You can lead teachers to a technology tool, but can you make them use it?
Nudging teachers into the habit of exploring their students鈥� data may help teachers and students get more out of learning platforms, according to a massive published this spring in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
While districts invested heavily in technology and online learning platforms during the past five years, past studies find 糖心动漫vlog have not been as quick to adopt the new tools.
鈥淭ypically, what we hear with any new introduction of technology in the school system is that teachers are overwhelmed. They have a lot of responsibilities, a lot of kids, a lot of things they鈥檙e supposed to be doing and implementing,鈥� said Robin Lake, the director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education, which studies teachers鈥� technology use but was not involved in the current study. 鈥淭hey have limited time for planning time鈥攂eing able to take a breath and really dig into these data tools.鈥�
Researchers at the Character Lab at the University of Pennsylvania simultaneously tested 15 different messages, or nudges, designed to improve teacher engagement on the nonprofit online math learning platform Zearn. The platform provides math practice to students and allows teachers to analyze their progress across different concepts.
A previous evaluation of Zearn found Nebraska students who used the program regularly improved faster in math鈥攂ut students whose teachers more actively used the platform benefited more. That鈥檚 why researchers were invited to test the engagement messages on the math platform.
鈥淭alking to people in ed tech, what I鈥檓 often told is that the final mile鈥攚hich is getting people to actually use the tools that they鈥檝e spent millions of philanthropic dollars creating鈥攊s often the longest mile,鈥� said Angela Duckworth, the lead investigator of the study and co-founder of the Character Lab, which studies low-cost interventions for behavior changes.
鈥淪o much of human behavior is habit, ... and I think that鈥檚 true for teachers, too,鈥� Duckworth said. 鈥淚f you鈥檝e got a certain routine and you teach your classes in a certain way, and now people are saying, 鈥極h, you should really capitalize on artificial intelligence,鈥� or 鈥榊ou should use this personalized learning platform,鈥� it鈥檚 a challenge.鈥�
More than 140,000 elementary school teachers nationwide, whose nearly 3 million students used Zearn, randomly received four weekly emails in one of 15 different formats, encouraging them to use the math platform鈥檚 tools to analyze their students鈥� performance data. The messages included celebrity endorsements from author Judy Blume or astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, prize giveaways, math teaching tips, and analyses comparing their students鈥� performance to that of other Zearn students in the same grade.
Overall, teachers only opened about a quarter of the emails, and there was no significant difference in open rate for any type of message. Researchers found that the students of teachers who received nudges completed about 2% more math units during the four-week study period, compared with students whose teachers only received a general message from Zearn.
The most effective nudges were personalized; for example, 鈥渢ower alerts鈥� notified teachers when their students got stuck on a particular line of problems, and progress messages updated teachers on how many lessons students completed and how much time they spent working on problems.
Teachers who received more personalized messages about their students鈥� progress logged into the system more often and had students who progressed 5% faster in math that week. The benefits to student math growth persisted at least two months after the messages.
鈥淭eachers really care about their students, the children they have grown to love in their classroom,鈥� Duckworth said. 鈥淚f you send them an email in their very busy day and say, 鈥業 have something to tell you about your students,鈥� that鈥檚 more effective than telling that teacher, 鈥業f you read this email, you鈥檒l learn something about students in general.鈥欌��
Like most interventions intended to 鈥渘udge鈥� behavior, even the most effective emails had only small benefits, but Duckworth suggested free emails may help school leaders build habits for teachers learning new technology.
Administrators should watch the tone of their communications, though. In a prior study of nudges, Duckworth found 鈥渁ny kind of nudge has to be in the same tone as you are expecting. Like, you do not expect your pharmacy to be sending you knock-knock jokes in a reminder to get your flu shot.鈥�
But CRPE鈥檚 Lake cautioned that schools should help teachers adopt technology tools and platforms as part of a 鈥渂roader schoolwide strategy with professional development.鈥�
CRPE has found teachers are less likely to regularly use technology interventions if they are simply provided as part of a toolbox, rather than integrated with broader school and district goals.
鈥淭he lack of integration and coherence in tech tools and these new AI tools is just a real problem,鈥� Lake said, prompting teacher confusion over 鈥渨hich of these tools am I supposed to be using? What am I supposed to do about the data when I see it? It鈥檚 a bit of a mess right now.鈥�
