On the minds of most K12 edtech CEOs -- after how Covid-19 will affect their immediate sales -- is how to best position their products for the new learning paradigm.
“The genie is out of the bottle when it comes to virtual learning,” declared Andreas Schleicher of OECD last week. The bureaucracy and lack of community engagement that holds back innovation in education have been exposed by the needs of the moment. “Students will personalize their learning, even if the systems around them won’t,” Schleicher points out.
While Covid-19 is sure to accelerate the shift toward digital learning, K12 leaders will first have to overcome the new challenges and shrinking budgets left in the pandemic’s wake. Here are three opportunities for K12 edtech companies to consider in the coming months.
Opportunity #1: Fill the assessment gap
As of recent, states and school districts are relieved of the requirement to conduct end-of-year summative assessments. This change frees up time and energy that would have otherwise been focused on test preparation and administration. Accountability measures are derived from the results of these tests and performing well drives the behavior of administrators.
But the lack of major assessments will rupture the continuity of personalized learning year-over-year. Schools use these assessments to identify struggling students and to prescribe different forms of personalized learning for the following school year.
Without these assessments, schools are turning to digital programs that contain both assessment and instruction. In Texas, schools are doubling down on iStation and Moby Math because these programs contain basic progress monitoring in math and language arts.
While these programs are effective at showing the pace of student progress, they lack the comprehensive snapshot of student achievement against grade-level expectations that summative tests provide. Edtech startups can fill this gap by providing alternative assessments and options for tailoring personalized learning.
Opportunity #2: Help schools plan for multiple contingencies
While a handful of states have canceled the remainder of this school year, most states and educators have not given up on resuming in May. This uncertainty is requiring educators to plan resources and learning strategies for different scenarios and unfolding challenges:
> How will learning resume if we return to school soon?
> Are new tools like Zoom safe and equitable for all students?
> What happens if the start of school is delayed next year?
Uncertainty in the timeline is forcing educators to build agility into their strategic plans and adopt the silicon valley mindset of “failing fast.” The unfolding story of Zoom in education is an indicator of this tension.
The number of weekly active users on Zoom has skyrocketed during Covid-19, partially due to the rise in remote and distance learning. But the initial embrace from schools has become strained by the challenges inherent in providing all students with a safe and high-quality experience. As a result, many school districts -- including New York Public Schools -- are revisiting their policy toward Zoom.
The implication of this change is a dramatic reduction in live teacher instruction. And as a result, educators are becoming more dependent on supplemental programs that can be deployed in different environments and with minimal teacher or parent oversight.
Opportunity #3: Help teachers manage anxious parents
Covid-19 will be a trying period for teachers because of the new demand for managing parent expectations. Parents have now become adjunct teachers themselves and are coping with the new responsibility of keeping their children productively engaged throughout the day.
At the same time, educators are scrambling to develop failsafe instructional materials for use at home, react to changes in district policy toward programs like Zoom, and communicate this to anxious parents. That is the equivalent of building the plane while flying it and providing Southwest-style customer service.
The biggest need that parents have is for childcare. Brick and mortar schools work because they provide a safe communal place for children to go during the day. The massive obligation to keep children busy has now shifted onto parents, as has the challenge of supporting students with different learning styles and needs. For example, what should you do if one child breezes through their workload and the other is struggling?
Unfortunately, teachers are receiving the brunt of parent’s anxiety. I listened to a beloved first-grade teacher brief an Austin ISD parent group this weekend. Instead of recognizing the abundance of extra work that went into preparing his outline, parents berated this teacher with requests for even earlier access to resources, screenshots of individual student reports, and more of his time effectively babysitting their children.
It’s fair for parents to feel the weight of their new responsibilities. But a lack of appreciation for the behind the scenes work is leading to an influx of new demands and strains on teachers. Should this teacher oblige and manually download progress reports from both Moby Max and iStation?
Edtech companies can help teachers now by designing tools and content that support their communication with parents. In this example, the ability to download student progress reports in mass would save this teacher an hour of work each week. By streamlining the points of intersection between parents and teachers, we can ensure that teachers remain doing what they do best: directing our children’s learning.