academy video to a class one day for homework. Another school might contract with a for-profit online course provider, such as Apex, to […]
