Technology has no effect on student achievement

When you introduce technology into the classroom, and hold learning content, instructional practice, assessment experiences, and professional development constant, you actually hold back learning; students learn less in one year than they learned without the technology. This has been reported in numerous studies, including John Hattie’s Visible Learning.

However when digital tools are leveraged “to enhance highly reliable instructional and learning strategies”, students have been observed learning four years of material in one year. The effect of technology use coupled with the effective execution of highly reliable instructional strategies is greater than the effect of either in isolation.

What are these highly reliable instructional strategies? Strategies that support Hattie and Donoghue’s Model of Learning, which has three phases:

1. Surface Learning: acquisition of facts and content, first in short term and then through practice and rehearsal to consolidate the learning and vocabulary into a superficial understanding.
2. Deep Learning: further consolidation of facts, content linking to other knowledge and abilities, and acquisition of deeper understanding.
3. Knowledge Transfer: consolidation of the deeper understanding into longer term memory and expanding capabilities to be able to apply it to different contexts to solve new problems.

Highly effective instructional strategies are ones that lead students through this process. One system that has documented success is the T3 Framework developed by Sonny Magana, author of Disruptive Classroom Technologies: A Framework for Innovation in Education:

1. Translational Technology Use: translating tasks from analog into digital form, which automates some tasks and allows consumption of resources through digital media.
2. Transformational Technology Use: enacting significant changes in learning tasks and student activities in ways that were not possible without technology.
3. Transcendent Technology Use: learning activities that prepare students to master future learning and utilize what they have learned in ways that may by inconceivable today.

Practically, what does that mean for teachers, students, classes, and schools today?

Here are three ways to find out. 1) Dr. Magana is going to be speaking at FETC. Register, attend, and learn. 2) His books are available from Amazon.

And 3) on November 29, Dr. Magana is going to lead an online discussion on Edchat Interactive. Register and attend; it’s free.