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Must Have Technology in Education for 2024

2/16/2024

Family Engagement Lab gathers insights from the field

Family Engagement Lab went on a listening tour with school district leaders across the country from districts of varying sizes, student populations, and strategic priorities. We asked these leaders about their top priorities for the 23-24 school year, the things that are keepinging them up at night, and the things that have them most excited about the future of education. In this post, we’ll explore some of the themes that emerged from these interviews and the implications for technology programs in education.

Top pain points that surfaced for School District Leaders

There were some unsurprising trends that surfaced from these conversations around top pain points and challenges for district leaders. A few things that are keeping district leaders up at night; challenges with retaining high-quality educators, concerns about balancing student academic performance and well-being post-pandemic, and managing unwieldy technology ecosystems that expanded as a result of pandemic-era technology purchases.

There were some additional, and unexpected, themes that emerged around the role of family engagement in student academic achievement. District leaders shared that there is general agreement about the value of engaging families to support their child’s learning and academic performance, particularly when it comes to promoting attendance and classroom engagement. Yet, there is also a sentiment that the family engagement strategies adopted during the pandemic are falling short of meaningfully engaging families. There also appears to be a very real need for content that provides evidence-based, learning-focused strategies that are specifically designed for parents and families.

Key Benefits & Implications for Technology in Education

The results from our listening tour also surfaced many of the benefits that education technology offers to students, teachers, and families. Most importantly, effective selection and use of education technology can greatly enhance student learning experiences, making learning more engaging, rigorous, and relevant. After hearing from District leaders, we’ll be keeping our eye on a few categories of education technology that are showing real promise:

Educational games and practice platforms are boosting student engagement by increasing instructional relevance, tapping into different motivational strategies, and providing options for differentiated learning.
Classroom solutions that enable teachers to differentiate instruction, and provide more streamlined ways to monitor student progress.
Family engagement and school messaging solutions that facilitate seamless information and data sharing between teachers and families, focused on supporting each students’ individual learning needs and goals.

Ultimately, school district leaders also noted that they will continue to prioritize solutions that center student learning, deliver evidence-based strategies, and integrate seamlessly into the technology ecosystem. These solutions are more likely to; reduce teacher burnout by making teachers jobs easier, create opportunities for personalized learning, and maximize opportunities for learning inside and outside of the classroom. Broadly, we’ll continue to see Districts move towards streamlining their tech stack to ensure that their learning ecosystem is addressing the following priorities:

Enable educators to deliver seamless instruction through adoption of high-quality instructional materials for ELA, math and science, effective use of learning management systems, and integration of classroom management tools and blended/online learning platforms.
Provide students with opportunities for personalized learning. Programming might include tutoring that provides one-to-one learning support, platforms that offer gamified practice experiences, and specialized programs for STEM and language learning.
Extend opportunities for learning outside of the classroom through extended-day and summer programming that are aligned with high-quality instructional materials.
Empower educators through ongoing professional development to build the skills and knowledge to deliver high-quality instruction, effectively manage their classroom, and adopt high-impact strategies for engaging families to support student learning.

Programs that all districts should consider

The 2024-2025 academic year will continue to see a shift in education technology, as noted in the District Administration piece on key trends in EdTech; increasing emphasis will be placed on assessing the success of academic interventions and relying on data to drive decision-making. This trend underscores the importance of grading solutions, assessment platforms and student SIS systems that make it easy to collect student-level data. Data warehousing and visualization solutions will be increasingly important as Districts are trying to aggregate and make meaningful use of student level-data to assess the success of academic interventions.

We’ll continue to see curricular shifts in literacy towards the Science of Reading and adoption of high-quality Mathematics instructional materials, which will change the ways in which teachers are delivering high quality instruction. Districts will need to provide professional development for teachers to ensure successful adoption and implementation of new curriculum and instructional strategies. To help strike a balance and reduce teachers’ workload, Districts will also continue to explore opportunities for AI to support effective instruction, especially in areas where effective use of AI may help free up time by removing or automating daily tasks.

We’d offer that Districts might be missing a critical opportunity to effectively engage families in support of their child’s learning and development. Parents have the capacity and desire to enhance the learning experience for their child by helping to draw connections between school-based instruction and real-world contexts.

Family Engagement Lab is committed to helping Districts leverage the potential of high-impact family engagement to accelerate student learning outcomes. Our experience in the field has revealed that there is a cascade of positive effects when Districts equip families with the information and tools they need to support their child’s learning and development.

Families with take those insights and engage with their child to connect classroom instruction with real-world applications,
Students thrive in a supportive learning ecosystem that extends beyond the school day, and experience substantial gains in ELA and math.

We’re addressing an important pain point that has surfaced from these interviews - providing learning-focused strategies and activities that are designed specifically for families. FASTalk is an evidence based parent-teacher communication tool that translates high-quality instructional materials into tips and activities that families can easily use to support their child’s learning outside of the classroom. FASTalk tips and activities are informed by best practices for engaging families and are professionally developed to align with high-quality instructional materials. We’ve spent several years evaluating FASTalk’s impact on academic achievement and have observed significant improvements in student learning outcomes in ELA and math.

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Empower educators, Engage parents and families, Enhance learning for Students

District leaders are shaping the future of k-12 education now. They are making decisions informed by the needs of learners and staff in their district, are focused on evidence-based strategies and programs, and are considering how new solutions integrate into the existing tech stack. We’d offer that high-impact family engagement will enhance the existing learning ecosystem for educators and students.

Family feedback surfaces strategies teachers can implement in their classroom

2/2/2024

Author: Kelsey Hodge

Teachers and parents/families are the most important stakeholders in a student’s learning journey. A student’s success is dependent on both teachers and families being equipped with the information and tools they need to provide support. Consistent communication between teachers and families, that is learning-focused, can activate a powerful partnership that makes the most of classroom instruction and opportunities to reinforce learning at home.

As FEL’s Partner Success Manager, I am responsible for helping teachers implement high-quality family engagement strategies through FASTalk - our parent-teacher communication platform. As a former teacher, I have firsthand experience with implementing family engagement strategies in the classroom. My experience balancing the needs of students with complex instructional material, and prioritizing family communication, makes me uniquely positioned to help other practitioners in the field.

I recently co-facilitated focus groups with families in DeSoto Parish Public Schools, where they shared more about their experiences receiving learning-focused communication from their child’s teacher. Below I share some reflections based on their feedback and how this shapes our work sharing effective strategies with FASTalk Teachers.

What family engagement strategies have you implemented as a former teacher? What were some of the challenges you faced?
My first school emphasized the importance of building learning-centered relationships with families by prioritizing regular, on-going school communication about what students were learning and their areas of strength and weakness. That experience fueled my interactions with my students’ caregivers when I entered the classroom as a secondary social studies teacher in Dallas. With more students and complex instructional material, I struggled to provide accessible snapshots of our learning goals and consistent insights into students’ academic growth. Each year in the classroom provided me with the opportunity to build that muscle, but I still found it challenging to balance many competing priorities.

FASTalk reduces the burden on teachers by working alongside schools to create playlists of messages aligned to student learning that are sent automatically to families each week on the teacher’s behalf.

What stood out most to you from the focus groups in DeSoto? How will this shape your work and the touchpoints you have with FASTalk teachers?
I found it striking how much families across grade-levels appreciated the conversations and interactions that the FASTalk messages prompted for them. Each caregiver revealed moments of connection that grew from FASTalk texts, from prompts that encouraged the hands-on measuring of items around the house to prompts that sparked dialogue on real-world questions at the heart of classroom novels. It was heartening to hear caregivers with students in different grade-levels share how the FASTalk texts led their children to connect with one another around learning. After posing a FASTalk question on a novel being read in class, one mother listened to her older child who’d previously read the book discuss it with his younger sibling. Another mother shared how much her younger child looked forward to hearing her older sibling’s FASTalk texts and engaging in the conversation as well.

The focus groups in Desoto highlighted for me the importance of elevating family feedback and stories for teachers. Stories like the ones that Megan and I heard provide a really essential window into the impact of the FASTalk messages that teachers may not regularly see. I’ll be using future touchpoints and communication with teachers to highlight stories from families in their districts.

Was any of the feedback surprising? In what ways?
There were notable differences in how families hoped to engage with their child’s learning at the elementary and secondary levels. The two sessions reinforced for me that just as the needs of families change depending on grade level, so does the support that teachers need to engage families in learning-focused relationships. It’s not only important for our team to elevate family feedback for teachers but also for us to provide ideas for ways in which FASTalk can facilitate on-going dialogue around information desired by families and information shared by teachers. It’s essential for our team to hear from teachers at both the elementary and secondary levels to better understand their needs in order to tailor the support we provide.

At Family Engagement Lab, we are committed to helping districts, schools, and educators implement best practices in family engagement that invite parents and families to support student learning. When family engagement is done well, teachers feel supported, families feel connected and purposeful, and students thrive.

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