Capturing Teachers’ Thoughts on Technology Usage

Overview

As stewards of a district’s devices, platforms, and vision for digital learning, technology directors and their teams are constantly evaluating whether their digital investments are effective, researching the newest tools that may support their schools, and reflecting on whether the technology implementation at each school is meeting the district’s vision for teaching and learning. Many technology departments take various factors into account to gauge whether their devices and tools are leading to improved outcomes for students, including usage data (e.g., frequency, time spent on an application), student performance data, accessibility, user friendliness, and more. However, one major piece of data that may prove to be incredibly influential in determining technology’s impact on student learning in the classroom is too often overlooked: teacher feedback.

As the key decision-makers who determine which tools to use in their classrooms, when, and how often, teachers can provide valuable insights into how well specific devices and tools may meet their students’ needs and learning abilities, as well as challenges that may hinder them from doing so. Collecting teachers’ thoughts around technology implementation and its impact on students can reveal important insights for technology directors and may impact their overall decision-making. Teachers can also provide a much more holistic and equitable understanding of the student experience, particularly if asked targeted questions about student needs and experiences across student populations. Other data sources, such as usage data or mastery trackers, may miss more nuanced successes and challenges around implementation. Some examples include:

• A neurodivergent student may prefer audio over video for instruction, and therefore may have difficulty completing an assignment with video content.

• A middle-school student may possess different digital literacy skills than their peers that affect their ability to navigate an online platform.

• A high-school student may be more successful in mastering content through watching videos at home because of parental involvement instead of real-time instruction in the classroom.

These distinctions may only come to light through conversations with teachers who can provide important context – distinctions that cannot always be made by simply making assumptions around what’s working and what’s not based on platform-reported performance data.

Teacher feedback can be collected through multiple avenues including focus groups, surveys, empathy interviews, and more. Several districts in the Massachusetts EdTech Peer Learning Cohort decided to conduct focus groups to collect teacher feedback, which revealed important insights and led to specific next steps around technology procurement and implementation:

• Uncovering underlying issues: Hilltown Cooperative Charter Public School noticed that many staff members were inconsistently using their student information system (SIS) and initially began to wonder if the platform had the right features or sufficient accessibility. While they were exploring other potential systems, they decided to conduct teacher focus groups, which revealed that many staff members never received initial training on how to properly use the SIS and were unaware of how to effectively utilize the platform. This led the technology team to instead focus on a more effective implementation process around the SIS, including training staff members to use the current platform and setting up protocols on how and when to use the SIS.

• Confirming assumptions: The technology team at KIPP MA recognized that there was a lack of clarity around what the district was focused on in regards to instructional technology. The team decided to ask teachers (along with students, families, and the leadership team) about how they used technology in the classroom, with a specific focus on student agency, digital literacy, and school-home connection. The conversations, along with a comprehensive survey, showed that while the staff felt comfortable using technology and believed in the importance of technology usage to their students, they felt unclear on how edtech fit into the broader vision for teaching and learning. As a result, the KIPP MA team decided to focus on crafting a new, clear district vision for technology, and shared their evidence and next steps in a “state of edtech” report with all stakeholders in the district.

• Offering ideas for improvement: Attleboro Public Schools was searching for a digital portfolio tool that would help their students showcase their learning throughout their academic journey. They piloted Google Sites with a small group of teachers and students for one year and spent a significant amount of time reflecting on the successes and challenges of the pilot the following year, including collecting teacher feedback on what needs to be changed, what training needs to be provided, and what systems need to be in place for successful implementation in future iterations. Their input was crucial in identifying a final solution that was more teacher-friendly and easier to manage long-term – using Google Drive in a structured format with the ability to display artifacts through a third-party application.

Having productive and reflective conversations with the users who most often use and interact with platforms offers technology departments crucial insight into how devices and tools actually function day-to-day, and whether they are effectively meeting their classroom and district needs for teaching and learning. By regularly incorporating teacher voice into the feedback process, technology directors and administrators can make more informed decisions about technology procurement and implementation – and ultimately invest in tools that are most impactful for student learning.