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Instructional technology
Practitioner Voices Summit: How Teachers Evaluate AI Tools through Deliberative Sensemaking
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTags: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education, Instructional technology, Professional developmentTeachers face growing pressure to integrate AI tools into their classrooms, yet are rarely positioned as agentic decision-makers in this process. Understanding the criteria teachers use to evaluate AI tools, and the conditions that support such reasoning, is essential for responsible AI… more →
The Consequences of Cellphone Restrictions in Classrooms
Topics: Student LearningSchools are increasingly restricting cellphones worldwide amid concerns about achievement and mental health, yet causal evidence on school-level bans remains mixed. We examine cellphone restrictions in Chile before the pandemic, where teacher discretion over cellphone use generated classroom-… more →
A Framework for Building High-Quality Education Data for R&D in the Age of AI: The EDSI Dataset and Expert Insights
Topics: MethodsThe Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative have launched a series of collaborative investments in building large-scale datasets that can support and accelerate data infrastructure for AI R&D efforts in education. In partnership with researchers… more →
Facilitating Evidence-Based Instructional Coaching With Automated Feedback on Teacher Discourse
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentInstructional coaching often aims to ground teacher professional learning in classroom evidence, yet it is labor-intensive for coaches to obtain and curate such evidence. This study explores possibilities for utilizing an automated feedback tool to support evidence-based reasoning in coaching.… more →
Understanding Disruptions: Causes of and Variation in Lost Instructional Time
Topics: Student LearningVirtual instruction has boomed after the COVID-19 pandemic, including the use of virtual environments within in-person schools. But, research has provided little evidence about student experiences on these virtual platforms, nor how to improve the use of these platforms. Through natural language… more →
Efficacy of Zearn Math over two years in grades 3 to 5: An experiment in Texas
Topics: Student LearningZearn Math is a popular software platform for K-8 mathematics learning, designed to enable all students to successfully access grade-level content. RAND researchers collaborated with Zearn, the product’s developer, to design this evaluation. Then RAND conducted the study independently, randomly… more →
Separation of Church and State Curricula? Examining Public and Religious Private School Textbooks
Tags: Belonging, Culturally responsive schooling, Curriculum, Elementary schools, Human capital, Instructional design, Instructional practices, Instructional technology, Race, ethnicity, and education, Reading and literacy education, Science education, Social studies educationCurricula impart knowledge, instill values, and shape collective memory. Despite growing public funding for religious schools through U.S. school choice programs, little is known about what they teach. We examine textbooks from public schools, religious private schools, and home schools,… more →
From Sentence-Corrections to Deeper Dialogue: Qualitative Insights from LLM and Teacher Feedback on Student Writing
Topics: MethodsEffective writing feedback is a powerful tool for enhancing student learning, encouraging revision, and increasing motivation and agency. Yet, teachers face many challenges that prevent them from consistently providing effective writing feedback. Recent advances in generative artificial… more →
Heterogeneous Effects of Closing the Digital Divide During COVID-19 on Student Engagement and Achievement
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceEquitably expanding technology access among K-12 students has long been viewed as critical for equalizing educational opportunities. But these interventions may influence students’ academic outcomes in unexpected ways. Prior research suggests key technological resources, like broadband Internet… more →
Addressing Threats to Validity in Supervised Machine Learning: A Framework and Best Practices for Education Researchers
Topics: MethodsGiven the rapid adoption of machine learning methods by education researchers, and growing acknowledgement of their inherent risks, there is an urgent need for tailored methodological guidance on how to improve and evaluate the validity of inferences drawn from these methods. Drawing upon an… more →
Teaching Teachers to Use Computer Assisted Learning Effectively: Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Evidence
Topics: Student LearningMastery learning – the process by which students must demonstrate proficiency with a single topic before moving on – is well recognized as one of the best ways to learn, yet many teachers struggle or remain unsure about how to implement it into a classroom setting. This study leverages two field… more →
Funding the Digital Divide? How School District Financing for Educational Technology Changed During the COVID-19 Pandemic
School finance inequities are a key driver of disparities in educational outcomes. Higher per-pupil funding levels allow schools to provide more qualified educators, smaller class sizes, and high-quality physical resources such as modern instructional technology. We study how Washington state… more →
The Promises and Pitfalls of Using Language Models to Measure Instruction Quality in Education
Topics: MethodsAssessing instruction quality is a fundamental component of any improvement efforts in the education system. However, traditional manual assessments are expensive, subjective, and heavily dependent on observers’ expertise and idiosyncratic factors, preventing teachers from getting timely and… more →
Can Computer-Assisted Instruction Help Schools to Close the Achievement Gap: Evaluation of a District-Wide Reading Intervention
Topics: Student LearningA concerning number of middle and high school students lack fundamental reading skills in the United States. One common way schools address this issue is by supporting those students with computer-assisted instruction. This study evaluates the causal effect of one such computer-assisted… more →
Computer Science for All? The Impact of High School Computer Science Courses on College Majors and Earnings
This study provides the first causal analysis of the impact of expanding Computer Science (CS) education in U.S. K-12 schools on students’ choice of college major and early career outcomes. Utilizing rich longitudinal data from Maryland, we exploit variation from the staggered rollout of CS… more →
Automated Feedback Improves Teachers’ Questioning Quality in Brick-and-Mortar Classrooms: Opportunities for Further Enhancement
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentAI-powered professional learning tools that provide teachers with individualized feedback on their instruction have proven effective at improving instruction and student engagement in virtual learning contexts. Despite the need for consistent, personalized professional learning in K-12 settings… more →
Can brick phones bridge the digital learning divide? Evidence from SMS-based math practice
Topics: Student LearningHardware requirements are a barrier to widespread adoption of digital learning software among low-income populations. We investigate the demand among smallholder-farming households for a simple, adaptive math learning tool that can be accessed by widely available ``brick'' phones, and its effect… more →
Understanding Heterogeneous Patterns of Family Engagement with Educational Technology to Inform School-Family Communication in Linguistically Diverse Communities
Topics: Families and CommunitiesWe leverage log data from an educational app and two-way text message records from over 3,500 students during the summers of 2019 and 2020, along with in-depth interviews in Spanish and English, to identify patterns of family engagement with educational technology. Based on the type and timing… more →
M-Powering Teachers: Natural Language Processing Powered Feedback Improves 1:1 Instruction and Student Outcomes
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentAlthough learners are being connected 1:1 with instructors at an increasing scale, most of these instructors do not receive effective, consistent feedback to help them improved. We deployed M-Powering Teachers, an automated tool based on natural language processing to give instructors feedback… more →
The Cobb Teaching & Learning System: An Initiative that Advances Educator Collaboration, Transformative Technology, and Real-Time Data Utilization
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentThe Cobb Teaching & Learning System (CTLS) is a digital learning initiative developed for and by the Cobb County School District (CCSD) in Georgia. CTLS became a crucial initiative used by the district to maintain student academic progress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Adopting a mixed-… more →