New innovations developed by ed-tech company School Improvement Network make it possible to elevate student assessment scores by as much as 20 percent in a single year.

New research helps to unveil the science of the school turnaround, revealing that improving schools dramatically isn’t about working miracles—it’s about having the right tools and the right focus.

Administrators today carry higher expectations on their shoulders than any generation before. With so much at stake, many school leaders question how they can possibly accomplish what’s being asked—to not only raise student achievement, but in some cases to double, triple, or quadruple student success rates.

However, research conducted by Dr. Steven Shaha of the Center for Public Policy and Administration shows that new innovations developed by ed-tech company School Improvement Network make it possible to elevate student assessment scores by as much as 20 percent in a single year. The numbers tell a story of dramatic, lasting improvement in student achievement being made every day, all over the country.

Dr. Shaha’s research is compiled in a study called “Predictors of Success,” where student outcomes in 734 schools in 211 districts across 39 states were analyzed year over year to measure the impact of School Improvement Network’s educator effectiveness system on student learning and educator effectiveness.

The results show that whenever educators used the tools effectively in the educator effectiveness system, student test scores increased many times over, year after year.

(Next page: What the research says)

“This is a great asset that I would highly recommend to anyone in a computer lab situation,” one teacher said.

NetSupport School is a classroom management software program that gives teachers the ability to instruct and visually or audibly monitor, as well as interact with, their students—either individually, as a pre-defined group, or with the whole class.

Rising to the challenges and requirements of today’s modern classroom, NetSupport School enables teachers to deliver lesson content, simultaneously monitor all student PCs, and work collaboratively, ensuring that complete student attention and focus is maintained at all times.

There are no hidden extras; all features are included as standard benefits, including a customized testing suite, dedicated technician console, digital student revision aids, lesson planning tools, and the option for teachers to reward students for good effort.

“Since using NetSupport School, we are able to keep the students more focused on their task during the short time frame that we have them each week. When they come in, I have the computers locked down so that I have their full attention while giving them instructions for their daily lessons. Then when I unlock them, I can monitor them from one central location without the fear of [students] going off track. 

“NetSupport has also been a great resource for being able to demonstrate new lessons and activities from my computer to theirs. This also helps in time management when the students don’t even have to look away from their monitors to get instruction. One of the most valuable assets, I feel, is the ability to control each student’s computer. This is great for individual help with a student or to be able to control that off-task student. There are many other great features, such as the test module and lesson plan module. This is a great asset that I would highly recommend to anyone in a computer lab situation.”

—A teacher at Stanford Elementary School in Kentucky

(Next page: How the latest version helps teachers with assessment)

Schools must be proactive in securing the funds to sustain ed-tech initiatives.

Involving the community, identifying backup revenue sources, and dedicating time and resources for professional development are the keys to sustaining technology funding and ed-tech initiatives, according to a survey conducted by the nonprofit Digital Wish.

The Digital Wish Study on Sustainability, co-authored by Digital Wish Executive Director Heather Chirtea and School Modernization Initiative (SMI) Program Manager Eric Bird, examines how schools approach the often complicated matter of technology funding.

Digital Wish launched SMI, a one-to-one computing program, in 2009. The initiative involved 28 schools and 1,294 students in grades 4-6, and it gave curriculum and training to 79 teachers. At the end of the program’s first year, school leaders turned to the challenge of sustaining this initiative, and the A.D. Henderson Foundation commissioned Digital Wish to examine how schools could do this successfully.

The foundation also tasked Digital Wish with developing free resources to spread best practices in sustaining ed-tech programs. The study included responses from administrators, IT specialists, media and curriculum coordinators, librarians, and teachers.

The survey results revealed that, when it comes to technology funding, the “most successful schools develop multiple sources of revenue, they trigger strong community engagement, and they prioritize daily support and training for teachers.”

(Next page: A breakdown of how successful ed-tech programs are funded)

Student engagement saw a boost from the mobile learning program. (Photo from http://www.smriders.net/Mobile_Learning)

Starting small might be the key to success when it comes to deploying a mobile learning initiative, according to two educators whose district has implemented a successful mobile program that now reaches 500 students.

“We felt that if it was something that was going to catch on, we wanted to be sure that we started small and that it was as group of people who wanted to work at this,” said Kyle Menchhofer, technology director for the St. Marys City Schools district in Ohio. “Starting small was a very strong and successful part of why we are where we are at this time.”

In 2008, before smart phones caught on, the district started its pilot by purchasing personal digital assistants (PDAs). Eight teachers—two each from third, fourth, and fifth grade—and two resource teachers signed on to begin the program.

“The biggest thing is starting out small,” said Scott Newcomb, a fifth grade teacher in the district. “Sometimes, giving everyone an iPad is too much—the goal or objective might get lost.”

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The pilot team attended training sessions every three to four weeks, and Menchhofer said professional development was a priority above all else. The district also formed a team of teachers who experimented with the PDAs to discover new uses and classroom applications.

“We didn’t want to create additional work for our teachers,” Menchhofer said. “We didn’t want to make this a burden on our staff.”

In 2008, 155 students participated in the pilot, which included 120 PDAs and GoKnow software. Shortly after the pilot began, district IT staff discovered that the hardware company from which they purchased the PDAs decided to produce smart phones instead. By the spring of the pilot year, the district partnered with Verizon Wireless and had 30 smart phones to use in a trial program.

“Funding is an issue, but you have to set priorities,” Menchhofer said.

When students engage with other classrooms around the world, their effort is ‘through the roof.’

Think about it … what do kids want? What do you want? How about the chance to be masters of tasks, have lives with purpose, and have the choice of when, where, and how when it comes to engagement in learning and teaching?

The classroom is no longer a physical place. Perhaps it never has been. Learning is experiential and it occurs, usually not on schedule, but 24 hours a day. What does this mean in an age of Common Core standards and high-stakes testing? The Common Core standards seem to fit well with students’ need for critical thinking and higher-order thinking skills. I doubt that the high-stakes testing philosophy fits well at all. As a teacher, I can’t help but ask if it even fits anywhere!

One of the goals of a social studies curriculum is to ensure that students are aware of different cultures and geographies—including how these are similar to or different from their own. Social learning communities make this easy. They offer a window to the world.

I connect my students to classrooms and learning experiences all over the world. Like-minded teachers exist, and they also seek global collaboration. Social learning platforms are the perfect place for collaborating in real time through online workspaces. For instance, ePals offers internal blogs and links students with numerous entities, such as the Smithsonian.

Through the years, I have found that when my students use ePals to reach out to and engage with other classrooms, the level of excitement and effort is literally through the roof. Students tell me they actually care about what is going on in the classroom. They value the relationships they create with students across the globe. Students’ writing improves dramatically, because they know their global peers will be reading their assignments.

Speaking of the Smithsonian, we have just completed a project called the Extinction Project. It is a collaborative effort between my classroom and a set of classrooms in Singapore. Rose Manuel, the teacher leader of the Extinction Project, will join me and personnel from the Smithsonian in a Skype call that will span two continents and affect hundreds of students.

With the Extinction Project coming to full fruition, we now see our opportunity to launch the iSOLVE Project. This project, also housed in ePals, takes responsibility and good choices regarding conservation and endangered species to a new level. The iSOLVE Project actually lets students engage in conversations about how they cope and survive in their own daily lives, and additionally, how they save and protect each other through life’s trials and difficult times. We hope that this project is as powerful and helpful as we think it can be.

I got a chance to share this idea with many of my fellow education entrepreneurs at the recent White House Education Datapalooza event on October 9, which included special guests U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, and Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education Jim Shelton. It was our honor to present and learn about products, services and applications that have immense potential for advancing education achievement.

Digital tools make it possible for schools to go beyond the traditional gradebook. Yes, well-designed quizzes and demonstrated mastery of the new Common Core State Standards matter, but data doesn’t stop there.

Of the many innovations highlighted at the Education Datapalooza, the most promising were the ones building new data sets to uncover trends and insights in student achievement. Everfi, for example, captures data about student perceptions towards personal finance through game-based assessment. Knewton’s adaptive learning platform catches student misconceptions at a micro level as they progress through media-rich content. Gallup’s StrengthsFinder identifies students’ intrinsic talents, helping students navigate successfully from school to career.

And with Kickboard, teachers are keeping track of other factors that were historically (and sometimes mysteriously) rolled into the overall grade on a report card – class participation, timeliness and completion of work.

Keeping track of students’ character development and learning habits – and taking into account the process and thinking behind completing a task, not just whether they got it “right” – is essential to personalizing learning.

Five years ago, we integrated technology into our science program to help students make real-life connections to science and develop a deeper understanding of core concepts and skills. Since then, we’ve improved our science test scores by 20 percentage points and have become a Texas Education Agency (TEA) Recognized campus.

In 2006-07, when we purchased a web-based concept mastery program called Adaptive Curriculum (AC), we did something unusual. We admit it can sometimes be difficult to get teachers to buy in to new technology applications. So, we began our implementation with the students. For the first year, before teachers were trained, students used the software independently in the computer lab. The strategy was to let students explore the interactive instructional units, called Activity Objects, and report back to the teachers. Our students didn’t have to use the software; they were motivated to use it.

Students reported that the program helped them understand lessons they hadn’t understood in class. They frequently mentioned that the program’s real-world scenarios helped increase their understanding. They also found it rewarding when they were able to show their teachers how to do something in the software, and it was motivating for us to see how enthusiastic students were.

Before the second year of implementation, we teachers were trained over the summer. Our school now uses the AC Science program across all grade levels in labs, classrooms and students’ homes. We integrate the Activity Objects into whole group instruction in the classroom using SMART Boards, and often pull out sections of lessons to introduce concepts, reinforce instruction, or provide additional practice. Every student also has access in the computer lab and at home. As a result, we have found that more parents are helping students with science because they find it easier to do so now. It’s helping us create an instructional setting at home.

For students, the program’s real-world scenarios, realistic visualizations, interactive simulations, and 3-D models make abstract concepts easier to understand. Students like that they can explore, make hypotheses, manipulate items, and see the impact of their decisions. They also like that the activities are self-paced, so they can repeat something as many times as needed to ensure understanding.

Students, wearing headsets, work with the therapist in pairs at a single computer station.

With speech language pathologists in short supply, the Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA) of rural Glenn County in northern California has turned to PresenceLearning to provide online speech therapy services for about 10 Willows Unified School District students.

Vicki Shadd, SELPA director and assistant superintendent for the Glenn County Office of Education, said recent advances in web conferencing technology and great computer infrastructure at Willows Intermediate School have allowed students to work with a live speech therapist online.

“Their response to it has been amazing,” Shadd said.

Shadd said students in grades six through eight have been raised with technology, making them especially receptive to using computers to work with a therapist.

SELPA started using PresenceLearning at the end of the last school year and has received outstanding results.

Feedback from parents, students, and staff has been positive, Shadd said.

While Shadd believes computers will never take the place of educators and special-education instructors, PresenceLearning has filled a huge void when it comes to a rural school’s ability to pair speech pathologists with students needing extra help with language development.

“There is a real shortage of speech pathologists,” she said. “Not only are colleges graduating fewer pathologists, but many choose private practice or the medical field rather than education, because it is more lucrative.”

The Glenn County Office of Education has speech therapists on staff to work with students, but the addition of online therapy is a boon, especially when budgets are stretched thin, Shadd said.

PresenseLearning’s online therapist costs the county about $75 per hour.

Students, wearing headsets, work with the therapist in pairs at a single computer station.

In addition to a live therapist online, students are supported by a teaching assistant.

Lexia Reading “has allowed us to gather detailed, skill-specific data—without interrupting the flow of instruction to administer a test.”

Most educators can agree that frequent progress monitoring is critical to achieving a data-driven culture. However, under my direction at Cahuenga Elementary School in Los Angeles, we employed a different strategy for progress monitoring of reading skills development: We tested less.

Sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Yet, our results demonstrate remarkable success—and they’ve led to a newfound focus on instruction.

Located in the “Koreatown” neighborhood just five miles east of downtown Los Angeles, Cahuenga is a year-round school that finds on any given day nearly three-quarters of its 870 K–5 students on campus. With 19 different ethnic groups represented in total, nearly 70 percent of the students are Latinos, with the remaining 30 percent comprised of students with Korean or Asian heritage.

In 2009, we began piloting Lexia Reading to support a period of intensive intervention with our at-risk students. The software provided students with independent, individualized instruction on foundational reading skills. During the course of this instruction, the program identified the students who were at the greatest risk of reading failure and recommended teacher-led, direct instruction to address specific skill gaps. However, it’s important to note that this program was not only for our students with needs; it served all students regardless of their ability.

Our teachers were able to use the data gleaned from this program to guide their small group instructions, from intensive to gifted. Students who were at or above grade level also benefited from the program, because it took them to the next level. In the end, this program has allowed us to gather detailed, skill-specific data—without interrupting the flow of instruction to administer a test. This is a welcome respite, and a strategy that we will employ for years to come.

This approach gave my teachers real-time student data, based on norm-referenced predictions of each student’s chance of reaching the end-of-year benchmark (expressed as a percent). Think about it: They say that hindsight is 20-20, and it’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. However, by using the predictive data to show each student’s likely end-of-year outcomes, we could affect instruction in real time, and help improve each child’s chance of meeting his or her grade-level benchmarks.