From Promise to Practice

How digital technology can inspire and enable the evolution of teaching practice. 

The Dimensions of Digital Education.

In this series of blogs on Digital Education, we have examined its potential and the challenges we must overcome to realise it fully. We began by providing a clear definition of digital education and its dimensions, illuminating a well-lit path to success and a step-by-step transition from traditional education. This journey is not without its hurdles, but it holds immense promise for the future of learning.   

Each of the dimensions we have explored so far, educational resources, axiological principles, and roles, plays a crucial role in digital education. However, in this final instalment, we turn our attention to the final cornerstone of effective education, digital or traditional: teaching practice. 

A Changing Role and Changing Practice 

The previous post Crisis what Crisis?, which explored the role of the Teacher in 2024, described the changes education has undergone over the last 20 years:  

In 2024, Teachers look more like learning facilitators. They are required to perform social work in the classrooms, acting as psychologists, therapists, judges, police officers, members of the peer group, and substitutes for parents.  

To explore how practice has changed, we need to get more specific. What is the difference between these two worlds in methodology and practice over the last few decades? 

A review of some of the fundamental changes and the drivers behind them sheds light on this.   Listing the most influential changes in practice, starting a little earlier in the 1970s, provides a diverse set of practice shifts from the Open Classroom Movement and Competency-Based Education of the early 1970s to STEAM Education and Remote/Hybrid Learning of the 2020s. 

What’s Behind the Change in Practice? 

While educationalists may have different viewpoints on what the most influential changes are, it is the drivers behind them that provide the clearest picture of the change in practice.  Using the broadest and simplest classification, these are:  

• Educational Psychology & Pedagogy (e.g. Cooperative Learning, (Johnson & Johnson, 1989).  By my count, this was by far the most influential driver.
• Legislation & Policy, e.g. Integration of Special Education (Education for All Handicapped Children Act, 1975)
• Curriculum Development: e.g. STEAM Education (Yakman, 2008);
• Technology & Innovation: e.g. Digital and Mobile Learning (Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, & Haywood, 2011); 

Whilst it's entirely possible to create a much more nuanced classification, creating sub-categories such as Assessment and Evaluation and Educational Equity and Inclusion made the picture less, not more, clear.

EdTech and Educational Practice 

From the perspective of our discussion on the effective implementation of digital technology, the classification of practice can be made even simpler: changes in practice that are driven by technological advances and changes that can be supported by digital technology.   An example of the former is Technology Integration Begins (U.S. Department of Education, 1996), which is approximately when the current notion of EdTech, characterised by the integration of digital technologies in education, including the use of computers, the internet, software, and other multimedia resources—began. 

However, as we described in part II of this series, On The Brink of Digital Education, a tool-driven approach has largely been unsuccessful to date. It often creates various poor outcomes for teachers, headteachers, and students. 

A Better Way 

So, how should we think about the evolution of practice in digital education? The way we think about this at ProScola is that we seek to keep traditional paths open and offer new possibilities.  Teachers can use our app to develop new methods, preserve classic and proven approaches, and determine the degree and speed of digitalisation themselves. 

We should note that keeping traditional paths open is not the same as replicating existing practices in digital format. 

Anyone familiar with Quizlet and countless other learning apps knows that they are essentially a digital reskin of Skinner's teaching machine, which offered the "programmed learning" of the 1960s. The app poses a question, the student responds, and the correct or incorrect solution is provided along with a reward.    

In this example, we have replaced an analogue tool with a digital one, but the methodology remains unchanged.  Just as importantly, we are leaving the potential new technology untapped.  It's as if someone replaced their landline phone with a mobile phone but still chose to make calls only from the same spot in the hallway of their apartment where the old phone used to be! 

We want to avoid that pitfall, and while we model traditional school structures, we can also embrace concepts of autonomous learning, individual learning paths, distance education, level-based teaching, project-based learning, and others. 

Principles Guide Practice 

The guiding principles described in part III of this series, The Unfulfilled Promise: Why Educational Technology is not (yet) improving Teacher Welfare, guide our approach to practice:

1.  Prioritize the empowerment of educators (make teacher’s working lives better)
2. Uphold the principle of digital assistance (digital works for teachers, not the other way around)
3. By respecting the first two principles, we enable the promise of the digital classroom and create conditions for innovation in teaching and learning. 
   

Applying these principles to practice means that, first, the app should be able to represent all the classic working methods of teachers and students. The methodological and didactic freedom of every teacher must be preserved in their work.  
Second, all the app's functions are organised in the context of the lessons and the associated learning materials. We refer to this as putting the lesson at the centre. Third, the work of all educational actors should be made easier, not harder.  The tool-based implementation of digital technology has regularly allowed the opposite to happen by creating a new layer of administration to manage. 

Fourth, Teachers should be able to perform tasks that were previously difficult or impossible, such as enabling individualised learning and differentiation, without the need for an exponential increase in time and resources to achieve it. 

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, genuinely new teaching and learning methods should be opened up to the teacher and student, which they have not used before. 

Unlocking New Possibilities 

One way to open up these new possibilities is to create, conduct, and correct tests completely digitally. During test creation, teachers can provide correct answers and hints for further learning.  

After submission, students gain immediate feedback on their performance and insights for improvement. This process not only saves teachers time but also enhances the quality of feedback through options like audio recordings and the inclusion of visual materials. 

Conclusion 

Digital education can serve teachers, improve their working lives and serve as a catalyst for positive change.  To accomplish this, it has become apparent that defining a path to success in digital education is essential, and that has become part of our mission. If this article has inspired you, please contact Jason Thompson – jason.thompson@proscola.com 

Footnote – The Evolution of Practice.

These are the shifts in educational practice we referred to as part of this article. 
Open Classroom Movement, (Silberman, 1970); Competency-Based Education (CBE), (Bloom, 1971); Integration of Special Education, (Education for All Handicapped Children Act, 1975); Introduction of Personal Computers, (Papert, 1980); Emergence of Cognitive Science, (Bruner, 1986); Cooperative Learning, (Johnson & Johnson, 1989); Multicultural Education, (Banks, 1988); Introduction of Constructivism, (Brooks & Brooks, 1993); Technology Integration Begins, (U.S. Department of Education, 1996); Emphasis on Collaborative Learning, (Johnson & Johnson, 1999); Rise of Standardised Testing, (No Child Left Behind Act, 2001); Blended Learning Models, (Garrison & Kanuka, 2004); Flipped Classroom Concept, (Bergmann & Sams, 2012); Digital and Mobile Learning, (Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, & Haywood, 2011); Focus on 21st Century Skills, (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2015); STEAM Education, (Yakman, 2008); Remote and Hybrid Learning, (World Bank, 2020); Emphasis on Mental Health and Well-being, (Oxford Review of Education, 2021)