Advancing Teaching & Learning Innovation
Adaptive Learning, Online Homework, and Assessment
Providing students with self-paced learning, feedback, and adaption with the help of digital assessment while providing the teacher with information on individualized student progress
Using CASE to Power Standards-Based Learning for All Students
Classworks and Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS)
User: K-12
Goals: Make an online, skills-based summer (at home) learning program available to over 180,000 students to mitigate learning loss and address unfinished learning caused by the pandemic.
Challenge: Classworks instruction was aligned with the Georgia Standards of Excellence and not directly with Gwinnett's AKS learning standards.
Solution: GCPS and Classworks replaced a manual standards-mapping process that would have taken weeks with a Competency and Academic Standards Exchange (CASE) framework-powered process that only took days. CASE was used to link district and state-specific standards, provide online, essential standards-focused learning for all students, and crosswalk content from instructional programs to state and district standards.
From here, instructional leaders were able to quickly confirm the instruction.
Learning Impact: All students in the GCPS system could take advantage of the Summer Enrichment and Acceleration program with high-quality instructional units based on the exact AKS the district had identified as priority skills. This was accomplished more efficiently by allowing the curriculum and instruction specialists to focus their efforts on spot-checking the accuracy of the alignment as opposed to spending countless hours manually aligning in multiple spreadsheets. Approximately 15,000 students participated in their individualized learning path.
1EdTech Japan Society Award Winner
Learning e-Portal – 'L-Gate'
Uchida Yoko Co., Ltd.
User: K-12, higher education
Goals: Scale the management of student accounts and reduce the huge cost incurred in managing accounts per application to support the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) initiative providing 9 million Chromebooks and iPads to students and teachers.
Challenge: A conventional system using multiple applications to manage individual accounts and passwords requires students to sign in each time the apps are used, which could greatly hinder the class's progress.
Solution: L-Gate is a learning e-portal that supports students’ day-to-day learning, along with operational and management features, using one account per user on a single device.
OneRoster is used to share class rosters registered in L-Gate and the school administration system. With L-Gate, teachers can create and register a list of teaching materials, applications, and tests that best suits the needs of each class or student they oversee, which are compatible with single sign-on using LTI Advantage. In this way, students can easily find the learning materials, applications, and tests that match their learning goals and developmental stage. OneRoster is used to share class rosters registered in L-Gate and the school administration system. In addition, teachers and students can visually check the usage history of their applications and the results of tests they have taken using graphs and numbers on the L-Gate screen. It is also possible to generate the output of usage history in CSV format. Application and teaching materials usage history, for example, can be used by the Board of Education to understand which teaching materials and applications frequently used in schools would produce excellent learning outcomes—providing powerful information for selecting the best teaching materials and applications.
Learning Impact: By centralizing account management, the time required to manage accounts (e.g., changing classes for each academic year, transferring accounts for students who move in and move out of schools, and replacing accounts) has been greatly reduced. In the classroom, teachers and students can immediately use applications with single sign-on from the displayed list of applications used by each grade level and class.
As of April 2022, L-Gate is currently in use in approximately 5,000 schools with approximately 2 million accounts from more than 450 local governments. It has also been adopted as one of the learning assessment platforms for the MEXCBT System, used in 8,500 schools from 900 school boards.
1EdTech Japan Society Award Winner
OpenAI Language Learning Authoring and Execution Tools Leveraged by QTI / LTI
Digital Knowledge Co. Ltd.
User: K-12, higher education
Goals: Increase the number of ready-made educational applications and contents using AI-based speech recognition technology, character recognition technology, speech synthesis technology, and translation technology in the field of language learning.
Challenge: Most off-the-shelf AI teaching materials have been developed with fixed content based on their own teaching methods, specializing in one or two specific AI APIs.
Therefore, creating the teaching materials currently in use with AI-API without programming is necessary.
Furthermore, by increasing the portability and obtainability of the created original AI teaching materials, it can learn learning know-how from the language learning community that shared new learning methods and teaching materials for many people.
Solution: Torepa is a language learning environment that integrates the authoring, execution, and sharing functions of AI teaching materials as a web application.
To improve the learning outcomes of the four language skills, Torepa analyzes, designs, develops, implements, evaluates, and improves quality education based on the theory and insight of "aware learning" by reading aloud with AI.
To deliver this Torepa to as many users as possible, the QTI-PCI format has been adopted for the content export function, portability has been significantly improved, and the LTI tools interface has been added to significantly improve obtainability.
Learning Impact: Until now, schools had no way of objectively assessing language performance, so methods such as teachers' subjective learner observations and time-consuming interviews were needed. By using Torepa not only as a learning system but also as a test system, it has become possible to quickly carry out and evaluate more accurate and objective evaluations with rational evidence.
Approximately 300 teachers are using the technology in their classrooms.
Collaborative Digital Learning
Providing students and faculty with applications and opportunities to participate in and improve achievement via effective collaborative learning activities that complement traditional delivery methods
FeedbackFruits Tool Suite at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
FeedbackFruits and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
User: Higher education
Goals: Scale peer feedback and group work to develop employability skills while reducing the manual workload.
Challenge: Replace a cumbersome, obsolete peer evaluation tool used to collect student feedback about their group members and allow faculty to incorporate peer review into their coursework.
Solution: FeedbackFruits offers an all-in-one, LMS-integrated tool suite for active learning.
With seamless LTI and API integration into Canvas, the tool helped facilitate scalable group configuration, group feedback, self-assessment, and detailed student analytics.
Learning Impact: The Wharton instructional design team observed a significant impact from the rapid adoption of the FeedbackFruits suite. Early successes with Group Member Evaluation (GME) and Peer Review tools motivated the team to recommend other tools within the suite to address key learning activities at Wharton – including incorporating both GME and Interactive Video into WH 101, a required course for all 640 incoming Wharton undergraduates.
Over the course of two years, the tools were used by 404 teachers to create 1,184 learning activities, thus helping the Wharton School implement effective collaborative learning and hone skills such as communication, critical thinking, and leadership.
High Resolves: Empowering Young People from Across the Globe with Real-Time, High-Impact Learning
OpenLearning and High Resolves
User: Secondary/higher education
Goals: Develop online versions of curriculum and workshops, as well as myriad resources to enable teachers to deliver values and citizenship education embedded in other curriculum goals.
Challenge: Many online learning platforms solely focus on content delivery, which wouldn't allow High Resolves to connect with their learners and build peer-to-peer interaction.
Solution: High Resolves, an award-winning and not-for-profit organization that delivers social justice and ethics programs to schools, partnered with OpenLearning to deliver and scale its capacity-building learning experiences (when they could not work in school settings).
Originally delivered through in-person workshops, the learning experience transformed into a digitized education experience powered by the OpenLearning online education platform via Symphony.
Digitalization enabled High Resolves to promote personalized learning and learning science techniques that enhance the effectiveness of learner outcomes and engagement. It also enabled them to scale globally and in geographical areas that were not accessible via in-person workshops.
Learning Impact: Allowed High Resolves to continue their operations, particularly in Australia. They are now using the platform for Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, and Brazil (it supports multi-language delivery).
Educators using the platform can see the completion data and statistics; this information is also used for continuous improvement work.
Every student activity is automatically pulled into an e-portfolio on the platform, so the learner and the educator delivering it have real-time/anytime access to it.
If the institution is issuing badges or certificates, they are automatically pulled in as well, and the student can decide how and with whom to share access.
The average NPS received from the OpenLearning courses was 90 compared to an average of 39 from the face-to-face settings
Digital Resource, eText, and Learning App Innovation
Providing students and faculty with applications and opportunities to participate in and improve achievement via effective collaborative learning activities that complement traditional delivery methods
Slice: Enabling Inter-Institutional Sharing of Large, High-Quality Images and Virtual Microscopy Slides
OpenLearning and Biomedical Education Skills and Training (BEST) Network
User: Higher education
Goals: Address a critical need in biomedical and life science education worldwide by creating cost-effective and equitable access to biomedical images and tools worldwide.
Challenge: The technology developed to digitize tissue specimens (essential for the teaching of disciplines such as histology and pathology) results in file sizes generated that are very large and difficult to send to students. It requires purpose-built servers and software, leading to costly duplication of resources and technology across the higher education sector. At the same time, it often limits the range and quality of resources available at different institutions.
Solution: Slice, created by the not-for-profit BEST Network, is an image-based online learning and teaching platform that facilitates the inter-institutional sharing of large, high-quality images, including virtual microscopy slides and expert knowledge about those images. It allows educators and students to access a repository of over 22,000 images, contribute their own images and in-context annotations, and participate in collaborative group activities.
Learning Impact: Slice is used worldwide by 11 universities for synchronous and asynchronous teaching, for both distance and in-person learning.
Since 2012, more than 270,000 staff and students have viewed images over 7.3 million times using a tool that includes layered annotation functions, LMS integration, and image organizational capacity. With over 22,000 community-sourced images, Slice has revolutionized access to image-based learning resources and released students from the constraints of physical microscopes, slides, and classrooms.
The availability of digitized resources removes the reliance of member institutions on physical microscopes, thus reducing costs associated with supplying and maintaining equipment and slides by an estimated 62%. The use of Slice as a virtual slide solution provides 24/7 access to resources for study purposes and has been an important advantage in allowing member institutions to pivot unexpectedly to online learning in the context of COVID-19.
Gaming, Simulation, and Immersive Learning
Applications that give students and teachers opportunities to participate in effective experiential learning that is better than traditional alternatives
Conscious Capitalism Simulation: Teaching Corporate Responsibility through Serious Games
Marketplace Simulations and Western Governors University
User: Higher education, adult/lifelong learner
Goals: Respond to new demands being placed on management and management education; help shape the mindset and skills of future leaders to be drivers of corporate sustainability; transition to the principles of conscious capitalism.
Challenge: Employers have long been signaling that new business graduates lack the critical competencies needed in the workplace. Business schools need to do a better job of helping students bridge the gap between knowledge and skill. There is also a substantial need to include corporate responsibility in business education.
Solution: The Conscious Capitalism simulation by Marketplace Simulations is an educational game in which students operate a conscious business instead of a traditional profit-maximizing business paradigm. Students consider all the firm’s stakeholders, including customers, stockholders, employees, and the community. They deal with ethical, environmental, and sustainability issues in addition to normal business challenges. Students must simultaneously work to improve profitability, marketing effectiveness, human resources, wealth creation, reputation, and other metrics.
Learning Impact: The simulation provides an integrated assessment of student learning. Throughout the exercise, students receive feedback on their financial performance, marketing effectiveness, market performance, investment in the firm's future, human resource management, manufacturing productivity, asset management, financial risk, creation of wealth, and reputation.
Every student who completes the Conscious Capitalism simulation is issued one or more Open Badges. This allows students to visualize, articulate, and promote their accomplishments and share them via resumes, personal websites, professional social networks such as LinkedIn, and other digital portfolios.
Western Governors University adopted Conscious Capitalism as part of the capstone for its 10,000-student MBA program.
JA Titan® Blended Model Program
Junior Achievement USA
User: K-12 (high school)
Goals: Design a curriculum model and learning experience that incorporates online and blended simulations to help educators reach students and help students understand very complex topics in a very engaging and meaningful way.
Challenge: Economics and the impact that individuals and business solutions have on profit and the overall economy are challenging concepts to teach in a classroom
Solution: JA Titan® Blended Model brings business economics to life for students ages 14–18. Through gameplay, students experience the challenges of a CEO in the mobile phone industry. They face scenarios that require them, in context, to make data-driven decisions, analyze outcomes, and strategize new decisions—all while competing with CEOs in the same industry.
For students who would benefit from them, self-paced, self-guided versions of the lessons are built in.
There is also a comprehensive data analysis component—incorporated throughout the gameplay experience—that educators can access and download.
Learning Impact: JA Titan Blended Model is a new redesign that was released in August 2021. In the first six months, 35 of 103 JA areas in the United States adopted the program, along with multiple JA Member Nations.
JA USA aligned the program-level learning objectives to the Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics by the Council for Economic Education, the JA Financial Literacy Pathway, and the JA Work and Career Readiness Pathway for high school students in grades 9–12. The curriculum component, including interactive content, is built and delivered using SCORM standards in the LMS.
Re-energize Students: Using the Metaverse to Immerse Students in their Learning Experience in Online
Virbela. Tec Virtual Campus and Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey
User: Higher education
Goals: Motivate students learning online who were fatigued by videoconferencing tools and enable them to acknowledge abstract concepts easily, allowing them to explore the virtual environment as they would the real world.
Challenge: Students from Tecnológico de Monterrey who traditionally took only 2-3 courses online had to move to 100% online because of the COVID-19 pandemic and quickly grew tired of the video conference platform and current methods of learning.
Solution: Adopted a tool (user experience map) normally used in the innovation process and translated it to learning experiences. Faculty was an essential part of the design. Through an ideation session, discovered they should try to provide more autonomy to students and the opportunity to collaborate with their classmates. Took advantage of the metaverse space provided by the institution, which is a replica of the campus in Monterrey city.
Learning Impact: The metaverse creates a virtual environment that simulates conditions very similar to those on campus.
In a survey of one undergraduate course in the school of humanities, 90% (50/55) of students agreed that the activity makes their collaborative work experience more imaginative and interesting; 48/55 students felt more excited because they were involved in the active learning and they felt curious about how the activity would evolve; 47/55 students were more focused on the activity than they would be with external distractions.
Synapse VR
Nucco and Southern New Hampshire University
User: Higher education
Goals: Learn about the process of designing and implementing virtual reality (VR), investigate its potential for enriching student experiences, and grow SNHU’s understanding of the benefits and implications of pursuing VR to improve learning outcomes.
Challenge: How to leverage virtual reality and immersive experiences to teach complex neuroscience concepts and get students moving and interacting with course content in large virtual spaces. SNHU has more than 160,000 students getting their bachelor's and master's degrees online, which has them very interested in delivering effective digital learning experiences.
Solution: The Labs R&D team at SNHU's Innovation Center partnered with Nucco, a leading digital innovation studio, to design and build VR-based active learning experiences for a neuroscience course.
The learner experience in Synapse VR utilizes approaches to teaching and learning that emphasize problem-solving, construction, and movement—constructivism, constructionism, and dynamic skill acquisition. Conversely, it deemphasized approaches focused on the organization and transmission of information.
The problem activities in Synapse VR are strategically designed to require increasing levels of skill and knowledge primarily by manipulating the task or environment.
Learning Impact: As for the potential of VR to enrich student experiences as measured by student-reported levels of interest, motivation, and engagement with SynapseVR, surveys were used to pose fifteen questions to the testers. With seventeen participants, students reported high levels of interest, motivation, and engagement: nearly 90% of the students agreed with the statement, “I enjoyed learning this way;” approximately 80% of the students agreed that “I would like to learn this way in the future.” 80% of the students felt motivated to “learn more about this subject.” More than 90% of the students “felt that the lesson was engaging” and “found the lesson to be useful.” Approximately 80% of the students agreed with the statement, “I felt motivated to understand the material.” In terms of their emotional response to SynapseVR, students reported high positive and low negative affective states: 80% of them “felt happy during the lesson.” About 90% of the students “felt excited during the lesson.”
Forty students participated in a study with a five-question test given before and after the experience. The number of students who provided the correct answer on these five questions from the pre-test to the post-test improved from two times to over five times per question.
Both the quantitative and qualitative capture processes and results have been documented in the SNHU VR Playbook for consideration by SNHU and other institutions during future work with VR.
Scaling Pedagogical Knowledge and Practice
Providing efficient and effective support to teachers and faculty in significantly improving facilitation and delivery of learning experiences
DigitalEd Helps the University of the Sciences Deliver Engaging Online Learning in STEM
DigitalEd and University of the Sciences
User: Higher education
Goals: The University of the Sciences needed a solution to support better student outcomes in STEM courses that would allow faculty to customize content to the way they teach and the needs of their students.
Challenge: The faculty wanted to expand online offerings while keeping courses engaging and effective for students. They also had to quickly pivot to online instruction during COVID-19.
Solution: Möbius is a digital learning platform for teaching higher ed STEM courses that enables students to learn by doing while receiving immediate and meaningful feedback. The platform allowed for easy customization of content and problems. Möbius allows faculty to teach in a way that fit them as individuals; instructors have full ownership and editable privileges over their content.
Any Möbius user across any institution can create and share content and questions with other users.
Learning Impact: The platform has been popular with students due to its engaging lesson delivery and the learning support it provides.
Students found the platform easy to navigate and use, allowing them to practice where they needed additional practice while receiving immediate, meaningful feedback. Möbius also allowed the University to make its math courses more affordable for students; students get a year-long license at an affordable rate, which saves the students on the costs of a typical textbook. Cost savings for students was an area that was important to faculty when they were searching for the right solution for delivering quality, engaging mathematics courses online.
Noni™ – a Digital Coach for Building Trauma-Sensitive Classrooms
Noni and Teaching Strategies
User: K-12 (preschool, pre-K, and elementary school)
Goals: Address adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) to create an environment in which students can learn and realize their academic and social potential.
Challenge: Teachers and students alike are facing unprecedented challenges amid, and as a result of, the ongoing pandemic.
Solution: Noni™ is a responsive app-based digital coach that provides real-time support to help teachers build trauma-sensitive classrooms and understand, manage, and predict dysregulated child behaviors that stem from exposure to toxic stress and ACEs.
The app also provides intervention and prevention plans, whole-class guidance, support for partnering with families of trauma-impacted children, built-in teacher professional development around trauma and adverse childhood experiences, and resources that address teachers' own self-care and mental wellness (including 55 teaching practices and 75 self-care tips) so they can show up for children.
Learning Impact: The approaches that informed the app have significantly improved children’s social information processing and reduced suspension and expulsion rates. 75% of caregivers reported their children succeeding academically and socially three years after transitioning out of care.