Advancing Teaching & Learning Innovation

Summary: GDLS is a proprietary digital educational system that utilizes AI to offer personalized learning solutions. Through engaging video lessons, students grasp the content of each learning unit. The AI generates questions that match their appropriate difficulty level based on their performance. Daily study time and comprehension are automatically tracked and visually represented, allowing students to reflect on their learning progress.

Learning Impact: Thanks to GDLS's adaptive learning, student comprehension has increased by 41.1%, and the number of learning sessions has grown by 32.3%. One of our major clients has leveraged GDLS's ease of customization to integrate their unique learning content for junior high school entrance exams and video lessons, providing added-value services to their customers. In our Gakken online learning services, GDLS is offered within an educational metaverse space, creating an environment that closely resembles a real learning center in a virtual setting. Additionally, the individualized learning advice feature, powered by generative AI, has become a strong motivator for daily GDLS usage, resulting in students solving over 10,000 questions in a single month.

Summary: Effective communication between schools and homes is vital for student success. In the past, SUSD's 21,500 students experienced challenges due to inconsistent communication methods. To address this, SUSD implemented ParentSquare after a successful pilot in the 22-23 school year. ParentSquare is a unified platform for enhancing communication among schools, parents, and students, providing a centralized portal for parents to connect with educators. It facilitates streamlined information exchange among district administrators, teachers, and parents, covering updates and student achievements. Additionally, feedback highlights its role in breaking down language barriers and improving communication.

Learning Impact: Implementing ParentSquare has enhanced communication between parents and the school, leading to better engagement in students' educational journeys. Data cleanup in the student information system achieved a 99.8% contact ability, addressing communication gaps. Currently, 46% of SUSD parents have downloaded the app. ParentSquare facilitates scheduling parent-teacher conferences, ongoing communication, and managing field trip permissions. It also provides timely safety alerts, proving vital during emergencies. SUSD is on track to achieve increased student attendance across all schools.

Summary: GaTutor, offered by Georgia Virtual Learning, provides free online tutoring for public high school students in Georgia in a secure online environment, focusing on 19 core subjects with the help of over 65 certified teachers. The platform integrates with schools' Student Information Systems to streamline access and operates outside regular school hours for flexibility. GaTutor features dedicated dashboards for students, tutors, and administrators to ensure efficient scheduling, session management, and access to various educational resources. This structure guarantees a tailored and practical learning experience by enhancing operations and prioritizing user convenience.

Learning Impact: By leveraging the established infrastructure and expertise of Georgia Virtual Learning, GaTutor offers personalized, accessible, and effective tutoring services to all public high school students in Georgia. Since its launch, GaTutor has served 706 students across 150 schools in 85 districts, with over 2,900 scheduled sessions. GaTutor promotes resilience in students by encouraging them to persist through challenges. Students engage actively in sessions, showing interest in learning beyond school hours. Their success in problem-solving boosts their confidence and motivates exploration of complex topics. Utilizing tools like video conferencing and whiteboards, each session is customized to meet individual needs. GaTutor impacts academics and fosters lifelong learners who welcome challenges and seek knowledge.

Summary: Expedition: Learn supports teachers in implementing standards-aligned, content-rich lessons that can be used for whole-class instruction, small-group reteaching, or independent instruction. Infusing world-class content with evidence-based practices, Expedition: Learn develops the content, background, and vocabulary knowledge students need to be successful in school, college, and life. In addition, our comprehensive resources for teachers and administrators ensure instruction is tailored to the individual student while promoting collaboration, discourse, and critical thinking.

Learning Impact: Expedition: Learn significantly shifted Massapequa's classrooms' teaching and learning dynamics. Teachers reported that this educational resource profoundly impacted direct instruction, making classroom activities more engaging and streamlined. By offering rich, interactive content that emphasizes literacy and critical thinking in science education, the tool effectively enhanced students’ learning experiences. Additionally, this resource supported teachers in delivering comprehensive content while embracing new and innovative teaching methods.

Summary: Navarro College's Inclusive Access (IA) program, known as Immediate Access, has transformed how students access course materials by focusing on affordability and immediate availability to enhance their learning experience. The IA program utilizes a course-by-course delivery model that automatically provides digital content to participating students, ensuring they can start learning on the first day of class. This initiative has turned the campus store into a community hub by eliminating financial barriers and offering digital materials from day one.

Learning Impact: In its first year, the program significantly improved academic outcomes, saved over half a million dollars, and facilitated engagement within the college community to promote accessible education. With a remarkable 95% opt-in rate from inception, IA is widely popular and heralds a positive shift in educational engagement and student satisfaction. IA has redefined how Navarro distributes course materials across the college by making learning resources affordable and easily accessible—fostering an environment conducive to personalized learning. Beyond the structural and operational improvements, students' demand for even more digital resources is growing.

Summary: The Hour of Engineering program introduces K-12 students to engineering concepts through accessible, interactive, and immersive learning experiences in formal and informal learning environments. Utilizing a mix of gaming and immersive learning strategies, it provides a flexible curriculum that aligns with educational standards and fosters an engineering mindset. The program includes hands-on activities and projects that challenge students to apply engineering principles to real-world problems. Implementation support using resources like lesson plans, teaching tips, and assessment tools helps any facilitator use the program.

Learning Impact: Integrating the program into the curriculum at Saint David Catholic School has resulted in significant improvements in STEM education and the use of educational technology. This program employs a project-based learning framework that clarifies learning outcomes and ensures mastery of STEM subjects. It aligns with rigorous academic standards, including the ITEEA Standards for Technological and Engineering Literacy (STEL) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Feedback from Saint David indicates that the program has positively impacted students' engagement levels and learning outcomes. Students who participate in the Hour of Engineering demonstrate enhanced critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity skills, which are essential in both academic and real-world contexts. Additionally, the program is designed to require minimal training for faculty, teachers, and learners, allowing advanced functionalities to be seamlessly incorporated into everyday educational activities.

Summary: StrataTech implements a Welding in Virtual Reality Experience called OcuWeld. This experience can be installed on Meta Quest headsets, letting students take welding lessons in a low-pressure and safe virtual environment, simulating welding in actual reality. Through a partnership between IntraEdge and Unicon, a platform to serve content over LTI and handle transactions between OcuWeld and the LMS was implemented. StrataTech can now author content in Canvas, sync content to their platform, and then deep link back into any LTI-supporting LMS. Users can log in with Canvas credentials and enter a 6-digit code to log in and send scores back to Stratatech and the LMS.

Learning Impact: StrataTech, with its LTI-enabled platform, can now offer its content and OcuWeld VR to any institution implementing an LTI-supporting LMS, which results in an improved experience for learners and teachers. By moving OcuWeld’s authentications to the requirements from Canvas to StrataTech’s platform and simplifying the login process, learners can more quickly access the Welding Simulation lessons. Instructors can see their students’ scores within the LMS gradebook. The instructor's view allows them to review student submissions quickly, grade them, and provide feedback via comments. 

Summary: Cogniti is an innovative, web-based generative AI platform developed as a one-stop-shop by instructors at the University of Sydney. It empowers educators to create customized AI agents for their students. These AI agents, built on the GPT-4 architecture, are tailored to specific course content and pedagogical goals, providing a highly adaptable tool to enhance teaching and learning experiences. Cogniti integrates seamlessly with Learning Management Systems through LTI 1.3, making it easily accessible for various student learning activities. The platform addresses critical challenges in educational AI, such as access, security, and personalization, by offering institutionally provisioned, secure, and instructor-controlled AI deployment.

Learning Impact: Cogniti's early adoption across numerous institutions (600+ AI agents created by educators from 30 institutions from Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore) highlights its potential to democratize AI in education by making sophisticated AI tools accessible and relevant to educational contexts. There has been increased student engagement in in-class activities, where they interact with Cogniti agents designed by their instructor. Thousands of syllabus and content-related questions have been answered, enhancing student learning and overall experience. Additionally, personalized feedback has improved for thousands of students, increasing AI literacy among students and faculty.

Summary: North Carolina's Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) has developed a Digital Learning Plan that outlines strategies to enhance student learning through technology. This plan includes state, district, and school-level rubrics that define actionable goals for implementation. It provides statewide support to foster growth at the district, school, and individual educator levels. NCDPI conducts workshops to empower district teams, enabling them to evaluate their performance against the rubrics and create action plans for improvement. Partnerships with associations offer statewide memberships to all educators, giving them access to professional learning options that align with the Digital Learning Plan. Additionally, tailored professional development and networking support are provided for technology leaders, edtech coaches, school librarians, and classroom teachers, thereby establishing a comprehensive growth pathway in educational technology across the state.

Learning Impact: The North Carolina Digital Learning Plan contributes to a more skilled and connected educational community, ultimately improving student learning outcomes and educational experiences across the state.

Summary: The RISE Challenge offers teachers a self-paced, implementation-focused professional learning experience emphasizing flexibility, sustainability, and a positive impact on instruction. Understanding the need for professional development that goes beyond a “one-and-done” or “sit-and-get” approach, the School District of Pickens County team utilizes Schoology to create and curate challenges that align with the district's mission and vision. These challenges also highlight the various digital tools available within our extensive digital ecosystem.

Learning Impact: By integrating PowerLearning with Schoology, teachers can access professional development challenges focused on effectively using technology in the classroom and reflecting on their teaching methods. They can search for courses in PowerLearning that align with their professional needs and automatically enroll in the corresponding Schoology course to complete at their own pace. During the 2023-2024 academic year, over 441 courses were completed, and five new courses were added for teachers by integrating PowerLearning and Schoology. Additionally, the inaugural year of the implementation-based RISE Challenge allowed 241 groups of students to benefit from using instructional technology tools during implementation.

Summary: Terracotta at Indiana University offers the necessary infrastructure to support rigorous and responsible research within the classroom. It is a free, open-source LTI tool featuring a robust experiment builder that guides users through the research process. This opens up research opportunities for curious teachers who want to gather data from their classes. Additionally, Terracotta facilitates collaboration between teachers and researchers seeking insights into learning and instruction. It directly integrates a complete research toolkit into and LMS course site, allowing users to embed experiments into course assignments. The tool simplifies the process of collecting student consent with just a few clicks, randomly assigns consenting students to different conditions, connects assignments to specific outcomes, and provides de-identified data to assess how various assignment versions impact student learning.

Learning Impact: Using Terracotta empowers teachers to innovate in their classrooms and actively contribute to our shared understanding of effective instructional practices. This initiative will benefit students at Indiana University and beyond by rapidly expanding the evidence base for successful teaching strategies, providing a contextual understanding of where these strategies are most effective, and fostering a faculty community dedicated to researching digital learning environments.