In recent years, the rise of technology in classrooms has lead to a change in the way teachers interact and teach students. Technology has been praised to help students prepare for the real world early on and place all kids on the same playing field because of the equal access.
Although some teachers see technology as a hindrance to learning because of its ability to distract students, many educators are discovering ways in which it can help underachieving students reach higher learning levels. With new research in technology education, as well as major improvements in technology, teachers can utilize new technological tools to help lower the achievement gap.
When incorporating technology into the classroom, it is important to implement technology in an effective and useful way which benefits all students and does not further the achievement gap. Providing items like laptops or tablets for the whole grade creates easy access to learning in and out of class, minimizing the amount of kids who are falling below the average learning levels outside of class time. Unless the technology has a specific platform for children to use, they will get distracted by the numerous other aspects of the computer or tablet and their learning will be delayed. Often, schools offer access to technology but do not take into account the teachers needs and goals which ultimately fuels sidetracked classrooms and forces the teacher to work around the provided technology, not with it.
Furthermore, educators must be consciousness of self-pacing technologies which have been shown to actually exacerbate the gap. With self pacing technologies surrounding school work it has been proven that struggling students move slower and are left behind while more advanced students have the opportunity to move ahead much quicker. The proper way to address the gap is to provide teachers with intelligent technology created precisely to foster student learning and allow educators to better focus their time and resources.
An example of this type of technology is ASSISTments, a free web-hosted digital platform that provides teachers with specific insight into their students’ progress on math homework. Students complete homework over the online platform and that way the teacher can track their progress. This allows advancements in helping students by showing the teacher which questions the class got wrong, and allowing shyer students to ask questions that they would otherwise not ask in class. The technology platform also doesn’t allow students who don’t understand something to slip through the cracks because the teacher is able to track every problem they complete. The success of this new kind of technology were proved through an independent research firm that conducted a two-year randomized controlled trial of the ASSISTment tool among seventh-graders in Maine. At the end of the year, standardized test results revealed an 80 percent increase over anticipated performance as a result of using the technology platform. What’s even more impressive is that students who were below the median on the previous year’s state math test gained the equivalent of over two years of learning in a single year. These results reveal that specific technological tools can be very effective in closing persistent achievement gaps and should be implemented elsewhere.
