Changing practices
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"Some of the most widespread education technologiesdid not demand much change in teachers’ practices.
Digitized books were, after all, just books in a different
medium. PCs and Chromebooks provided an electronic
replacement for typewriters and paper and pencil, but
didn’t immediately revolutionize the classroom.
Adaptive learning does not fit easily
into the status quo. Besides having
to use a blended learning model, in
which class-time is divvied up between
traditional and electronic learning,
teachers must be willing to let
students progress at their own pace.
They need to be comfortable letting
software make real decisions about
what students should learn
next, and use quantitative data on
student performance gathered by
the software along with their own
qualitative gut instincts. They need to
be willing to trade the stand-in-thefront-
of-the-room-and-lecture model,
and instead provide more intimate,
personalized instruction to whichever
students aren’t on computers at that
given moment.
At Aspire ERES Academy in Oakland,
CA, students spend up to a quarter of
their day (50 to 80 minutes in total)
using online tools, including ST Math
and i-Ready. Like the Milpitas public
schools, Aspire Public Schools, which
operates 38 schools in California and
Tennessee, saw adaptive technology
as the most efficient way to achieve its
goal of college-readiness for students
in low-income populations. At ERES
Academy, 99 percent of the students
re English learners.
Besides the obvious logistical
challenges of a blended classroom,
such as setting up rotations for
students to cycle from teacher time
to computer time, using adaptive
learning tools requires other changes.
Every Friday, second-grade teacher
Mark Montero has 15 to 30 minute
“data talks,” when the students talk
about their progress and the problems
they ran into using the adaptive
products. Students who are doing
particularly well are named “student
coaches”. Montero makes a list of who
is struggling with what, and assigns
one of the coaches to spend the last
10 minutes of their 30 minute rotation
helping one of their classmates
overcome the hurdle. “Kids need to
discuss what they’re doing on the
computer,” he says.
Adaptive technology requires a
different sort of trust between teacher
and student. “You have to let go of
some of the micromanagement,”
says Montero." EdSurge, Decoding Adaptive, Pearson, London 2016
"For example, if a teacher uses curriculum with a strict pacing guide – outlining
every objective the teacher must teach each day of the school year with
frequent assessments and without flexibility or exceptions – incorporating
a tool with an adaptive sequence into the classroom will most likely be
unsuccessful. Tools with adaptive sequences allow students to work on any skill
at any time, the tool’s approach and the teacher’s approach are in conflict.
How an adaptive tool is implemented in a school must align with how the tool
was designed to be used, in order to be successful. For example, a tool with an
adaptive sequence must be used in a learning environment that supports:
• Students working at their own pace.
• Students working on different content.
• Students working on different skills that might be above or below the
grade-level expectations.
• Students working on skills in a unique order.
• Students working on skills that are different to the skills that are being
taught in the classroom at the same time
"EdSurge, Decoding Adaptive, Pearson, London 2016
