3-101 - Using Education Technology to Systematically Enhance Teaching and Learning Across Grades and Content Areas

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Education technology (edtech) use is mounting in K-12 settings. In 2016, U.S. public schools spent more than $3 billion in digital content (Education Week, 2016). Businesses have seized on this tech boom, populating the education market with products aimed at systematically enhancing teaching and learning. However, without well-grounded theory to guide their design, as well as iterative research and development cycles to ensure the product quality (Kao et al. 2018), edtech products often fall short of producing their intended outcomes. In this symposium, we include four presentations that feature carefully designed edtech products with international representation (U.S. and China) and their impact on student outcomes. The first project highlights a mathematical learning app, designed to engage students in mathematics through concrete representations, and its impact on students’ math attitudes. The second project used a well-designed implementation study to identify the feasibility of using the edtech product in English Language Arts classes, and a fully-powered experimental design study to address its impact on student reading comprehension. The third project demonstrates how its product systematically supports pioneer schools and teachers in China to step into leadership roles that combine a blended learning approach to feasibly implementing the Whole Book Reading practice. The fourth project steps forward in understanding and recognizing the implementation and impact of developmentally, age, and culturally appropriate edtech activities for early learners and their teachers. The symposium will also highlight iterative research and development work underlying product designs and products’ design-basis in developmental theory, sharing both successes and challenges.

Sub Unit

• Technology, Media & Child Development

Chairs

• Linlin Li, WestEd

• Kylie Flynn, WestEd

Individual Presentations

• Using Digital Games with Concrete Representations To Support Attitudes Towards Mathematics - Presenting Author: Bryan Matlen, WestEd; Non-Presenting Author: Kimkinyona Cully, WestEd; Non-Presenting Author: Sara Atienza, WestEd; Non-Presenting Author: Ryan Burke, WestEd; Non-Presenting Author: Randy Weiner, BrainQuake; Non-Presenting Author: Keith Devlin, BrainQuake

• Building Reading Comprehension with Leveled Nonfiction Reading Resources from a Highly Used Instructional Content Platform - Presenting Author: Dan Cogan-Drew, Newsela; Non-Presenting Author: Kylie Flynn, WestEd; Non-Presenting Author: Larry Thomas, WestEd

• Mobile App for “The Whole Book Reading” Teaching Based on the Blended Learning - Presenting Author: Xiaolong Zhang, Capital Normal University; Non-Presenting Author: Haiyan Wang, Capital Normal University; Non-Presenting Author: Benwen Wu, YunShuXie

• Accelerating Early Math Learning with a Digital Math Resource: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial - Non-Presenting Author: KP Thai, Age of Learning; Presenting Author: Abby Schachner, Age of Learning, Inc.; Non-Presenting Author: Linlin Li, WestEd