Digital innovations to combat learning gaps

• In Event: Challenges of digital interventions and practical solutions for teachers and classrooms in resource constrained communities

Proposal

Across the world, research evidence describes how students fall behind in Mathematics as they progress through schooling. In South Africa, 60% of Year 9 students are an average of four years behind; in India, 73% of Year 7 students are 5 years behind; and in the United States, 50% of Year 12 students are 5 years behind.

Reflective Learning is an intervention designed to remediate these gaps, bringing students up to the level of mastery required for impactful classroom teaching. The Assess, Catch-up and Track (ACT) programme utilises digital software to diagnose learning gaps across 81 foundational concepts to pinpoint the last place of secure knowledge. Using a unique metacognitive model, it then provides individualised lessons that target the identified gaps along pedagogically-designed learning trajectories.

Although predating Covid-19 innovations, it aligns to the World Bank’s best-practice RAPID framework, assessing learning levels, prioritising the teaching of fundamentals to close gaps, and increasing the efficiency of instruction through catch up lessons that use targeted instruction, self-guided learning, and digital technology.

Firstly, our presentation will share a nationally representative sample of Reflective Learning data that shows that without early remediation, learning gaps perpetuate and, in fact, widen through to school-leaving examinations.

Secondly, through varied implementation models, we have identified four critical pillars applying to schools across all quintiles that enable successful implementation of educational technology-based interventions. We will also share models that have showed little evidence to be effective.

Finally, we will share the findings of an independent study showing that Year 8 students “are almost five-times more likely to pass mathematics and exactly five-times more likely to pass mathematics with greater than 60%” after implementing the ACT programme over the course of a year.

By leveraging technology to implement proven pedagogical methods, Reflective Learning’s ACT programme supports the premise that digital learning solutions have the power to overcome some of the educational sector’s largest challenges.

Author

• Eugene Pelteret, Reflective Learning