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New advances in technology are upending education, from the recent debut of new artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT to the growing accessibility of virtual-reality tools that expand the boundaries of the classroom. For educators, at the heart of it all is the hope that every learner gets an equal chance to develop the skills they need to succeed. But that promise is not without its pitfalls.

“Technology is a game-changer for education – it offers the prospect of universal access to high-quality learning experiences, and it creates fundamentally new ways of teaching,” said Dan Schwartz, dean of Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE), who is also a professor of educational technology at the GSE and faculty director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning . “But there are a lot of ways we teach that aren’t great, and a big fear with AI in particular is that we just get more efficient at teaching badly. This is a moment to pay attention, to do things differently.”

For K-12 schools, this year also marks the end of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding program, which has provided pandemic recovery funds that many districts used to invest in educational software and systems. With these funds running out in September 2024, schools are trying to determine their best use of technology as they face the prospect of diminishing resources.

Here, Schwartz and other Stanford education scholars weigh in on some of the technology trends taking center stage in the classroom this year.

AI in the classroom

In 2023, the big story in technology and education was generative AI, following the introduction of ChatGPT and other chatbots that produce text seemingly written by a human in response to a question or prompt. Educators immediately worried that students would use the chatbot to cheat by trying to pass its writing off as their own. As schools move to adopt policies around students’ use of the tool, many are also beginning to explore potential opportunities – for example, to generate reading assignments or coach students during the writing process.

AI can also help automate tasks like grading and lesson planning, freeing teachers to do the human work that drew them into the profession in the first place, said Victor Lee, an associate professor at the GSE and faculty lead for the AI + Education initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning. “I’m heartened to see some movement toward creating AI tools that make teachers’ lives better – not to replace them, but to give them the time to do the work that only teachers are able to do,” he said. “I hope to see more on that front.”

He also emphasized the need to teach students now to begin questioning and critiquing the development and use of AI. “AI is not going away,” said Lee, who is also director of CRAFT (Classroom-Ready Resources about AI for Teaching), which provides free resources to help teach AI literacy to high school students across subject areas. “We need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology.”

Immersive environments

The use of immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality is also expected to surge in the classroom, especially as new high-profile devices integrating these realities hit the marketplace in 2024.

The educational possibilities now go beyond putting on a headset and experiencing life in a distant location. With new technologies, students can create their own local interactive 360-degree scenarios, using just a cell phone or inexpensive camera and simple online tools.

“This is an area that’s really going to explode over the next couple of years,” said Kristen Pilner Blair, director of research for the Digital Learning initiative at the Stanford Accelerator for Learning, which runs a program exploring the use of virtual field trips to promote learning. “Students can learn about the effects of climate change, say, by virtually experiencing the impact on a particular environment. But they can also become creators, documenting and sharing immersive media that shows the effects where they live.”

Integrating AI into virtual simulations could also soon take the experience to another level, Schwartz said. “If your VR experience brings me to a redwood tree, you could have a window pop up that allows me to ask questions about the tree, and AI can deliver the answers.”

Gamification

Another trend expected to intensify this year is the gamification of learning activities, often featuring dynamic videos with interactive elements to engage and hold students’ attention.

“Gamification is a good motivator, because one key aspect is reward, which is very powerful,” said Schwartz. The downside? Rewards are specific to the activity at hand, which may not extend to learning more generally. “If I get rewarded for doing math in a space-age video game, it doesn’t mean I’m going to be motivated to do math anywhere else.”

Gamification sometimes tries to make “chocolate-covered broccoli,” Schwartz said, by adding art and rewards to make speeded response tasks involving single-answer, factual questions more fun. He hopes to see more creative play patterns that give students points for rethinking an approach or adapting their strategy, rather than only rewarding them for quickly producing a correct response.

Data-gathering and analysis

The growing use of technology in schools is producing massive amounts of data on students’ activities in the classroom and online. “We’re now able to capture moment-to-moment data, every keystroke a kid makes,” said Schwartz – data that can reveal areas of struggle and different learning opportunities, from solving a math problem to approaching a writing assignment.

But outside of research settings, he said, that type of granular data – now owned by tech companies – is more likely used to refine the design of the software than to provide teachers with actionable information.

The promise of personalized learning is being able to generate content aligned with students’ interests and skill levels, and making lessons more accessible for multilingual learners and students with disabilities. Realizing that promise requires that educators can make sense of the data that’s being collected, said Schwartz – and while advances in AI are making it easier to identify patterns and findings, the data also needs to be in a system and form educators can access and analyze for decision-making. Developing a usable infrastructure for that data, Schwartz said, is an important next step.

With the accumulation of student data comes privacy concerns: How is the data being collected? Are there regulations or guidelines around its use in decision-making? What steps are being taken to prevent unauthorized access? In 2023 K-12 schools experienced a rise in cyberattacks, underscoring the need to implement strong systems to safeguard student data.

Technology is “requiring people to check their assumptions about education,” said Schwartz, noting that AI in particular is very efficient at replicating biases and automating the way things have been done in the past, including poor models of instruction. “But it’s also opening up new possibilities for students producing material, and for being able to identify children who are not average so we can customize toward them. It’s an opportunity to think of entirely new ways of teaching – this is the path I hope to see.”

The Modernization of Higher Education

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In 2015, Education 2030: Incheon Declaration stipulated a new comprehensive goal of ensuring quality education that is inclusive and equitable for all and life-long learning opportunity by 2030. The following Framework of Education 2030 reiterated this vision, suggesting ten specific goals and strategies for action (UNESCO 2015). In response, China’s Position Paper on the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda issued by the Chinese government in 2016 proposed to “deepen the progress of modernizing education” (Pan and Li 2016).

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Assuring quality education and learning: Lessons from Education for All

Major Education Policy Thrusts

The Indian Higher Education System

In 2015, Education 2030: Incheon Declaration stipulated a new comprehensive goal of ensuring quality education that is inclusive and equitable for all and life-long learning opportunity by 2030. The following Framework of Education 2030 reiterated this vision, suggesting ten specific goals and strategies for action (UNESCO 2015 ). In response, China’s Position Paper on the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda issued by the Chinese government in 2016 proposed to “deepen the progress of modernizing education” (Pan and Li 2016 ).

The 18th National People’s Congress (NPC) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) advanced socioeconomic change through the implementation of a national governance system and modernization of its national governing capacity. These changes have since emerged in China’s higher education sector: under the jurisdiction of the CPC’s State Council, the Ministry of Education implements policies and changes at all levels. However, as the base of China’s prosperity, higher education is not simply an issue of initiatives to modernize governance. Rather, higher education requires modernization overall to better enable it to shoulder the responsibility of building a strong China. Accordingly, to develop higher education for a stronger China has been written into China’s educational reform and development guidelines. However, this prompts the key question: what kind of higher education can best shoulder the responsibility of creating and maintaining a strong and prosperous China? The answer is the modernization of higher education (MHE). Indeed, MEH is the end, means, and foundation of the development of a Chinese higher education that will strengthen the country. As a key theoretical issue in urgent need of resolution during the process of higher educational reform in China, MHE is also a stringently practical issue in the creation of a strong higher education system. The modernization of China’s higher education relies on the theoretical guidance, underscoring the significance of discussing MHE. This chapter addresses the following three questions: What is MHE? What are the characteristics and components of MHE? How can MHE be achieved?

1 What Is MHE?

By now, Chinese scholars defined MHE from its coverage (Research Project Group 2017 ), characteristics (Zhang 2010 ), and its process (Zhang 2000 ). In 2013, Professor Zhenyuan Qu, then-President of China Society of Higher Education, argued that MHE is a key objective of higher education reform and development in the new period of China. He further advanced that theorization is required before MHE can be realized (Qu 2014 ).

To define the concept of MHE, it is necessary to clarify the following questions: Is MHE a target-oriented or process-based concept? Is it a concept that focuses on the future or does it concern the status quo ? Is it an internationally comparable concept or a local one? If it is a target-oriented concept, what is its target? If it is a concept focusing on the future, when is this future? If MHE is an internationally comparable concept, what is the reference nation? Since they pertain to MHE, these basic theoretical issues are inevitable. As such, in order to have a clearer understanding of MHE, this section briefly reviews the historical backgrounds of how definition of modernization in China was coming in shape in a few decades.

China has been an advocate and pursuer of modernization. It was at the first session of the third NPC, held in December 1964, that China’s Premier, Enlai Zhou, first mentioned the concept of “Four Modernizations”—namely Industrial Modernization, Agricultural Modernization, National Defense Modernization, and Science and Technology Modernization—based on the suggestions of Zedong Mao. Zhou also set a target of achieving these “Four Modernizations” within a period of 30 years. In the first 15 years, China endeavored to establish an independent and complete industrial and national economic system in an effort to make China’s industry globally advanced by world standards. In the remaining 15 years, China sought to play a leading role in industry and realize the modernization of its agriculture, industry, national defense, as well as science and technology by the end of the twentieth century.

In December 1979, however, Xiaoping Deng argued the aforementioned modernization was too vague, advancing the concept of modernization as the realization of moderate prosperity instead. In 1984, he defined “moderate prosperity” as achieving US$ 800 GDP per capita by the end of the twentieth century, thereby facilitating a concrete and operational data reference for China’s modernization. With the increase of China’s GDP per capita, at its 17th NPC in October 2007, the CPC proposed a target of realizing all-round moderate prosperity in the first 20 years of the twenty-first century and achieving a jump from US$ 1000 to US$ 3000 GDP per capita. China’s GDP per capita reached US$ 6100 in 2012. Therefore, after the 18th NPC, the CPC revised and redefined its “Four Modernizations” to industrialization, digitalization, urbanization, and agricultural modernization. As such, China’s socioeconomic modernization is both locally defined and internationally comparable that focuses on a certain period in the future, while having a quantitatively measurable target. That is to say, the concept of modernization has been continuously adjusted and improved with the development of society.

In 1983, Deng used the slogan “Education should be oriented toward modernization, to the world and to the future” to first propose the modernization of education in China. However, it appears to have been Boling Zhang, founder of Nankai University in Tianjin, who first linked education with modernization. Asked the purpose of education during a speech at Nankai High School, Zhang answered that “the purpose of education is to use education to modernize China and to make China properly position in the world, avoid of being eliminating from the world” (Cui 1997 : 208). As such, Zhang realized that the purpose of education was to save and strengthen China. In contrast to both Zhang and the “Four Modernizations,” Deng’s time-free and data-free expression of “Three Orientations” of education delineated the future direction of China’s education reform and development. “Three Orientations” education remains methodologically significant to our understanding of the modernization of education. As such, the modernization of education is hardly an independent concept; rather, its interpretation cannot be separated from the world and the future.

This prompts the following question: can we define MHE based on our understanding of “Three Orientations” education, while referring to the modernization of the economy and society? Based on my previous research (Sui 2009 : 2014), MHE, as a relative and contextualized concept, can be defined as a target system and effort making with reference to the most advanced international higher education, reflecting the best status of current or future higher education development.

2 What Are the Characteristics and Components of MHE?

Based on the previous definition of MHE, we can argue that the characteristics of MHE are not a reflection of its internal independent components; rather, it is a collective presentation of many similar special relationships between the internal and external factors of higher education. These relationships can be summarized as follows. First, MHE is both an internationally comparable and international target, as well as a process focused on the local context. Second, MHE highlights both quantity and quality and is a combination of elite and universal education. Third, MHE is the target of future higher education and directs its development, thus both the process and status of higher education development. Fourth, MHE originates from the needs of national competition and modernization, leads the development of the nation’s modernization, and constitutes the essential base of the nation’s modernization. Fifth, MHE is a modernization of the macro governance system of higher education, as well as that of university leaders’ capacity to govern the university. Finally, MHE is a combination of the modernization of higher education ideologies, content, approaches, and methods.

As such, the concept of MHE is hardly an isolated and abstract concept. Rather, it is an umbrella concept comprising a set of higher education components or expressions showing some of the conditions of higher education, whether as a target or process. Since MHE is a complex status and process of higher education development in which many factors have been involved, it is impossible to use one term to depict MHE and its process. Some scholars identified four indicators, namely scale, input, quality, and effectiveness, to evaluate MHE (Ling and Yu 2015 ). Based on the definition given in the part 1, there are six components of MHE identified in the following:

Universalization of higher education . This refers to the aim of at least 50% of school-aged people having access to higher education (Martin 1973 ). It is the threshold target of realizing MHE on the initial stage.

Quality higher education . There are such two core missions of higher education as cultivating talents and contributing new knowledge. Without adequate quality and effectiveness, scale and quantity, for example, cannot justify a genuine MHE.

Good governance structure . An effective governing structure puts efficiency first, engages democratic management, embraces an overall design, and is guaranteed by laws and regulations. This constitutes the institutional premise and organizational environment for assuring MHE.

Internationalization of higher education. MHE itself is an internationally comparable concept, representing the most advanced and highest level of a nation’s higher education. Therefore, the internalization of higher education is the most important component of MHE and is discussed greater detail in the third section of this article.

Digitalization of higher education. In addition to changing people’s lives and production, the prevailing modern ICT and its rapid progress have challenged traditional higher education in terms of its concepts, methods, and approaches—bringing higher education into the new era of education. With the expansive development of open online courses (MOOCs), higher education resources are no longer monopolized by a small number of universities and are not a privilege of certain knowledge elites. The modernization of ICT has challenged higher education greatly, changing the ways and approaches of traditional higher education, the concept of traditional higher education, and the significance of their existence. However, modern ICT has not challenged traditional higher education subversively. Rather, the all-round trend of digitalization of higher education (e.g., MOOCs) and the challenges it has brought have been recognized by societies around the world and are regarded as a developmental trend and the future direction of higher education.

A learning society of higher education. A learning society is fundamentally different from a qualification-based society. Instead of specifically targeting specific qualifications within a specified period, higher education learning will become a lifestyle, a leisure, and a lifelong education pursued to satisfy interests and update knowledge. As an ideal of higher education, a higher education learning society is actually a type of social status with open learning time and space, diverse learning content, equal learning opportunities, plenary learners, and subjective learning processes. Such a learning society not only reflects the social pursuit of lifelong higher education but also provides a foundation from which to achieve higher learning in one’s lifespan. Arguably, a learning society of higher education could be the final target of MHE.

While it may be possible to identify other indicators of MHE, these six components are indispensable (Fig. 6.1 ).

The components of MHE

3 How Can MHE Be Achieved?

While higher education in China has witnessed remarkable progress in the past few decades, a significant gap remains between China and other countries with a strong higher education. China only gets ahead of scale of higher education, not to mention the efficiency and quality. As a result, there is an urgent to speed up the process of MHE in China. Of course, MHE characterized by the attainment of the highest level and comprehensive strengthening of higher education takes time to achieve. Given the importance of MHE and the indispensability of higher education for strengthening the nation, the issue of how to speed up and achieve MHE is urgent. Successful experiences of China’s tremendous socioeconomic changes since the third session of the 11th NPC can best be summarized by two keywords: “reform” and “opening-up.”

Therefore, since the 18th NPC, the new leadership teams of the central government of China have persistently practiced deep reform and are opening-up to facilitate the realization of China’ s dream. As an important and complex system in China’s national system, higher education is also experiencing significant revolution and revitalization. Therefore, the only way to realize MHE is through reform and opening-up.

3.1 MHE Achieved from Higher Education Reform

China recently released three development outlines for 2010–2020: namely, the “Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium- and Long-Term Science and Technology Development,” “Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium- and Long-Term Talent Development,” and the “Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium- and Long-Term Education Reform and Development.” “Reform to develop” has reiterated the three policy papers. In fact, there are two reasons why educational reform should come first in educational development. First, education is a complex social activity involving the largest number of social stakeholders with vested but diversified interests. Second, there are numerous problems that remain unresolved, while the sophisticated interlinkages between education and the government, society, the school system, and students have yet to be tidied-up. Moreover, the educational ideal intertwines with educational practice. These dynamics have constituted certain conflicts in and barriers to educational development, particularly to MHE. Reform is the undoubtedly the driving force and means of promoting MHE.

Higher education is a complex system with both uniformity and diversity, including many components and stakeholders. Moreover, the internal issues of higher education intertwine with its external factors. Therefore, higher education reform is a systematic project in which change to one aspect will affect the whole system. Thus, we must have a good understanding of the complexity of higher education. A one-sided, isolated, and static reform and solution could possibly solve temporary problems or part of the problems, achieving immediate outcomes; it, however, cannot resolve the problem fundamentally (Sui 2014a , b ). One way to reduce the uncertainty and complexity during the systematic reform of higher education is to engage in a comprehensive and systematic top-level approach toward the process, thereby preventing fragmented reform.

3.2 MHE Achieved via the Internalization of Higher Education

Given the idiosyncratic national contexts and historical-institutional paths, national higher education systems still share fundamental missions as an open social system in pursuit of efficiency and quality. As an open system, the general feature of higher education requires that it constantly absorbs external resources and energy in order to improve its efficiency and quality; rather than a closed or an isolated system that does not engage in resource and energy exchange with the external world, which is actually quite compatible with the concept of higher education internationalization.

The internalization of higher education is an activity and process that aims to improve higher education development and quality; it also endeavors to promote the sharing and mobility successful experiences, scientific technology, facilities, talents, and information by opening the higher education system and communicating and cooperating with international higher education providers (Pu and Sui 2016 ). Internationalization, thus, constitutes an effective approach to reaching the most advanced level of higher education in the world in the shortest time by learning and borrowing from more advanced methods, experiences, and technology. Consequently, as indicated by the previous discussion of MHE, higher education internationalization is not only a means and a key point of MHE but also an indispensable component reflecting MHE. As Jane Knight among others has concluded: “It is doubtless that the integration of higher education into the outside world appears to be urgent” (Zhang 2012 : 17) .

In an era in which knowledge has played an increasingly decisive role, higher education has become a symbol of a nation’s strength. Without a modernized and strong system of higher education, we are left asking what else could be relied upon to advance the country and realize the dream of a strong China lies the significance and purpose of studying MHE, as well as the commitment to speeding up the process of MHE.

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Sui, Y. (2020). The Modernization of Higher Education. In: Fan, G., Popkewitz, T.S. (eds) Handbook of Education Policy Studies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-8343-4_6

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Impacts of digital technologies on education and factors influencing schools' digital capacity and transformation: A literature review

Stella timotheou.

1 CYENS Center of Excellence & Cyprus University of Technology (Cyprus Interaction Lab), Cyprus, CYENS Center of Excellence & Cyprus University of Technology, Nicosia-Limassol, Cyprus

Ourania Miliou

Yiannis dimitriadis.

2 Universidad de Valladolid (UVA), Spain, Valladolid, Spain

Sara Villagrá Sobrino

Nikoleta giannoutsou, romina cachia.

3 JRC - Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Seville, Spain

Alejandra Martínez Monés

Andri ioannou, associated data.

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

Digital technologies have brought changes to the nature and scope of education and led education systems worldwide to adopt strategies and policies for ICT integration. The latter brought about issues regarding the quality of teaching and learning with ICTs, especially concerning the understanding, adaptation, and design of the education systems in accordance with current technological trends. These issues were emphasized during the recent COVID-19 pandemic that accelerated the use of digital technologies in education, generating questions regarding digitalization in schools. Specifically, many schools demonstrated a lack of experience and low digital capacity, which resulted in widening gaps, inequalities, and learning losses. Such results have engendered the need for schools to learn and build upon the experience to enhance their digital capacity and preparedness, increase their digitalization levels, and achieve a successful digital transformation. Given that the integration of digital technologies is a complex and continuous process that impacts different actors within the school ecosystem, there is a need to show how these impacts are interconnected and identify the factors that can encourage an effective and efficient change in the school environments. For this purpose, we conducted a non-systematic literature review. The results of the literature review were organized thematically based on the evidence presented about the impact of digital technology on education and the factors that affect the schools’ digital capacity and digital transformation. The findings suggest that ICT integration in schools impacts more than just students’ performance; it affects several other school-related aspects and stakeholders, too. Furthermore, various factors affect the impact of digital technologies on education. These factors are interconnected and play a vital role in the digital transformation process. The study results shed light on how ICTs can positively contribute to the digital transformation of schools and which factors should be considered for schools to achieve effective and efficient change.

Introduction

Digital technologies have brought changes to the nature and scope of education. Versatile and disruptive technological innovations, such as smart devices, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), blockchain, and software applications have opened up new opportunities for advancing teaching and learning (Gaol & Prasolova-Førland, 2021 ; OECD, 2021 ). Hence, in recent years, education systems worldwide have increased their investment in the integration of information and communication technology (ICT) (Fernández-Gutiérrez et al., 2020 ; Lawrence & Tar, 2018 ) and prioritized their educational agendas to adapt strategies or policies around ICT integration (European Commission, 2019 ). The latter brought about issues regarding the quality of teaching and learning with ICTs (Bates, 2015 ), especially concerning the understanding, adaptation, and design of education systems in accordance with current technological trends (Balyer & Öz, 2018 ). Studies have shown that despite the investment made in the integration of technology in schools, the results have not been promising, and the intended outcomes have not yet been achieved (Delgado et al., 2015 ; Lawrence & Tar, 2018 ). These issues were exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced teaching across education levels to move online (Daniel, 2020 ). Online teaching accelerated the use of digital technologies generating questions regarding the process, the nature, the extent, and the effectiveness of digitalization in schools (Cachia et al., 2021 ; König et al., 2020 ). Specifically, many schools demonstrated a lack of experience and low digital capacity, which resulted in widening gaps, inequalities, and learning losses (Blaskó et al., 2021 ; Di Pietro et al, 2020 ). Such results have engendered the need for schools to learn and build upon the experience in order to enhance their digital capacity (European Commission, 2020 ) and increase their digitalization levels (Costa et al., 2021 ). Digitalization offers possibilities for fundamental improvement in schools (OECD, 2021 ; Rott & Marouane, 2018 ) and touches many aspects of a school’s development (Delcker & Ifenthaler, 2021 ) . However, it is a complex process that requires large-scale transformative changes beyond the technical aspects of technology and infrastructure (Pettersson, 2021 ). Namely, digitalization refers to “ a series of deep and coordinated culture, workforce, and technology shifts and operating models ” (Brooks & McCormack, 2020 , p. 3) that brings cultural, organizational, and operational change through the integration of digital technologies (JISC, 2020 ). A successful digital transformation requires that schools increase their digital capacity levels, establishing the necessary “ culture, policies, infrastructure as well as digital competence of students and staff to support the effective integration of technology in teaching and learning practices ” (Costa et al, 2021 , p.163).

Given that the integration of digital technologies is a complex and continuous process that impacts different actors within the school ecosystem (Eng, 2005 ), there is a need to show how the different elements of the impact are interconnected and to identify the factors that can encourage an effective and efficient change in the school environment. To address the issues outlined above, we formulated the following research questions:

a) What is the impact of digital technologies on education?

b) Which factors might affect a school’s digital capacity and transformation?

In the present investigation, we conducted a non-systematic literature review of publications pertaining to the impact of digital technologies on education and the factors that affect a school’s digital capacity and transformation. The results of the literature review were organized thematically based on the evidence presented about the impact of digital technology on education and the factors which affect the schools’ digital capacity and digital transformation.

Methodology

The non-systematic literature review presented herein covers the main theories and research published over the past 17 years on the topic. It is based on meta-analyses and review papers found in scholarly, peer-reviewed content databases and other key studies and reports related to the concepts studied (e.g., digitalization, digital capacity) from professional and international bodies (e.g., the OECD). We searched the Scopus database, which indexes various online journals in the education sector with an international scope, to collect peer-reviewed academic papers. Furthermore, we used an all-inclusive Google Scholar search to include relevant key terms or to include studies found in the reference list of the peer-reviewed papers, and other key studies and reports related to the concepts studied by professional and international bodies. Lastly, we gathered sources from the Publications Office of the European Union ( https://op.europa.eu/en/home ); namely, documents that refer to policies related to digital transformation in education.

Regarding search terms, we first searched resources on the impact of digital technologies on education by performing the following search queries: “impact” OR “effects” AND “digital technologies” AND “education”, “impact” OR “effects” AND “ICT” AND “education”. We further refined our results by adding the terms “meta-analysis” and “review” or by adjusting the search options based on the features of each database to avoid collecting individual studies that would provide limited contributions to a particular domain. We relied on meta-analyses and review studies as these consider the findings of multiple studies to offer a more comprehensive view of the research in a given area (Schuele & Justice, 2006 ). Specifically, meta-analysis studies provided quantitative evidence based on statistically verifiable results regarding the impact of educational interventions that integrate digital technologies in school classrooms (Higgins et al., 2012 ; Tolani-Brown et al., 2011 ).

However, quantitative data does not offer explanations for the challenges or difficulties experienced during ICT integration in learning and teaching (Tolani-Brown et al., 2011 ). To fill this gap, we analyzed literature reviews and gathered in-depth qualitative evidence of the benefits and implications of technology integration in schools. In the analysis presented herein, we also included policy documents and reports from professional and international bodies and governmental reports, which offered useful explanations of the key concepts of this study and provided recent evidence on digital capacity and transformation in education along with policy recommendations. The inclusion and exclusion criteria that were considered in this study are presented in Table ​ Table1 1 .

Inclusion and exclusion criteria for the selection of resources on the impact of digital technologies on education

To ensure a reliable extraction of information from each study and assist the research synthesis we selected the study characteristics of interest (impact) and constructed coding forms. First, an overview of the synthesis was provided by the principal investigator who described the processes of coding, data entry, and data management. The coders followed the same set of instructions but worked independently. To ensure a common understanding of the process between coders, a sample of ten studies was tested. The results were compared, and the discrepancies were identified and resolved. Additionally, to ensure an efficient coding process, all coders participated in group meetings to discuss additions, deletions, and modifications (Stock, 1994 ). Due to the methodological diversity of the studied documents we began to synthesize the literature review findings based on similar study designs. Specifically, most of the meta-analysis studies were grouped in one category due to the quantitative nature of the measured impact. These studies tended to refer to student achievement (Hattie et al., 2014 ). Then, we organized the themes of the qualitative studies in several impact categories. Lastly, we synthesized both review and meta-analysis data across the categories. In order to establish a collective understanding of the concept of impact, we referred to a previous impact study by Balanskat ( 2009 ) which investigated the impact of technology in primary schools. In this context, the impact had a more specific ICT-related meaning and was described as “ a significant influence or effect of ICT on the measured or perceived quality of (parts of) education ” (Balanskat, 2009 , p. 9). In the study presented herein, the main impacts are in relation to learning and learners, teaching, and teachers, as well as other key stakeholders who are directly or indirectly connected to the school unit.

The study’s results identified multiple dimensions of the impact of digital technologies on students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes; on equality, inclusion, and social integration; on teachers’ professional and teaching practices; and on other school-related aspects and stakeholders. The data analysis indicated various factors that might affect the schools’ digital capacity and transformation, such as digital competencies, the teachers’ personal characteristics and professional development, as well as the school’s leadership and management, administration, infrastructure, etc. The impacts and factors found in the literature review are presented below.

Impacts of digital technologies on students’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, and emotions

The impact of ICT use on students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes has been investigated early in the literature. Eng ( 2005 ) found a small positive effect between ICT use and students' learning. Specifically, the author reported that access to computer-assisted instruction (CAI) programs in simulation or tutorial modes—used to supplement rather than substitute instruction – could enhance student learning. The author reported studies showing that teachers acknowledged the benefits of ICT on pupils with special educational needs; however, the impact of ICT on students' attainment was unclear. Balanskat et al. ( 2006 ) found a statistically significant positive association between ICT use and higher student achievement in primary and secondary education. The authors also reported improvements in the performance of low-achieving pupils. The use of ICT resulted in further positive gains for students, namely increased attention, engagement, motivation, communication and process skills, teamwork, and gains related to their behaviour towards learning. Evidence from qualitative studies showed that teachers, students, and parents recognized the positive impact of ICT on students' learning regardless of their competence level (strong/weak students). Punie et al. ( 2006 ) documented studies that showed positive results of ICT-based learning for supporting low-achieving pupils and young people with complex lives outside the education system. Liao et al. ( 2007 ) reported moderate positive effects of computer application instruction (CAI, computer simulations, and web-based learning) over traditional instruction on primary school student's achievement. Similarly, Tamim et al. ( 2011 ) reported small to moderate positive effects between the use of computer technology (CAI, ICT, simulations, computer-based instruction, digital and hypermedia) and student achievement in formal face-to-face classrooms compared to classrooms that did not use technology. Jewitt et al., ( 2011 ) found that the use of learning platforms (LPs) (virtual learning environments, management information systems, communication technologies, and information- and resource-sharing technologies) in schools allowed primary and secondary students to access a wider variety of quality learning resources, engage in independent and personalized learning, and conduct self- and peer-review; LPs also provide opportunities for teacher assessment and feedback. Similar findings were reported by Fu ( 2013 ), who documented a list of benefits and opportunities of ICT use. According to the author, the use of ICTs helps students access digital information and course content effectively and efficiently, supports student-centered and self-directed learning, as well as the development of a creative learning environment where more opportunities for critical thinking skills are offered, and promotes collaborative learning in a distance-learning environment. Higgins et al. ( 2012 ) found consistent but small positive associations between the use of technology and learning outcomes of school-age learners (5–18-year-olds) in studies linking the provision and use of technology with attainment. Additionally, Chauhan ( 2017 ) reported a medium positive effect of technology on the learning effectiveness of primary school students compared to students who followed traditional learning instruction.

The rise of mobile technologies and hardware devices instigated investigations into their impact on teaching and learning. Sung et al. ( 2016 ) reported a moderate effect on students' performance from the use of mobile devices in the classroom compared to the use of desktop computers or the non-use of mobile devices. Schmid et al. ( 2014 ) reported medium–low to low positive effects of technology integration (e.g., CAI, ICTs) in the classroom on students' achievement and attitude compared to not using technology or using technology to varying degrees. Tamim et al. ( 2015 ) found a low statistically significant effect of the use of tablets and other smart devices in educational contexts on students' achievement outcomes. The authors suggested that tablets offered additional advantages to students; namely, they reported improvements in students’ notetaking, organizational and communication skills, and creativity. Zheng et al. ( 2016 ) reported a small positive effect of one-to-one laptop programs on students’ academic achievement across subject areas. Additional reported benefits included student-centered, individualized, and project-based learning enhanced learner engagement and enthusiasm. Additionally, the authors found that students using one-to-one laptop programs tended to use technology more frequently than in non-laptop classrooms, and as a result, they developed a range of skills (e.g., information skills, media skills, technology skills, organizational skills). Haßler et al. ( 2016 ) found that most interventions that included the use of tablets across the curriculum reported positive learning outcomes. However, from 23 studies, five reported no differences, and two reported a negative effect on students' learning outcomes. Similar results were indicated by Kalati and Kim ( 2022 ) who investigated the effect of touchscreen technologies on young students’ learning. Specifically, from 53 studies, 34 advocated positive effects of touchscreen devices on children’s learning, 17 obtained mixed findings and two studies reported negative effects.

More recently, approaches that refer to the impact of gamification with the use of digital technologies on teaching and learning were also explored. A review by Pan et al. ( 2022 ) that examined the role of learning games in fostering mathematics education in K-12 settings, reported that gameplay improved students’ performance. Integration of digital games in teaching was also found as a promising pedagogical practice in STEM education that could lead to increased learning gains (Martinez et al., 2022 ; Wang et al., 2022 ). However, although Talan et al. ( 2020 ) reported a medium effect of the use of educational games (both digital and non-digital) on academic achievement, the effect of non-digital games was higher.

Over the last two years, the effects of more advanced technologies on teaching and learning were also investigated. Garzón and Acevedo ( 2019 ) found that AR applications had a medium effect on students' learning outcomes compared to traditional lectures. Similarly, Garzón et al. ( 2020 ) showed that AR had a medium impact on students' learning gains. VR applications integrated into various subjects were also found to have a moderate effect on students’ learning compared to control conditions (traditional classes, e.g., lectures, textbooks, and multimedia use, e.g., images, videos, animation, CAI) (Chen et al., 2022b ). Villena-Taranilla et al. ( 2022 ) noted the moderate effect of VR technologies on students’ learning when these were applied in STEM disciplines. In the same meta-analysis, Villena-Taranilla et al. ( 2022 ) highlighted the role of immersive VR, since its effect on students’ learning was greater (at a high level) across educational levels (K-6) compared to semi-immersive and non-immersive integrations. In another meta-analysis study, the effect size of the immersive VR was small and significantly differentiated across educational levels (Coban et al., 2022 ). The impact of AI on education was investigated by Su and Yang ( 2022 ) and Su et al. ( 2022 ), who showed that this technology significantly improved students’ understanding of AI computer science and machine learning concepts.

It is worth noting that the vast majority of studies referred to learning gains in specific subjects. Specifically, several studies examined the impact of digital technologies on students’ literacy skills and reported positive effects on language learning (Balanskat et al., 2006 ; Grgurović et al., 2013 ; Friedel et al., 2013 ; Zheng et al., 2016 ; Chen et al., 2022b ; Savva et al., 2022 ). Also, several studies documented positive effects on specific language learning areas, namely foreign language learning (Kao, 2014 ), writing (Higgins et al., 2012 ; Wen & Walters, 2022 ; Zheng et al., 2016 ), as well as reading and comprehension (Cheung & Slavin, 2011 ; Liao et al., 2007 ; Schwabe et al., 2022 ). ICTs were also found to have a positive impact on students' performance in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines (Arztmann et al., 2022 ; Bado, 2022 ; Villena-Taranilla et al., 2022 ; Wang et al., 2022 ). Specifically, a number of studies reported positive impacts on students’ achievement in mathematics (Balanskat et al., 2006 ; Hillmayr et al., 2020 ; Li & Ma, 2010 ; Pan et al., 2022 ; Ran et al., 2022 ; Verschaffel et al., 2019 ; Zheng et al., 2016 ). Furthermore, studies documented positive effects of ICTs on science learning (Balanskat et al., 2006 ; Liao et al., 2007 ; Zheng et al., 2016 ; Hillmayr et al., 2020 ; Kalemkuş & Kalemkuş, 2022 ; Lei et al., 2022a ). Çelik ( 2022 ) also noted that computer simulations can help students understand learning concepts related to science. Furthermore, some studies documented that the use of ICTs had a positive impact on students’ achievement in other subjects, such as geography, history, music, and arts (Chauhan, 2017 ; Condie & Munro, 2007 ), and design and technology (Balanskat et al., 2006 ).

More specific positive learning gains were reported in a number of skills, e.g., problem-solving skills and pattern exploration skills (Higgins et al., 2012 ), metacognitive learning outcomes (Verschaffel et al., 2019 ), literacy skills, computational thinking skills, emotion control skills, and collaborative inquiry skills (Lu et al., 2022 ; Su & Yang, 2022 ; Su et al., 2022 ). Additionally, several investigations have reported benefits from the use of ICT on students’ creativity (Fielding & Murcia, 2022 ; Liu et al., 2022 ; Quah & Ng, 2022 ). Lastly, digital technologies were also found to be beneficial for enhancing students’ lifelong learning skills (Haleem et al., 2022 ).

Apart from gaining knowledge and skills, studies also reported improvement in motivation and interest in mathematics (Higgins et. al., 2019 ; Fadda et al., 2022 ) and increased positive achievement emotions towards several subjects during interventions using educational games (Lei et al., 2022a ). Chen et al. ( 2022a ) also reported a small but positive effect of digital health approaches in bullying and cyberbullying interventions with K-12 students, demonstrating that technology-based approaches can help reduce bullying and related consequences by providing emotional support, empowerment, and change of attitude. In their meta-review study, Su et al. ( 2022 ) also documented that AI technologies effectively strengthened students’ attitudes towards learning. In another meta-analysis, Arztmann et al. ( 2022 ) reported positive effects of digital games on motivation and behaviour towards STEM subjects.

Impacts of digital technologies on equality, inclusion and social integration

Although most of the reviewed studies focused on the impact of ICTs on students’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes, reports were also made on other aspects in the school context, such as equality, inclusion, and social integration. Condie and Munro ( 2007 ) documented research interventions investigating how ICT can support pupils with additional or special educational needs. While those interventions were relatively small scale and mostly based on qualitative data, their findings indicated that the use of ICTs enabled the development of communication, participation, and self-esteem. A recent meta-analysis (Baragash et al., 2022 ) with 119 participants with different disabilities, reported a significant overall effect size of AR on their functional skills acquisition. Koh’s meta-analysis ( 2022 ) also revealed that students with intellectual and developmental disabilities improved their competence and performance when they used digital games in the lessons.

Istenic Starcic and Bagon ( 2014 ) found that the role of ICT in inclusion and the design of pedagogical and technological interventions was not sufficiently explored in educational interventions with people with special needs; however, some benefits of ICT use were found in students’ social integration. The issue of gender and technology use was mentioned in a small number of studies. Zheng et al. ( 2016 ) reported a statistically significant positive interaction between one-to-one laptop programs and gender. Specifically, the results showed that girls and boys alike benefitted from the laptop program, but the effect on girls’ achievement was smaller than that on boys’. Along the same lines, Arztmann et al. ( 2022 ) reported no difference in the impact of game-based learning between boys and girls, arguing that boys and girls equally benefited from game-based interventions in STEM domains. However, results from a systematic review by Cussó-Calabuig et al. ( 2018 ) found limited and low-quality evidence on the effects of intensive use of computers on gender differences in computer anxiety, self-efficacy, and self-confidence. Based on their view, intensive use of computers can reduce gender differences in some areas and not in others, depending on contextual and implementation factors.

Impacts of digital technologies on teachers’ professional and teaching practices

Various research studies have explored the impact of ICT on teachers’ instructional practices and student assessment. Friedel et al. ( 2013 ) found that the use of mobile devices by students enabled teachers to successfully deliver content (e.g., mobile serious games), provide scaffolding, and facilitate synchronous collaborative learning. The integration of digital games in teaching and learning activities also gave teachers the opportunity to study and apply various pedagogical practices (Bado, 2022 ). Specifically, Bado ( 2022 ) found that teachers who implemented instructional activities in three stages (pre-game, game, and post-game) maximized students’ learning outcomes and engagement. For instance, during the pre-game stage, teachers focused on lectures and gameplay training, at the game stage teachers provided scaffolding on content, addressed technical issues, and managed the classroom activities. During the post-game stage, teachers organized activities for debriefing to ensure that the gameplay had indeed enhanced students’ learning outcomes.

Furthermore, ICT can increase efficiency in lesson planning and preparation by offering possibilities for a more collaborative approach among teachers. The sharing of curriculum plans and the analysis of students’ data led to clearer target settings and improvements in reporting to parents (Balanskat et al., 2006 ).

Additionally, the use and application of digital technologies in teaching and learning were found to enhance teachers’ digital competence. Balanskat et al. ( 2006 ) documented studies that revealed that the use of digital technologies in education had a positive effect on teachers’ basic ICT skills. The greatest impact was found on teachers with enough experience in integrating ICTs in their teaching and/or who had recently participated in development courses for the pedagogical use of technologies in teaching. Punie et al. ( 2006 ) reported that the provision of fully equipped multimedia portable computers and the development of online teacher communities had positive impacts on teachers’ confidence and competence in the use of ICTs.

Moreover, online assessment via ICTs benefits instruction. In particular, online assessments support the digitalization of students’ work and related logistics, allow teachers to gather immediate feedback and readjust to new objectives, and support the improvement of the technical quality of tests by providing more accurate results. Additionally, the capabilities of ICTs (e.g., interactive media, simulations) create new potential methods of testing specific skills, such as problem-solving and problem-processing skills, meta-cognitive skills, creativity and communication skills, and the ability to work productively in groups (Punie et al., 2006 ).

Impacts of digital technologies on other school-related aspects and stakeholders

There is evidence that the effective use of ICTs and the data transmission offered by broadband connections help improve administration (Balanskat et al., 2006 ). Specifically, ICTs have been found to provide better management systems to schools that have data gathering procedures in place. Condie and Munro ( 2007 ) reported impacts from the use of ICTs in schools in the following areas: attendance monitoring, assessment records, reporting to parents, financial management, creation of repositories for learning resources, and sharing of information amongst staff. Such data can be used strategically for self-evaluation and monitoring purposes which in turn can result in school improvements. Additionally, they reported that online access to other people with similar roles helped to reduce headteachers’ isolation by offering them opportunities to share insights into the use of ICT in learning and teaching and how it could be used to support school improvement. Furthermore, ICTs provided more efficient and successful examination management procedures, namely less time-consuming reporting processes compared to paper-based examinations and smooth communications between schools and examination authorities through electronic data exchange (Punie et al., 2006 ).

Zheng et al. ( 2016 ) reported that the use of ICTs improved home-school relationships. Additionally, Escueta et al. ( 2017 ) reported several ICT programs that had improved the flow of information from the school to parents. Particularly, they documented that the use of ICTs (learning management systems, emails, dedicated websites, mobile phones) allowed for personalized and customized information exchange between schools and parents, such as attendance records, upcoming class assignments, school events, and students’ grades, which generated positive results on students’ learning outcomes and attainment. Such information exchange between schools and families prompted parents to encourage their children to put more effort into their schoolwork.

The above findings suggest that the impact of ICT integration in schools goes beyond students’ performance in school subjects. Specifically, it affects a number of school-related aspects, such as equality and social integration, professional and teaching practices, and diverse stakeholders. In Table ​ Table2, 2 , we summarize the different impacts of digital technologies on school stakeholders based on the literature review, while in Table ​ Table3 3 we organized the tools/platforms and practices/policies addressed in the meta-analyses, literature reviews, EU reports, and international bodies included in the manuscript.

The impact of digital technologies on schools’ stakeholders based on the literature review

Tools/platforms and practices/policies addressed in the meta-analyses, literature reviews, EU reports, and international bodies included in the manuscript

Additionally, based on the results of the literature review, there are many types of digital technologies with different affordances (see, for example, studies on VR vs Immersive VR), which evolve over time (e.g. starting from CAIs in 2005 to Augmented and Virtual reality 2020). Furthermore, these technologies are linked to different pedagogies and policy initiatives, which are critical factors in the study of impact. Table ​ Table3 3 summarizes the different tools and practices that have been used to examine the impact of digital technologies on education since 2005 based on the review results.

Factors that affect the integration of digital technologies

Although the analysis of the literature review demonstrated different impacts of the use of digital technology on education, several authors highlighted the importance of various factors, besides the technology itself, that affect this impact. For example, Liao et al. ( 2007 ) suggested that future studies should carefully investigate which factors contribute to positive outcomes by clarifying the exact relationship between computer applications and learning. Additionally, Haßler et al., ( 2016 ) suggested that the neutral findings regarding the impact of tablets on students learning outcomes in some of the studies included in their review should encourage educators, school leaders, and school officials to further investigate the potential of such devices in teaching and learning. Several other researchers suggested that a number of variables play a significant role in the impact of ICTs on students’ learning that could be attributed to the school context, teaching practices and professional development, the curriculum, and learners’ characteristics (Underwood, 2009 ; Tamim et al., 2011 ; Higgins et al., 2012 ; Archer et al., 2014 ; Sung et al., 2016 ; Haßler et al., 2016 ; Chauhan, 2017 ; Lee et al., 2020 ; Tang et al., 2022 ).

Digital competencies

One of the most common challenges reported in studies that utilized digital tools in the classroom was the lack of students’ skills on how to use them. Fu ( 2013 ) found that students’ lack of technical skills is a barrier to the effective use of ICT in the classroom. Tamim et al. ( 2015 ) reported that students faced challenges when using tablets and smart mobile devices, associated with the technical issues or expertise needed for their use and the distracting nature of the devices and highlighted the need for teachers’ professional development. Higgins et al. ( 2012 ) reported that skills training about the use of digital technologies is essential for learners to fully exploit the benefits of instruction.

Delgado et al. ( 2015 ), meanwhile, reported studies that showed a strong positive association between teachers’ computer skills and students’ use of computers. Teachers’ lack of ICT skills and familiarization with technologies can become a constraint to the effective use of technology in the classroom (Balanskat et al., 2006 ; Delgado et al., 2015 ).

It is worth noting that the way teachers are introduced to ICTs affects the impact of digital technologies on education. Previous studies have shown that teachers may avoid using digital technologies due to limited digital skills (Balanskat, 2006 ), or they prefer applying “safe” technologies, namely technologies that their own teachers used and with which they are familiar (Condie & Munro, 2007 ). In this regard, the provision of digital skills training and exposure to new digital tools might encourage teachers to apply various technologies in their lessons (Condie & Munro, 2007 ). Apart from digital competence, technical support in the school setting has also been shown to affect teachers’ use of technology in their classrooms (Delgado et al., 2015 ). Ferrari et al. ( 2011 ) found that while teachers’ use of ICT is high, 75% stated that they needed more institutional support and a shift in the mindset of educational actors to achieve more innovative teaching practices. The provision of support can reduce time and effort as well as cognitive constraints, which could cause limited ICT integration in the school lessons by teachers (Escueta et al., 2017 ).

Teachers’ personal characteristics, training approaches, and professional development

Teachers’ personal characteristics and professional development affect the impact of digital technologies on education. Specifically, Cheok and Wong ( 2015 ) found that teachers’ personal characteristics (e.g., anxiety, self-efficacy) are associated with their satisfaction and engagement with technology. Bingimlas ( 2009 ) reported that lack of confidence, resistance to change, and negative attitudes in using new technologies in teaching are significant determinants of teachers’ levels of engagement in ICT. The same author reported that the provision of technical support, motivation support (e.g., awards, sufficient time for planning), and training on how technologies can benefit teaching and learning can eliminate the above barriers to ICT integration. Archer et al. ( 2014 ) found that comfort levels in using technology are an important predictor of technology integration and argued that it is essential to provide teachers with appropriate training and ongoing support until they are comfortable with using ICTs in the classroom. Hillmayr et al. ( 2020 ) documented that training teachers on ICT had an important effecton students’ learning.

According to Balanskat et al. ( 2006 ), the impact of ICTs on students’ learning is highly dependent on the teachers’ capacity to efficiently exploit their application for pedagogical purposes. Results obtained from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) (OECD, 2021 ) revealed that although schools are open to innovative practices and have the capacity to adopt them, only 39% of teachers in the European Union reported that they are well or very well prepared to use digital technologies for teaching. Li and Ma ( 2010 ) and Hardman ( 2019 ) showed that the positive effect of technology on students’ achievement depends on the pedagogical practices used by teachers. Schmid et al. ( 2014 ) reported that learning was best supported when students were engaged in active, meaningful activities with the use of technological tools that provided cognitive support. Tamim et al. ( 2015 ) compared two different pedagogical uses of tablets and found a significant moderate effect when the devices were used in a student-centered context and approach rather than within teacher-led environments. Similarly, Garzón and Acevedo ( 2019 ) and Garzón et al. ( 2020 ) reported that the positive results from the integration of AR applications could be attributed to the existence of different variables which could influence AR interventions (e.g., pedagogical approach, learning environment, and duration of the intervention). Additionally, Garzón et al. ( 2020 ) suggested that the pedagogical resources that teachers used to complement their lectures and the pedagogical approaches they applied were crucial to the effective integration of AR on students’ learning gains. Garzón and Acevedo ( 2019 ) also emphasized that the success of a technology-enhanced intervention is based on both the technology per se and its characteristics and on the pedagogical strategies teachers choose to implement. For instance, their results indicated that the collaborative learning approach had the highest impact on students’ learning gains among other approaches (e.g., inquiry-based learning, situated learning, or project-based learning). Ran et al. ( 2022 ) also found that the use of technology to design collaborative and communicative environments showed the largest moderator effects among the other approaches.

Hattie ( 2008 ) reported that the effective use of computers is associated with training teachers in using computers as a teaching and learning tool. Zheng et al. ( 2016 ) noted that in addition to the strategies teachers adopt in teaching, ongoing professional development is also vital in ensuring the success of technology implementation programs. Sung et al. ( 2016 ) found that research on the use of mobile devices to support learning tends to report that the insufficient preparation of teachers is a major obstacle in implementing effective mobile learning programs in schools. Friedel et al. ( 2013 ) found that providing training and support to teachers increased the positive impact of the interventions on students’ learning gains. Trucano ( 2005 ) argued that positive impacts occur when digital technologies are used to enhance teachers’ existing pedagogical philosophies. Higgins et al. ( 2012 ) found that the types of technologies used and how they are used could also affect students’ learning. The authors suggested that training and professional development of teachers that focuses on the effective pedagogical use of technology to support teaching and learning is an important component of successful instructional approaches (Higgins et al., 2012 ). Archer et al. ( 2014 ) found that studies that reported ICT interventions during which teachers received training and support had moderate positive effects on students’ learning outcomes, which were significantly higher than studies where little or no detail about training and support was mentioned. Fu ( 2013 ) reported that the lack of teachers’ knowledge and skills on the technical and instructional aspects of ICT use in the classroom, in-service training, pedagogy support, technical and financial support, as well as the lack of teachers’ motivation and encouragement to integrate ICT on their teaching were significant barriers to the integration of ICT in education.

School leadership and management

Management and leadership are important cornerstones in the digital transformation process (Pihir et al., 2018 ). Zheng et al. ( 2016 ) documented leadership among the factors positively affecting the successful implementation of technology integration in schools. Strong leadership, strategic planning, and systematic integration of digital technologies are prerequisites for the digital transformation of education systems (Ređep, 2021 ). Management and leadership play a significant role in formulating policies that are translated into practice and ensure that developments in ICT become embedded into the life of the school and in the experiences of staff and pupils (Condie & Munro, 2007 ). Policy support and leadership must include the provision of an overall vision for the use of digital technologies in education, guidance for students and parents, logistical support, as well as teacher training (Conrads et al., 2017 ). Unless there is a commitment throughout the school, with accountability for progress at key points, it is unlikely for ICT integration to be sustained or become part of the culture (Condie & Munro, 2007 ). To achieve this, principals need to adopt and promote a whole-institution strategy and build a strong mutual support system that enables the school’s technological maturity (European Commission, 2019 ). In this context, school culture plays an essential role in shaping the mindsets and beliefs of school actors towards successful technology integration. Condie and Munro ( 2007 ) emphasized the importance of the principal’s enthusiasm and work as a source of inspiration for the school staff and the students to cultivate a culture of innovation and establish sustainable digital change. Specifically, school leaders need to create conditions in which the school staff is empowered to experiment and take risks with technology (Elkordy & Lovinelli, 2020 ).

In order for leaders to achieve the above, it is important to develop capacities for learning and leading, advocating professional learning, and creating support systems and structures (European Commission, 2019 ). Digital technology integration in education systems can be challenging and leadership needs guidance to achieve it. Such guidance can be introduced through the adoption of new methods and techniques in strategic planning for the integration of digital technologies (Ređep, 2021 ). Even though the role of leaders is vital, the relevant training offered to them has so far been inadequate. Specifically, only a third of the education systems in Europe have put in place national strategies that explicitly refer to the training of school principals (European Commission, 2019 , p. 16).

Connectivity, infrastructure, and government and other support

The effective integration of digital technologies across levels of education presupposes the development of infrastructure, the provision of digital content, and the selection of proper resources (Voogt et al., 2013 ). Particularly, a high-quality broadband connection in the school increases the quality and quantity of educational activities. There is evidence that ICT increases and formalizes cooperative planning between teachers and cooperation with managers, which in turn has a positive impact on teaching practices (Balanskat et al., 2006 ). Additionally, ICT resources, including software and hardware, increase the likelihood of teachers integrating technology into the curriculum to enhance their teaching practices (Delgado et al., 2015 ). For example, Zheng et al. ( 2016 ) found that the use of one-on-one laptop programs resulted in positive changes in teaching and learning, which would not have been accomplished without the infrastructure and technical support provided to teachers. Delgado et al. ( 2015 ) reported that limited access to technology (insufficient computers, peripherals, and software) and lack of technical support are important barriers to ICT integration. Access to infrastructure refers not only to the availability of technology in a school but also to the provision of a proper amount and the right types of technology in locations where teachers and students can use them. Effective technical support is a central element of the whole-school strategy for ICT (Underwood, 2009 ). Bingimlas ( 2009 ) reported that lack of technical support in the classroom and whole-school resources (e.g., failing to connect to the Internet, printers not printing, malfunctioning computers, and working on old computers) are significant barriers that discourage the use of ICT by teachers. Moreover, poor quality and inadequate hardware maintenance, and unsuitable educational software may discourage teachers from using ICTs (Balanskat et al., 2006 ; Bingimlas, 2009 ).

Government support can also impact the integration of ICTs in teaching. Specifically, Balanskat et al. ( 2006 ) reported that government interventions and training programs increased teachers’ enthusiasm and positive attitudes towards ICT and led to the routine use of embedded ICT.

Lastly, another important factor affecting digital transformation is the development and quality assurance of digital learning resources. Such resources can be support textbooks and related materials or resources that focus on specific subjects or parts of the curriculum. Policies on the provision of digital learning resources are essential for schools and can be achieved through various actions. For example, some countries are financing web portals that become repositories, enabling teachers to share resources or create their own. Additionally, they may offer e-learning opportunities or other services linked to digital education. In other cases, specific agencies of projects have also been set up to develop digital resources (Eurydice, 2019 ).

Administration and digital data management

The digital transformation of schools involves organizational improvements at the level of internal workflows, communication between the different stakeholders, and potential for collaboration. Vuorikari et al. ( 2020 ) presented evidence that digital technologies supported the automation of administrative practices in schools and reduced the administration’s workload. There is evidence that digital data affects the production of knowledge about schools and has the power to transform how schooling takes place. Specifically, Sellar ( 2015 ) reported that data infrastructure in education is developing due to the demand for “ information about student outcomes, teacher quality, school performance, and adult skills, associated with policy efforts to increase human capital and productivity practices ” (p. 771). In this regard, practices, such as datafication which refers to the “ translation of information about all kinds of things and processes into quantified formats” have become essential for decision-making based on accountability reports about the school’s quality. The data could be turned into deep insights about education or training incorporating ICTs. For example, measuring students’ online engagement with the learning material and drawing meaningful conclusions can allow teachers to improve their educational interventions (Vuorikari et al., 2020 ).

Students’ socioeconomic background and family support

Research show that the active engagement of parents in the school and their support for the school’s work can make a difference to their children’s attitudes towards learning and, as a result, their achievement (Hattie, 2008 ). In recent years, digital technologies have been used for more effective communication between school and family (Escueta et al., 2017 ). The European Commission ( 2020 ) presented data from a Eurostat survey regarding the use of computers by students during the pandemic. The data showed that younger pupils needed additional support and guidance from parents and the challenges were greater for families in which parents had lower levels of education and little to no digital skills.

In this regard, the socio-economic background of the learners and their socio-cultural environment also affect educational achievements (Punie et al., 2006 ). Trucano documented that the use of computers at home positively influenced students’ confidence and resulted in more frequent use at school, compared to students who had no home access (Trucano, 2005 ). In this sense, the socio-economic background affects the access to computers at home (OECD, 2015 ) which in turn influences the experience of ICT, an important factor for school achievement (Punie et al., 2006 ; Underwood, 2009 ). Furthermore, parents from different socio-economic backgrounds may have different abilities and availability to support their children in their learning process (Di Pietro et al., 2020 ).

Schools’ socioeconomic context and emergency situations

The socio-economic context of the school is closely related to a school’s digital transformation. For example, schools in disadvantaged, rural, or deprived areas are likely to lack the digital capacity and infrastructure required to adapt to the use of digital technologies during emergency periods, such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Di Pietro et al., 2020 ). Data collected from school principals confirmed that in several countries, there is a rural/urban divide in connectivity (OECD, 2015 ).

Emergency periods also affect the digitalization of schools. The COVID-19 pandemic led to the closure of schools and forced them to seek appropriate and connective ways to keep working on the curriculum (Di Pietro et al., 2020 ). The sudden large-scale shift to distance and online teaching and learning also presented challenges around quality and equity in education, such as the risk of increased inequalities in learning, digital, and social, as well as teachers facing difficulties coping with this demanding situation (European Commission, 2020 ).

Looking at the findings of the above studies, we can conclude that the impact of digital technologies on education is influenced by various actors and touches many aspects of the school ecosystem. Figure  1 summarizes the factors affecting the digital technologies’ impact on school stakeholders based on the findings from the literature review.

Factors that affect the impact of ICTs on education

The findings revealed that the use of digital technologies in education affects a variety of actors within a school’s ecosystem. First, we observed that as technologies evolve, so does the interest of the research community to apply them to school settings. Figure  2 summarizes the trends identified in current research around the impact of digital technologies on schools’ digital capacity and transformation as found in the present study. Starting as early as 2005, when computers, simulations, and interactive boards were the most commonly applied tools in school interventions (e.g., Eng, 2005 ; Liao et al., 2007 ; Moran et al., 2008 ; Tamim et al., 2011 ), moving towards the use of learning platforms (Jewitt et al., 2011 ), then to the use of mobile devices and digital games (e.g., Tamim et al., 2015 ; Sung et al., 2016 ; Talan et al., 2020 ), as well as e-books (e.g., Savva et al., 2022 ), to the more recent advanced technologies, such as AR and VR applications (e.g., Garzón & Acevedo, 2019 ; Garzón et al., 2020 ; Kalemkuş & Kalemkuş, 2022 ), or robotics and AI (e.g., Su & Yang, 2022 ; Su et al., 2022 ). As this evolution shows, digital technologies are a concept in flux with different affordances and characteristics. Additionally, from an instructional perspective, there has been a growing interest in different modes and models of content delivery such as online, blended, and hybrid modes (e.g., Cheok & Wong, 2015 ; Kazu & Yalçin, 2022 ; Ulum, 2022 ). This is an indication that the value of technologies to support teaching and learning as well as other school-related practices is increasingly recognized by the research and school community. The impact results from the literature review indicate that ICT integration on students’ learning outcomes has effects that are small (Coban et al., 2022 ; Eng, 2005 ; Higgins et al., 2012 ; Schmid et al., 2014 ; Tamim et al., 2015 ; Zheng et al., 2016 ) to moderate (Garzón & Acevedo, 2019 ; Garzón et al., 2020 ; Liao et al., 2007 ; Sung et al., 2016 ; Talan et al., 2020 ; Wen & Walters, 2022 ). That said, a number of recent studies have reported high effect sizes (e.g., Kazu & Yalçin, 2022 ).

Current work and trends in the study of the impact of digital technologies on schools’ digital capacity

Based on these findings, several authors have suggested that the impact of technology on education depends on several variables and not on the technology per se (Tamim et al., 2011 ; Higgins et al., 2012 ; Archer et al., 2014 ; Sung et al., 2016 ; Haßler et al., 2016 ; Chauhan, 2017 ; Lee et al., 2020 ; Lei et al., 2022a ). While the impact of ICTs on student achievement has been thoroughly investigated by researchers, other aspects related to school life that are also affected by ICTs, such as equality, inclusion, and social integration have received less attention. Further analysis of the literature review has revealed a greater investment in ICT interventions to support learning and teaching in the core subjects of literacy and STEM disciplines, especially mathematics, and science. These were the most common subjects studied in the reviewed papers often drawing on national testing results, while studies that investigated other subject areas, such as social studies, were limited (Chauhan, 2017 ; Condie & Munro, 2007 ). As such, research is still lacking impact studies that focus on the effects of ICTs on a range of curriculum subjects.

The qualitative research provided additional information about the impact of digital technologies on education, documenting positive effects and giving more details about implications, recommendations, and future research directions. Specifically, the findings regarding the role of ICTs in supporting learning highlight the importance of teachers’ instructional practice and the learning context in the use of technologies and consequently their impact on instruction (Çelik, 2022 ; Schmid et al., 2014 ; Tamim et al., 2015 ). The review also provided useful insights regarding the various factors that affect the impact of digital technologies on education. These factors are interconnected and play a vital role in the transformation process. Specifically, these factors include a) digital competencies; b) teachers’ personal characteristics and professional development; c) school leadership and management; d) connectivity, infrastructure, and government support; e) administration and data management practices; f) students’ socio-economic background and family support and g) the socioeconomic context of the school and emergency situations. It is worth noting that we observed factors that affect the integration of ICTs in education but may also be affected by it. For example, the frequent use of ICTs and the use of laptops by students for instructional purposes positively affect the development of digital competencies (Zheng et al., 2016 ) and at the same time, the digital competencies affect the use of ICTs (Fu, 2013 ; Higgins et al., 2012 ). As a result, the impact of digital technologies should be explored more as an enabler of desirable and new practices and not merely as a catalyst that improves the output of the education process i.e. namely student attainment.

Conclusions

Digital technologies offer immense potential for fundamental improvement in schools. However, investment in ICT infrastructure and professional development to improve school education are yet to provide fruitful results. Digital transformation is a complex process that requires large-scale transformative changes that presuppose digital capacity and preparedness. To achieve such changes, all actors within the school’s ecosystem need to share a common vision regarding the integration of ICTs in education and work towards achieving this goal. Our literature review, which synthesized quantitative and qualitative data from a list of meta-analyses and review studies, provided useful insights into the impact of ICTs on different school stakeholders and showed that the impact of digital technologies touches upon many different aspects of school life, which are often overlooked when the focus is on student achievement as the final output of education. Furthermore, the concept of digital technologies is a concept in flux as technologies are not only different among them calling for different uses in the educational practice but they also change through time. Additionally, we opened a forum for discussion regarding the factors that affect a school’s digital capacity and transformation. We hope that our study will inform policy, practice, and research and result in a paradigm shift towards more holistic approaches in impact and assessment studies.

Study limitations and future directions

We presented a review of the study of digital technologies' impact on education and factors influencing schools’ digital capacity and transformation. The study results were based on a non-systematic literature review grounded on the acquisition of documentation in specific databases. Future studies should investigate more databases to corroborate and enhance our results. Moreover, search queries could be enhanced with key terms that could provide additional insights about the integration of ICTs in education, such as “policies and strategies for ICT integration in education”. Also, the study drew information from meta-analyses and literature reviews to acquire evidence about the effects of ICT integration in schools. Such evidence was mostly based on the general conclusions of the studies. It is worth mentioning that, we located individual studies which showed different, such as negative or neutral results. Thus, further insights are needed about the impact of ICTs on education and the factors influencing the impact. Furthermore, the nature of the studies included in meta-analyses and reviews is different as they are based on different research methodologies and data gathering processes. For instance, in a meta-analysis, the impact among the studies investigated is measured in a particular way, depending on policy or research targets (e.g., results from national examinations, pre-/post-tests). Meanwhile, in literature reviews, qualitative studies offer additional insights and detail based on self-reports and research opinions on several different aspects and stakeholders who could affect and be affected by ICT integration. As a result, it was challenging to draw causal relationships between so many interrelating variables.

Despite the challenges mentioned above, this study envisaged examining school units as ecosystems that consist of several actors by bringing together several variables from different research epistemologies to provide an understanding of the integration of ICTs. However, the use of other tools and methodologies and models for evaluation of the impact of digital technologies on education could give more detailed data and more accurate results. For instance, self-reflection tools, like SELFIE—developed on the DigCompOrg framework- (Kampylis et al., 2015 ; Bocconi & Lightfoot, 2021 ) can help capture a school’s digital capacity and better assess the impact of ICTs on education. Furthermore, the development of a theory of change could be a good approach for documenting the impact of digital technologies on education. Specifically, theories of change are models used for the evaluation of interventions and their impact; they are developed to describe how interventions will work and give the desired outcomes (Mayne, 2015 ). Theory of change as a methodological approach has also been used by researchers to develop models for evaluation in the field of education (e.g., Aromatario et al., 2019 ; Chapman & Sammons, 2013 ; De Silva et al., 2014 ).

We also propose that future studies aim at similar investigations by applying more holistic approaches for impact assessment that can provide in-depth data about the impact of digital technologies on education. For instance, future studies could focus on different research questions about the technologies that are used during the interventions or the way the implementation takes place (e.g., What methodologies are used for documenting impact? How are experimental studies implemented? How can teachers be taken into account and trained on the technology and its functions? What are the elements of an appropriate and successful implementation? How is the whole intervention designed? On which learning theories is the technology implementation based?).

Future research could also focus on assessing the impact of digital technologies on various other subjects since there is a scarcity of research related to particular subjects, such as geography, history, arts, music, and design and technology. More research should also be done about the impact of ICTs on skills, emotions, and attitudes, and on equality, inclusion, social interaction, and special needs education. There is also a need for more research about the impact of ICTs on administration, management, digitalization, and home-school relationships. Additionally, although new forms of teaching and learning with the use of ICTs (e.g., blended, hybrid, and online learning) have initiated several investigations in mainstream classrooms, only a few studies have measured their impact on students’ learning. Additionally, our review did not document any study about the impact of flipped classrooms on K-12 education. Regarding teaching and learning approaches, it is worth noting that studies referred to STEM or STEAM did not investigate the impact of STEM/STEAM as an interdisciplinary approach to learning but only investigated the impact of ICTs on learning in each domain as a separate subject (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics). Hence, we propose future research to also investigate the impact of the STEM/STEAM approach on education. The impact of emerging technologies on education, such as AR, VR, robotics, and AI has also been investigated recently, but more work needs to be done.

Finally, we propose that future studies could focus on the way in which specific factors, e.g., infrastructure and government support, school leadership and management, students’ and teachers’ digital competencies, approaches teachers utilize in the teaching and learning (e.g., blended, online and hybrid learning, flipped classrooms, STEM/STEAM approach, project-based learning, inquiry-based learning), affect the impact of digital technologies on education. We hope that future studies will give detailed insights into the concept of schools’ digital transformation through further investigation of impacts and factors which influence digital capacity and transformation based on the results and the recommendations of the present study.

Acknowledgements

This project has received funding under Grant Agreement No Ref Ares (2021) 339036 7483039 as well as funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under Grant Agreement No 739578 and the Government of the Republic of Cyprus through the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy. The UVa co-authors would like also to acknowledge funding from the European Regional Development Fund and the National Research Agency of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, under project grant PID2020-112584RB-C32.

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17.8: Reading: Social Change and Modernization

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Causes of Social Change

Changes to technology, social institutions, population, and the environment, alone or in some combination, create change. Below, we will discuss how these act as agents of social change, and we’ll examine real-world examples. We will focus on four agents of change that social scientists recognize: technology, social institutions, population, and the environment.

Some would say that improving technology has made our lives easier. Imagine what your day would be like without the Internet, the automobile, or electricity. In The World Is Flat , Thomas Friedman (2005) argues that technology is a driving force behind globalization, while the other forces of social change (social institutions, population, environment) play comparatively minor roles. He suggests that we can view globalization as occurring in three distinct periods. First, globalization was driven by military expansion, powered by horsepower and wind power. The countries best able to take advantage of these power sources expanded the most, and exert control over the politics of the globe from the late fifteenth century to around the year 1800. The second shorter period from approximately 1800 C.E. to 2000 C.E. consisted of a globalizing economy. Steam and rail power were the guiding forces of social change and globalization in this period. Finally, Friedman brings us to the post-millennial era. In this period of globalization, change is driven by technology, particularly the Internet (Friedman 2005).

But also consider that technology can create change in the other three forces social scientists link to social change. Advances in medical technology allow otherwise infertile women to bear children, which indirectly leads to an increase in population. Advances in agricultural technology have allowed us to genetically alter and patent food products, which changes our environment in innumerable ways. From the way we educate children in the classroom to the way we grow the food we eat, technology has impacted all aspects of modern life.

Of course there are drawbacks. The increasing gap between the technological haves and have-nots––sometimes called the digital divide––occurs both locally and globally. Further, there are added security risks: the loss of privacy, the risk of total system failure (like the Y2K panic at the turn of the millennium), and the added vulnerability created by technological dependence. Think about the technology that goes into keeping nuclear power plants running safely and securely. What happens if an earthquake or other disaster, like in the case of Japan’s Fukushima plant, causes the technology to malfunction, not to mention the possibility of a systematic attack to our nation’s relatively vulnerable technological infrastructure?

Crowdsourcing: Using the Web to Get Things Done

Millions of people today walk around with their heads tilted toward a small device held in their hands. Perhaps you are reading this textbook on a phone or tablet. People in developed societies now take communication technology for granted. How has this technology affected social change in our society and others? One very positive way is crowdsourcing.

Thanks to the web, digital crowdsourcing is the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers. Web-based companies such as Kickstarter have been created precisely for the purposes of raising large amounts of money in a short period of time, notably by sidestepping the traditional financing process. This book, or virtual book, is the product of a kind of crowdsourcing effort. It has been written and reviewed by several authors in a variety of fields to give you free access to a large amount of data produced at a low cost. The largest example of crowdsourced data is Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia which is the result of thousands of volunteers adding and correcting material.

Perhaps the most striking use of crowdsourcing is disaster relief. By tracking tweets and e-mails and organizing the data in order of urgency and quantity, relief agencies can address the most urgent calls for help, such as for medical aid, food, shelter, or rescue. On January 12, 2010 a devastating earthquake hit the nation of Haiti. By January 25, a crisis map had been created from more than 2,500 incident reports, and more reports were added every day. The same technology was used to assist victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

The Darker Side of Technology: Electronic Aggression in the Information Age

The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) uses the term “electronic aggression” to describe “any type of harassment or bullying that occurs through e-mail, a chat room, instant messaging, a website (including blogs), or text messaging” (CDC, n.d.) We generally think of this as cyberbullying. A 2011 study by the U.S. Department of Education found that 27.8 percent of students aged twelve through eighteen reported experiencing bullying. From the same sample 9 percent specifically reported having been a victim of cyberbullying (Robers et al. 2013).

Cyberbullying represents a powerful change in modern society. William F. Ogburn (1922) might have been describing it nearly a century ago when he defined “cultural lag,” which occurs when material culture precedes nonmaterial culture. That is, society may not fully comprehend all the consequences of a new technology and so may initially reject it (such as stem cell research) or embrace it, sometimes with unintended negative consequences (such as pollution).

Cyberbullying is a special feature of the Internet. Unique to electronic aggression is that it can happen twenty-four hours a day, every day; it can reach a child (or an adult) even though she or he might otherwise feel safe in a locked house. The messages and images may be posted anonymously and to a very wide audience, and they might even be impossible to trace. Finally, once posted, the texts and images are very hard to delete. Its effects range from the use of alcohol and drugs to lower self-esteem, health problems, and even suicide (CDC, n.d.).

The Story of Megan Meier

According to the Megan Meier Foundation web site (2014a), Megan Meier had a lifelong struggle with weight, attention deficit disorder, and depression. But then a sixteen-year-old boy named Josh Evans asked Megan, who was thirteen years old, to be friends on the social networking web site MySpace. The two began communicating online regularly, though they never met in person or spoke on the phone. Now Megan finally knew a boy who, she believed, really thought she was pretty.

But things changed, according to the Megan Meier Foundation web site (2014b). Josh began saying he didn’t want to be friends anymore, and the messages became cruel on October 16, 2006, when Josh concluded by telling Megan, “The world would be a better place without you.” The cyberbullying escalated when additional classmates and friends on MySpace began writing disturbing messages and bulletins. That night Megan hanged herself in her bedroom closet, three weeks before what would have been her fourteenth birthday.

According to an ABC News article titled, “Parents: Cyber Bullying Led to Teen’s Death” (2007), it was only later that a neighbor informed Megan’s parents that Josh was not a real person. Instead, “Josh’s” account was created by the mother of a girl who used to be friends with Megan.

You can find out more of Megan’s story at her mother’s web site: http://www.meganmeierfoundation.org/

Social Institutions

Each change in a single social institution leads to changes in all social institutions. For example, the industrialization of society meant that there was no longer a need for large families to produce enough manual labor to run a farm. Further, new job opportunities were in close proximity to urban centers where living space was at a premium. The result is that the average family size shrunk significantly.

This same shift toward industrial corporate entities also changed the way we view government involvement in the private sector, created the global economy, provided new political platforms, and even spurred new religions and new forms of religious worship like Scientology. It has also informed the way we educate our children: originally schools were set up to accommodate an agricultural calendar so children could be home to work the fields in the summer, and even today, teaching models are largely based on preparing students for industrial jobs, despite that being an outdated need. A shift in one area, such as industrialization, means an interconnected impact across social institutions.

Population composition is changing at every level of society. Births increase in one nation and decrease in another. Some families delay childbirth while others start bringing children into their folds early. Population changes can be due to random external forces, like an epidemic, or shifts in other social institutions, as described above. But regardless of why and how it happens, population trends have a tremendous interrelated impact on all other aspects of society.

In the United States, we are experiencing an increase in our senior population as baby boomers begin to retire, which will in turn change the way many of our social institutions are organized. For example, there is an increased demand for housing in warmer climates, a massive shift in the need for elder care and assisted living facilities, and growing awareness of elder abuse. There is concern about labor shortages as boomers retire, not to mention the knowledge gap as the most senior and accomplished leaders in different sectors start to leave. Further, as this large generation leaves the workforce, the loss of tax income and pressure on pension and retirement plans means that the financial stability of the country is threatened.

Globally, often the countries with the highest fertility rates are least able to absorb and attend to the needs of a growing population. Family planning is a large step in ensuring that families are not burdened with more children than they can care for. On a macro level, the increased population, particularly in the poorest parts of the globe, also leads to increased stress on the planet’s resources.

The Environment

Turning to human ecology, we know that individuals and the environment affect each other. As human populations move into more vulnerable areas, we see an increase in the number of people affected by natural disasters, and we see that human interaction with the environment increases the impact of those disasters. Part of this is simply the numbers: the more people there are on the planet, the more likely it is that some will be affected by a natural disaster.

But it goes beyond that. Movements like 350.org describe how we have already seen five extinctions of massive amounts of life on the planet, and the crisis of global change has put us on the verge of yet another. According to their website, “The number 350 means climate safety: to preserve a livable planet, scientists tell us we must reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from its current level of 400 parts per million to below 350 ppm” (350.org).

The environment is best described as an ecosystem, one that exists as the interplay of multiple parts including 8.7 million species of life. However dozens of species are going extinct every day, a number 1,000 times to 10,000 times the normal “background rate” and the highest rate since the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago. The Center for Biological Diversity states that this extinction crisis, unlike previous ones caused by natural disasters, is “caused almost entirely by us” (Center for Biological Diversity, n.d.). The growth of the human population, currently over seven billion and expected to rise to nine or ten billion by 2050, perfectly correlates with the rising extinction rate of life on earth.

Hurricane Katrina: When It All Comes Together

The four key elements that affect social change that are described in this chapter are the environment, technology, social institutions, and population. In 2005, New Orleans was struck by a devastating hurricane. But it was not just the hurricane that was disastrous. It was the converging of all four of these elements, and the text below will connect the elements by putting the words in parentheses.

Before Hurricane Katrina (environment) hit, poorly coordinated evacuation efforts had left about 25 percent of the population, almost entirely African Americans who lacked private transportation, to suffer the consequences of the coming storm (demographics). Then “after the storm, when the levees broke, thousands more [refugees] came. And the city buses, meant to take them to proper shelters, were underwater” (Sullivan 2005). No public transportation was provided, drinking water and communications were delayed, and FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (institutions), was headed by an appointee with no real experience in emergency management. Those who were eventually evacuated did not know where they were being sent or how to contact family members. African Americans were sent the farthest from their homes. When the displaced began to return, public housing had not been reestablished, yet the Superdome stadium, which had served as a temporary disaster shelter, had been rebuilt. Homeowners received financial support, but renters did not.

As it turns out, it was not entirely the hurricane that cost the lives of 1,500 people, but the fact that the city’s storm levees (technology), which had been built too low and which failed to meet numerous other safety specifications, gave way, flooding the lower portions of the city, occupied almost entirely by African Americans.

Journalist Naomi Klein, in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, presents a theory of a “triple shock,” consisting of an initial disaster, an economic shock that replaces public services with private (for-profit) ones, and a third shock consisting of the intense policing of the remaining public. Klein supports her claim by quoting then-Congressman Richard Baker as saying, “We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” She quotes developer Joseph Canizaro as stating, “I think we have a clean sheet to start again. And with that clean sheet we have some very big opportunities.”

One clean sheet was that New Orleans began to replace public schools with charters, breaking the teachers’ union and firing all public school teachers (Mullins 2014). Public housing was seriously reduced and the poor were forced out altogether or into the suburbs far from medical and other facilities (The Advocate 2013). Finally, by relocating African Americans and changing the ratio of African Americans to whites, New Orleans changed its entire demographic makeup.

Modernization

Modernization describes the processes that increase the amount of specialization and differentiation of structure in societies resulting in the move from an undeveloped society to developed, technologically driven society (Irwin 1975). By this definition, the level of modernity within a society is judged by the sophistication of its technology, particularly as it relates to infrastructure, industry, and the like. However, it is important to note the inherent ethnocentric bias of such assessment. Why do we assume that those living in semi-peripheral and peripheral nations would find it so wonderful to become more like the core nations? Is modernization always positive?

One contradiction of all kinds of technology is that they often promise time-saving benefits, but somehow fail to deliver. How many times have you ground your teeth in frustration at an Internet site that refused to load or at a dropped call on your cell phone? Despite time-saving devices such as dishwashers, washing machines, and, now, remote control vacuum cleaners, the average amount of time spent on housework is the same today as it was fifty years ago. And the dubious benefits of 24/7 e-mail and immediate information have simply increased the amount of time employees are expected to be responsive and available. While once businesses had to travel at the speed of the U.S. postal system, sending something off and waiting until it was received before the next stage, today the immediacy of information transfer means there are no such breaks.

Further, the Internet bought us information, but at a cost. The morass of information means that there is as much poor information available as trustworthy sources. There is a delicate line to walk when core nations seek to bring the assumed benefits of modernization to more traditional cultures. For one, there are obvious procapitalist biases that go into such attempts, and it is short-sighted for western governments and social scientists to assume all other countries aspire to follow in their footsteps. Additionally, there can be a kind of neo-liberal defense of rural cultures, ignoring the often crushing poverty and diseases that exist in peripheral nations and focusing only on a nostalgic mythology of the happy peasant. It takes a very careful hand to understand both the need for cultural identity and preservation as well as the hopes for future growth.

Think It Over

• Consider one of the major social movements of the twentieth century, from civil rights in the United States to Gandhi’s nonviolent protests in India. How would technology have changed it? Would change have come more quickly or more slowly? Defend your opinion.
• Discuss the digital divide in the context of modernization. Is there a real concern that poorer communities are lacking in technology? Why, or why not?
• Which theory do you think better explains the global economy: dependency theory (global inequity is due to the exploitation of peripheral and semi-peripheral nations by core nations) or modernization theory? Remember to justify your answer and provide specific examples.
• Do you think that modernization is good or bad? Explain, using examples.

1. Children in peripheral nations have little to no daily access to computers and the Internet, while children in core nations are constantly exposed to this technology. This is an example of:

• the digital divide
• human ecology
• modernization theory
• dependency theory

2. When sociologists think about technology as an agent of social change, which of the following is not an example?

• Population growth
• Medical advances
• The Internet
• Genetically engineered food

[reveal-answer q=”480978″]Show Answer[/reveal-answer] [hidden-answer a=”480978″]a[/hidden-answer]

3. China is undergoing a shift in industry, increasing labor specialization and the amount of differentiation present in the social structure. This exemplifies:

• modernization
• conflict perspective

4. Core nations that work to propel peripheral nations toward modernization need to be aware of:

• preserving peripheral nation cultural identity
• preparing for pitfalls that come with modernization
• avoiding hegemonistic assumptions about modernization
• all of the above

5. In addition to social movements, social change is also caused by technology, social institutions, population and ______.

• the environment
• social structure
• new social movements

[reveal-answer q=”577597″]Show Glossary[/reveal-answer] [hidden-answer a=”577597″]

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Self-Check: Collective Behavior and Social Movements

You’ll have more success on the Self-Check, if you’ve completed the six Readings in this section.

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Designing Assignments for Learning

The rapid shift to remote teaching and learning meant that many instructors reimagined their assessment practices. Whether adapting existing assignments or creatively designing new opportunities for their students to learn, instructors focused on helping students make meaning and demonstrate their learning outside of the traditional, face-to-face classroom setting. This resource distills the elements of assignment design that are important to carry forward as we continue to seek better ways of assessing learning and build on our innovative assignment designs.

On this page:

Rethinking traditional tests, quizzes, and exams.

• Examples from the Columbia University Classroom
• Tips for Designing Assignments for Learning

Reflect On Your Assignment Design

Connect with the ctl.

• Resources and References

Cite this resource: Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (2021). Designing Assignments for Learning. Columbia University. Retrieved [today’s date] from https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/teaching-with-technology/teaching-online/designing-assignments/

Traditional assessments tend to reveal whether students can recognize, recall, or replicate what was learned out of context, and tend to focus on students providing correct responses (Wiggins, 1990). In contrast, authentic assignments, which are course assessments, engage students in higher order thinking, as they grapple with real or simulated challenges that help them prepare for their professional lives, and draw on the course knowledge learned and the skills acquired to create justifiable answers, performances or products (Wiggins, 1990). An authentic assessment provides opportunities for students to practice, consult resources, learn from feedback, and refine their performances and products accordingly (Wiggins 1990, 1998, 2014). 

Authentic assignments ask students to “do” the subject with an audience in mind and apply their learning in a new situation. Examples of authentic assignments include asking students to: 

• Write for a real audience (e.g., a memo, a policy brief, letter to the editor, a grant proposal, reports, building a website) and/or publication;
• Solve problem sets that have real world application; 
• Design projects that address a real world problem; 
• Engage in a community-partnered research project;
• Create an exhibit, performance, or conference presentation ;
• Compile and reflect on their work through a portfolio/e-portfolio.

Noteworthy elements of authentic designs are that instructors scaffold the assignment, and play an active role in preparing students for the tasks assigned, while students are intentionally asked to reflect on the process and product of their work thus building their metacognitive skills (Herrington and Oliver, 2000; Ashford-Rowe, Herrington and Brown, 2013; Frey, Schmitt, and Allen, 2012). 

It’s worth noting here that authentic assessments can initially be time consuming to design, implement, and grade. They are critiqued for being challenging to use across course contexts and for grading reliability issues (Maclellan, 2004). Despite these challenges, authentic assessments are recognized as beneficial to student learning (Svinicki, 2004) as they are learner-centered (Weimer, 2013), promote academic integrity (McLaughlin, L. and Ricevuto, 2021; Sotiriadou et al., 2019; Schroeder, 2021) and motivate students to learn (Ambrose et al., 2010). The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning is always available to consult with faculty who are considering authentic assessment designs and to discuss challenges and affordances.   

Examples from the Columbia University Classroom 

Columbia instructors have experimented with alternative ways of assessing student learning from oral exams to technology-enhanced assignments. Below are a few examples of authentic assignments in various teaching contexts across Columbia University. 

• E-portfolios: Statia Cook shares her experiences with an ePorfolio assignment in her co-taught Frontiers of Science course (a submission to the Voices of Hybrid and Online Teaching and Learning initiative); CUIMC use of ePortfolios ;
• Case studies: Columbia instructors have engaged their students in authentic ways through case studies drawing on the Case Consortium at Columbia University. Read and watch a faculty spotlight to learn how Professor Mary Ann Price uses the case method to place pre-med students in real-life scenarios;
• Simulations: students at CUIMC engage in simulations to develop their professional skills in The Mary & Michael Jaharis Simulation Center in the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Helene Fuld Health Trust Simulation Center in the Columbia School of Nursing; 
• Experiential learning: instructors have drawn on New York City as a learning laboratory such as Barnard’s NYC as Lab webpage which highlights courses that engage students in NYC;
• Design projects that address real world problems: Yevgeniy Yesilevskiy on the Engineering design projects completed using lab kits during remote learning. Watch Dr. Yesilevskiy talk about his teaching and read the Columbia News article . 
• Writing assignments: Lia Marshall and her teaching associate Aparna Balasundaram reflect on their “non-disposable or renewable assignments” to prepare social work students for their professional lives as they write for a real audience; and Hannah Weaver spoke about a sandbox assignment used in her Core Literature Humanities course at the 2021 Celebration of Teaching and Learning Symposium . Watch Dr. Weaver share her experiences.  

​Tips for Designing Assignments for Learning

While designing an effective authentic assignment may seem like a daunting task, the following tips can be used as a starting point. See the Resources section for frameworks and tools that may be useful in this effort.  

Align the assignment with your course learning objectives 

Identify the kind of thinking that is important in your course, the knowledge students will apply, and the skills they will practice using through the assignment. What kind of thinking will students be asked to do for the assignment? What will students learn by completing this assignment? How will the assignment help students achieve the desired course learning outcomes? For more information on course learning objectives, see the CTL’s Course Design Essentials self-paced course and watch the video on Articulating Learning Objectives .  

Identify an authentic meaning-making task

For meaning-making to occur, students need to understand the relevance of the assignment to the course and beyond (Ambrose et al., 2010). To Bean (2011) a “meaning-making” or “meaning-constructing” task has two dimensions: 1) it presents students with an authentic disciplinary problem or asks students to formulate their own problems, both of which engage them in active critical thinking, and 2) the problem is placed in “a context that gives students a role or purpose, a targeted audience, and a genre.” (Bean, 2011: 97-98). 

An authentic task gives students a realistic challenge to grapple with, a role to take on that allows them to “rehearse for the complex ambiguities” of life, provides resources and supports to draw on, and requires students to justify their work and the process they used to inform their solution (Wiggins, 1990). Note that if students find an assignment interesting or relevant, they will see value in completing it. 

Consider the kind of activities in the real world that use the knowledge and skills that are the focus of your course. How is this knowledge and these skills applied to answer real-world questions to solve real-world problems? (Herrington et al., 2010: 22). What do professionals or academics in your discipline do on a regular basis? What does it mean to think like a biologist, statistician, historian, social scientist? How might your assignment ask students to draw on current events, issues, or problems that relate to the course and are of interest to them? How might your assignment tap into student motivation and engage them in the kinds of thinking they can apply to better understand the world around them? (Ambrose et al., 2010). 

Determine the evaluation criteria and create a rubric

To ensure equitable and consistent grading of assignments across students, make transparent the criteria you will use to evaluate student work. The criteria should focus on the knowledge and skills that are central to the assignment. Build on the criteria identified, create a rubric that makes explicit the expectations of deliverables and share this rubric with your students so they can use it as they work on the assignment. For more information on rubrics, see the CTL’s resource Incorporating Rubrics into Your Grading and Feedback Practices , and explore the Association of American Colleges & Universities VALUE Rubrics (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education). 

Build in metacognition

Ask students to reflect on what and how they learned from the assignment. Help students uncover personal relevance of the assignment, find intrinsic value in their work, and deepen their motivation by asking them to reflect on their process and their assignment deliverable. Sample prompts might include: what did you learn from this assignment? How might you draw on the knowledge and skills you used on this assignment in the future? See Ambrose et al., 2010 for more strategies that support motivation and the CTL’s resource on Metacognition ). 

Provide students with opportunities to practice

Design your assignment to be a learning experience and prepare students for success on the assignment. If students can reasonably expect to be successful on an assignment when they put in the required effort ,with the support and guidance of the instructor, they are more likely to engage in the behaviors necessary for learning (Ambrose et al., 2010). Ensure student success by actively teaching the knowledge and skills of the course (e.g., how to problem solve, how to write for a particular audience), modeling the desired thinking, and creating learning activities that build up to a graded assignment. Provide opportunities for students to practice using the knowledge and skills they will need for the assignment, whether through low-stakes in-class activities or homework activities that include opportunities to receive and incorporate formative feedback. For more information on providing feedback, see the CTL resource Feedback for Learning . 

Communicate about the assignment 

Share the purpose, task, audience, expectations, and criteria for the assignment. Students may have expectations about assessments and how they will be graded that is informed by their prior experiences completing high-stakes assessments, so be transparent. Tell your students why you are asking them to do this assignment, what skills they will be using, how it aligns with the course learning outcomes, and why it is relevant to their learning and their professional lives (i.e., how practitioners / professionals use the knowledge and skills in your course in real world contexts and for what purposes). Finally, verify that students understand what they need to do to complete the assignment. This can be done by asking students to respond to poll questions about different parts of the assignment, a “scavenger hunt” of the assignment instructions–giving students questions to answer about the assignment and having them work in small groups to answer the questions, or by having students share back what they think is expected of them.

Plan to iterate and to keep the focus on learning 

Draw on multiple sources of data to help make decisions about what changes are needed to the assignment, the assignment instructions, and/or rubric to ensure that it contributes to student learning. Explore assignment performance data. As Deandra Little reminds us: “a really good assignment, which is a really good assessment, also teaches you something or tells the instructor something. As much as it tells you what students are learning, it’s also telling you what they aren’t learning.” ( Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episode 337 ). Assignment bottlenecks–where students get stuck or struggle–can be good indicators that students need further support or opportunities to practice prior to completing an assignment. This awareness can inform teaching decisions. 

Triangulate the performance data by collecting student feedback, and noting your own reflections about what worked well and what did not. Revise the assignment instructions, rubric, and teaching practices accordingly. Consider how you might better align your assignment with your course objectives and/or provide more opportunities for students to practice using the knowledge and skills that they will rely on for the assignment. Additionally, keep in mind societal, disciplinary, and technological changes as you tweak your assignments for future use. 

Now is a great time to reflect on your practices and experiences with assignment design and think critically about your approach. Take a closer look at an existing assignment. Questions to consider include: What is this assignment meant to do? What purpose does it serve? Why do you ask students to do this assignment? How are they prepared to complete the assignment? Does the assignment assess the kind of learning that you really want? What would help students learn from this assignment? 

Using the tips in the previous section: How can the assignment be tweaked to be more authentic and meaningful to students? 

As you plan forward for post-pandemic teaching and reflect on your practices and reimagine your course design, you may find the following CTL resources helpful: Reflecting On Your Experiences with Remote Teaching , Transition to In-Person Teaching , and Course Design Support .

The Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is here to help!

For assistance with assignment design, rubric design, or any other teaching and learning need, please request a consultation by emailing [email protected] . 

Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework for assignments. The TILT Examples and Resources page ( https://tilthighered.com/tiltexamplesandresources ) includes example assignments from across disciplines, as well as a transparent assignment template and a checklist for designing transparent assignments . Each emphasizes the importance of articulating to students the purpose of the assignment or activity, the what and how of the task, and specifying the criteria that will be used to assess students. 

Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) offers VALUE ADD (Assignment Design and Diagnostic) tools ( https://www.aacu.org/value-add-tools ) to help with the creation of clear and effective assignments that align with the desired learning outcomes and associated VALUE rubrics (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education). VALUE ADD encourages instructors to explicitly state assignment information such as the purpose of the assignment, what skills students will be using, how it aligns with course learning outcomes, the assignment type, the audience and context for the assignment, clear evaluation criteria, desired formatting, and expectations for completion whether individual or in a group.

Villarroel et al. (2017) propose a blueprint for building authentic assessments which includes four steps: 1) consider the workplace context, 2) design the authentic assessment; 3) learn and apply standards for judgement; and 4) give feedback. 

References 

Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., & DiPietro, M. (2010). Chapter 3: What Factors Motivate Students to Learn? In How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching . Jossey-Bass. 

Ashford-Rowe, K., Herrington, J., and Brown, C. (2013). Establishing the critical elements that determine authentic assessment. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 39(2), 205-222, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2013.819566 .  

Bean, J.C. (2011). Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom . Second Edition. Jossey-Bass. 

Frey, B. B, Schmitt, V. L., and Allen, J. P. (2012). Defining Authentic Classroom Assessment. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation. 17(2). DOI: https://doi.org/10.7275/sxbs-0829  

Herrington, J., Reeves, T. C., and Oliver, R. (2010). A Guide to Authentic e-Learning . Routledge. 

Herrington, J. and Oliver, R. (2000). An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 48(3), 23-48. 

Litchfield, B. C. and Dempsey, J. V. (2015). Authentic Assessment of Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 142 (Summer 2015), 65-80. 

Maclellan, E. (2004). How convincing is alternative assessment for use in higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 29(3), June 2004. DOI: 10.1080/0260293042000188267

McLaughlin, L. and Ricevuto, J. (2021). Assessments in a Virtual Environment: You Won’t Need that Lockdown Browser! Faculty Focus. June 2, 2021. 

Mueller, J. (2005). The Authentic Assessment Toolbox: Enhancing Student Learning through Online Faculty Development . MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. 1(1). July 2005. Mueller’s Authentic Assessment Toolbox is available online. 

Schroeder, R. (2021). Vaccinate Against Cheating With Authentic Assessment . Inside Higher Ed. (February 26, 2021).  

Sotiriadou, P., Logan, D., Daly, A., and Guest, R. (2019). The role of authentic assessment to preserve academic integrity and promote skills development and employability. Studies in Higher Education. 45(111), 2132-2148. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2019.1582015    

Stachowiak, B. (Host). (November 25, 2020). Authentic Assignments with Deandra Little. (Episode 337). In Teaching in Higher Ed . https://teachinginhighered.com/podcast/authentic-assignments/  

Svinicki, M. D. (2004). Authentic Assessment: Testing in Reality. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. 100 (Winter 2004): 23-29. 

Villarroel, V., Bloxham, S, Bruna, D., Bruna, C., and Herrera-Seda, C. (2017). Authentic assessment: creating a blueprint for course design. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. 43(5), 840-854. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2017.1412396    

Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice . Second Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

Wiggins, G. (2014). Authenticity in assessment, (re-)defined and explained. Retrieved from https://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2014/01/26/authenticity-in-assessment-re-defined-and-explained/

Wiggins, G. (1998). Teaching to the (Authentic) Test. Educational Leadership . April 1989. 41-47. 

Wiggins, Grant (1990). The Case for Authentic Assessment . Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation , 2(2). 

Wondering how AI tools might play a role in your course assignments?

See the CTL’s resource “Considerations for AI Tools in the Classroom.”

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Related Articles:

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• Education in the Process of National Development

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1 Module 1: Introduction to Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

Module 1 Guiding Questions

• What is the purpose of this class and how will it help me become an effective teacher?
• What are the assignments for this class?
• How is this class organized?
• How can I be successful in this class?

People go into teaching for a variety of reasons but all great teachers are focused on their students. It is appropriate for you to start thinking about how you would like your students to remember you. . . What kind of teacher do YOU want to become? What do you need to do to become THAT kind of teacher? Set high expectations for yourself; just as you will for your students. Great teaching is, among other things, an ART.  That doesn’t mean that some people are born to teach; rather, like artists, great teachers hone their craft by practicing basic skills; apply important principles to new situations; learn from experience; share ideas with others; develop an understanding of your audience; and ??  You get the gist.  There is also a SCIENCE of teaching (as there is to other forms of art–don’t think about that one too much just yet) that is important as well.  We’ll discuss those elements more later in the course and book.

You might also appreciate the perspectives of of a veteran, award winning educator: Heller, Rafael. “WHY WE TEACH: A Conversation with Sonia Nieto.” Phi Delta Kappan 101, no. 8 (May 2020): 31–36 .

Effective teachers not only know where they come from, they also know where they are going. They have a clear sense of purpose—from both a personal and societal perspective.

Why did you decide to become a teacher?

Here’s how some of your K-State College of Education students have answered that question.

Getting Started

You’re joining an amazing profession that will provide you and your future students years of meaningful engagement. Like all teachers, we want to help you figure out the world of around you, specifically the world of students, teachers, and schools. Effective teachers perceive, analyze, communicate, and engage the world in particular ways.

This course is one step in a lifelong journey. You’ll have additional coursework, teaching opportunities, and, most importantly, additional time to identify and articulate the skills and values that define you as a teacher. Great teachers seek balance among the virtues of effective teachers, the ideal and reality; the theory and practice; as well as the art and science.

It’s a wonderful journey, so let’s get started.

Throughout this course, continually ask yourself the following questions:

• What are the central acts of teaching?
• How do effective teachers plan so all students can learn?
• How does assessment frame instruction and aid student learning?
• What techniques, strategies, and methods promote student learning?
• How do effective teachers manage classrooms to create positive learning environments?
• How do teachers improve their instruction?
• What are the attitudes, dispositions, and contributions of teachers with a high level of professionalism?

Focus on these questions in terms of what effective experienced teachers do and in terms of what you will attempt to do as a novice teacher.

Highly effective teachers, those who motivate and maximize learning, vary. There is no single personality type, lesson model, classroom management strategy, or assessment scheme that will guarantee success.

In this course, we are on a quest to explore the concepts, skills, and attitudes that will increase your chances for success. Although we will isolate various ideas (e.g., how do I ask a meaningful question?), it is the unique combination of those ideas that will power your teaching.

Effective Teaching: Big Picture Context

Becoming an effective teacher requires some sense of history (as a history teacher, I would argue being a thoughtful human being requires some sense of history!). Although you are just beginning your career as a teacher, human beings have been teaching and learning for thousands of years.  In short, we have always been involved in some form of conscious social reproduction. Students, parents, and government officials ask, “What is most important to learn and how is it best taught?”

The answers to these questions have varied through the years. Highly effective teachers should have some sense of where they come from. Watch this brief video on the history of education in the United States.

Read:  Labaree, David F. 2011. “Consuming the Public School.” Educational Theory 61 (4): 381–94 .

• What major developments in education do you anticipate in the course of your career?
• What do you believe is the primary purpose of pre-collegiate education in the United States?
• What is your primary role as a teacher?
• What do you need to become an effective teacher?

How will EDCI 702 Help me Become an Effective Teacher?

Teaching and learning are complex activities that often defy simple explanation or description.  Everyday, teachers face scores of decisions that influence student learning and development.  Even seemingly simple decisions may be more complex than they appear. Should you allow a student to turn in her paper late?  How should you respond to Josh and Steve who are talking, again?  What should you teach next week and how should it be organized?  How should you evaluate your unit on mammals?  This course is based on the assumption that the best teachers critically consider what to teach, how to teach, and how to assess students and their classes–before, during, and after instruction.  In other words, the best teachers are equipped with a well-developed and thoughtful intellectual framework that helps them to make sound educational decisions based upon the myriad of factors that influence those decisions.  ED 702 will enable you to further develop your own framework-of ideas, skills, and dispositions-that will help you make educational/teaching decisions and empower you to act on those decisions.

What are the Learning Objectives for EDCI 702?

Everything we do in this class is connected to one or more of the following learning objectives/outcomes. Effective teaching is, among other things, purposeful.

As a result of the learning opportunities and activities of this course, the learner will be able to:

• perceive, interpret, and evaluate important issues in the landscape of teaching;
• identify, describe, and use the skills, personality traits, and teaching strategies of effective teachers;
• use professional language to describe curriculum, instruction, and assessment;
• use pedagogical content knowledge to evaluate teaching and to make wise professional judgments;
• plan clear, coherent, and standards-based lessons and units consistent with your beliefs about teaching, learning, and schools;
• use a wide variety of resources to enhance curriculum, instruction, and assessment;
• assess student readiness, progress, and mastery;
• identify and describe issues, concepts, and skills that help to create a positive learning environment; and
• appreciate the diverse needs of learners and explain how to address differences among learners.

We will check in on these again at the end of the course and ask ourselves, “Did we accomplish these objectives?”

What are the Assignments for the Class?

The following briefly describes assignments during the course.  All of the assignments further the learning objectives above. More specific expectations will be provided as the course develops.  The grading program I use allows me to weight assignments so that all of your position papers, for example, make up 10% of your grade.  Assignments are due by 11:59 pm on the day indicated by the syllabus.  Late assignments  are penalized 10% for every 24-hour period the assignment is late.  Assignments more than five days late are unacceptable.

Module Discussion Questions (25%)

You will post ONE original and TWO reply posts to each discussion threads. The due dates for these assignments appear at the end of this syllabus and on our KSOL website. At a minimum, your original responses should clearly answer the question, explain your reasoning, and provide examples to support your ideas.  At a minimum, reply responses should provide insights/questions/criticisms of your classmate’s posting.  See the “Discussion Question Rubric” for more precise evaluation criteria.  

Homework, Worksheets, and Brief Class Assignments  ( 15%)

Homework and brief assignments are designed to check for understanding and refine your thinking about some important aspect of becoming a teacher.   These assignments are related to readings, class discussions, or some other issue that comes up throughout the class.

Online Quizzes  ( 10%)

These quizzes cover content from class sessions, discussion, and the chapters in the textbooks. The questions will consist of short-answer (e.g., multiple-choice questions, true-false, matching) and a few essay questions.

Instructional Strategy Presentation (15%)

Each of you will be assigned a research-based teaching strategy.  You will research, prepare, and teach about your assigned strategy.

Position Papers (10%)

Position papers are two- to three-page papers that express your opinion and reasoning on some important issue in teaching and learning.  You should attempt to be as clear and concise as possible.

Mini-Unit (15%)

You will design a brief unit of instruction (three lessons) that is representative of the ideas, skills, and values you believe are important in teaching.  As a culminating activity for the course, your unit should incorporate and demonstrate your understanding of important principles in education.

Course Participation & Professionalism (10%)

This portion of your grade is related to both the quality and quantity of your participation and interaction with your classmates, other professionals, and me.  The ability to discuss and analyze differences in professional philosophy from an open, honest, and mutually supportive perspective is a key element of professionalism.

How can I be a Successful in this Course and as a Pre-service Teacher?

• Positive Attitude . Every day, every student, and nearly every situation are unique in teaching and preparing to be a teacher. Try as best you can to maintain a positive attitude–even when the chips are down!
• Independence . This is a graduate program and you are experienced adults. We will not prescriptively tell you everything you need to do–that’s called learning to follow directions, not learning to teach.
• Communicate . Keep the lines of communication open and clear with your TA, with your CTs (once you are in the schools), and with everyone else with whom you interact professionally.
• Big Picture . Keep the big picture in mind as you are going through the MAT–you are doing all of this so you can be the very best teacher you possibly become. Great students are able to find value in their assignments and experiences. If you come across ANYTHING in my class that you think will not have an impact on your teaching, contact me immediately and, if you are correct, we will remove the superfluous assignment or activity.
• Work Hard . How much you get out of EDCI 702 or the MAT is usually proportional to the amount of work you are willing to expend.

How Is this Class Organized?

Module 1: Introduction to Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

Guiding Questions for Module 1:

Module 2: Practical Wisdom

Guiding Questions for Module 2:

• What is practical wisdom?
• How does practical wisdom connect to teaching?
• How does understanding practical wisdom help me become a better teacher?

Module 3: The Personal Attributes and Skills of Effective Teachers

Guiding Questions for Module 3:

• What personality traits seem most related to effective teaching?
• What skills seem most related to effective teaching?
• What personality traits or skills do I currently possess that will help me be an effective teacher?
• What personality traits or skills will I need to work on most to be an effective teacher?

Module 4: The Art and Science of Teaching—Pedagogical Content Knowledge

Guiding Questions for Module 4:

• What is pedagogical content knowledge?
• How does knowledge of student development and learning influence teaching?
• How does knowledge of content influence teaching?
• How does a knowledge of methods, strategies, and skills influence teaching?

Module 5: Content Standards

Guiding Questions for Module 5:

• What is the content scope and sequence for content standards in my subject(s)?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of content standards?
• What are the most important ideas and skills you will be responsible for teaching?
• How do wise teachers maximize the use of content standards?
• What is Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)?

Module 6: Curriculum Planning

Guiding Questions for Module 6:

• What resources are available to teachers to plan the curriculum?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of Understanding by Design as a model for curriculum planning?
• What is Bloom’s Taxonomy and how does it help teachers construct questions and objectives?
• How do effective teachers plan clear, coherent, and standards-based lessons?
• How do effective teachers plan clear, coherent, and standards-based mini-units?

Module 7: Teaching All Students

Guiding Questions for Module 7:

• In what ways are students alike and in what ways are they are unique?
• How do teachers effectively meet the needs of diverse learners in their classroom?

Module 8: Research-Based Instructional Strategies

Guiding Questions for Module 8 :

• What are research-based teaching strategies?
• How do effective teachers think about teaching strategies?
• How do effective teachers maximize the use of research-based teaching strategies?

Module 9: Assessment and Classroom Management

Guiding Questions for Module 9:

• What key terms are associated with assessment and classroom management?
• How do teachers assess student learning, mastery, and achievement?
• How do teachers provide a safe, healthy, and productive learning environment?
• What important principles will guide your assessment and classroom management decisions?

Module 10: Curriculum Mini-Unit

Guiding Questions for Module 10:

• How does my curriculum unit represent my ideas about curriculum, instruction, and assessment?

Bonus Module: Legal Issues in Teaching (can be completed anytime or not at all)

Guiding Questions for Bonus Module:

• What are the sources of laws, policies, and regulations that govern public schools and teachers?

EDCI 702: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Vontz and Lori Goodson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Modernization and Human capital theories and their relevance to the Zambia education system.

Related Papers

Cecilie Holdt Rude

Taking point of departure in Zambian education system, this project investigates the idea of education as a means towards a modern society. Inspired by Professor James Ferguson and professor Fazal Rizvi, the project questions the idea of a progressive development towards a modern society and examines what happens when international education principles characterized by neo-liberalism, innovation and critical thinking are being implemented in the Zambian society. Taking use of Carol Bacchi’s ‘Policy as Discourse’, the project examines the agents involved in the process of making education polices, both the principles on Education for All from 1990, and two Zambian education polices from 1996 and 2005. The project concludes that from 1996 to 2005 Zambian education policies follow to a greater extent international agreed principles that cause challenges in the local society, and that it can be difficult to become a Zambian modern society when many stakeholders have different agendas.

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ISAAC KABELENGA

Fundamental to the growing interest in investment in education is the widespread notion that a nation's economic performance is linked to education and training. It is usually asserted that human capital plays a significant role in economic development and that education is at the centre-piece of human capital formation. In support of the above assertion, this literature review evaluates the extent to which implementation of ideas of Human Capital Theory, specifically on education, influences national economic development. At a micro analysis level, the study illuminates the role of education in developing human capital necessary for Malawi’s socio-economic development and also offers alternative views for improving and strengthening education so that it fundamentally contributes to future development solutions.

ABRAHAM ZULU

Levels of poverty in Zambia are escalating because of corruption, inadequate education, poor governance and poor governance. Hence the need to cub poverty. Education is the panacea to poverty. This paper discusses the factors leading to high levels of poverty in Zambia and how education can be a panacea to poverty.

Herryman Moono

Robert Serpell

Abstract: This paper contrasts two perspectives for evaluating educational programs:(1) a growth curve model of personal development in the sociocultural context; and (2) a narrowing staircase model of educational success. According to the first perspective, development occurs along personal, social, and cognitive dimensions, and arises from the individual's exploratory interaction with a context structured by enduring cultural resources that are organized in layers. The local school is one of many such resources encountered ...

Dennis Lembani

Cali Sheekhdoon Cabdi

Zambia, a central African country of about 10 million people, is currently exposed to the nonsubjective forces of globalization, including institutional weaknesses such as high unemployment rates and chronic levels of poverty that ipso facto problematize its governance and social development priorities. The first part of the article focuses on an overview of the failure of the formal educational systems in the context of neoliberal globalization. The second part constitutes an examination of ideological orientations underlying neoliberal approaches to the management of the new global economic order. Here the influence of the World Bank in the educational sector is highlighted. The Bank's ideological orientation is contrasted with educational approaches that should privilege human rights as the standard by which to measure development programs, initiatives, and considerations of ecological integrity. The third section, education for informed action for change through organization...

Nick Jepson , Jeffrey Henderson

This Paper seeks to retheorise the trajectory of Zambian development since the country’s independence. It emerges from a larger project designed to break with current discourses and rethink development more generally on the basis of ‘transformation’, with particular attention paid to the circumstances under which periods of ‘critical transformation’ are likely to occur in particular national and subnational contexts. Beginning with an account of the conceptual and epistemological issues associated with this approach, the paper then explores the utility of ‘transformation analysis’ categories via a re-interpretation of Zambian development. It maps in detail the ways in which key enduring vectors of transformation have combined over time, along with a variety of other intervening dynamics and contingencies, to drive the sequences and trajectories of transformation observed in Zambia since independence.

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What is Modernization? Causes, Importance, Pros and Cons

Change is the only constant in the society and ‘Modernization’ is a continuous process that depicts social change. This process deals with the modern ways of life by adoption of modern values so that people could adapt to the changing society. Modernization could be equated with the development of science and technology that has remarkably changed the structure of society as well as social relationships  and replaced traditional ideologies with new ones. Modernization has not just influenced one or a few spheres of the society but the entire society which is why the changes brought by the process is tremendous.  This article will deal with the meaning of modernization along with its causes, importance, pros and cons.

 Definition of Modernization

“Modernization is a process by which modern scientific knowledge is introduced in the society with the ultimate purpose of achieving a better and a more satisfactory life in the broadest sense of the term as accepted by the society concerned”.  – S.H. Alatas.

“Modernization is a revolutionary change leading to the transformation of traditional society into technological and civilized society. “ – Wilbert E Moore

These definitions clearly explains the essence of modernization which is a process of change or adoption to the new or modern values and ways of life. Change is inevitable and with the passage of time, the society undergoes several changes in response to the developmental activities. The society has witnessed the massive transition from ‘agrarian’ to ‘industrial’ over centuries which brought with it a transformation of lifestyle, values, norms, culture etc. This is nothing but the process of modernization.

Causes of Modernization

Modernization isn’t caused in a day but it has been a long process and many factors led to it which could be discussed as follows –

• Science and technological development

Societies all over the world experienced modernization after the development of science and technology. It brought a revolution to the society after traditional mode of living saw a transition to modern mode of living in every aspects. Science and technology has been the chief ingredient of modernization as it invoked scientific thinking among people and instilled in them the drive to promote scientific innovations.

• Rapid industrialization

Modern society is linked with the idea of an industrial society and industrialization is one of the key drivers of modernization. The Industrial Revolution of 18th century accelerated the  growth of industries and factories through the use of science and technology bringing drastic change in the society. Industrialization replaced traditional patterns of economic activities and ways of life and made people acquainted with modern ways of living and earning.  

Education is an important agent of modernization that provides knowledge to people and  inculcate in them attitude, values and skill that will guide them in adapting to the dynamics of the changing society. Education encourage people to develop a rational and  broader perspective of the world rescuing them from the clutches of traditional outlooks  and speculative ideas.

• Emergence of mass media

Mass media expedite modernization. Mass media emerged with the prevalence of print media like newspaper, books  and has slowly evolved into electronic media like radio, television, mobile phones with the help of technology to reach a large mass of people to provide them with information, thoughts, ideas about the world. Mass media connects people and has helped in overcoming the barriers of time and space to make development and bring changes in the society.

 Importance of Modernization

The importance of modernization could be discussed as follows –

• Rise in economic growth

Modernization has led to industrialization which is an important factor of economic growth  opening the door for engaging in various economic activities by making use of tools and technologies. Economic development and equitable distribution of wealth in the society indicates the health of economy which is reflected in the rise of Gross National Product (GNP).

• Leads to globalization

Globalization is a process of integrating the world into one through the movement of goods, services, people, ideas across borders making the people all over the world come together via technology. This is nothing but a stimulation of modernization where the world economy, polity, culture has integrated as one and this phenomenon is further strengthened through science and technology, education, public services etc.

• Rise in literacy

Modernization helps in elimination of illiteracy from the society by making provisions for people to attend schools and colleges. People are given knowledge in every field be it trade, commerce, science, health, public services etc. so that awareness is created among the people regarding how the society functions and educated people will have the means to eradicate the challenges of society.

• Democratization

Modernization has greatly transformed the political sphere and encouraged a shift from traditional and authoritarian government to democratic government where participation of the people is required to run a country. Democratization is possible only after developing a rational outlook with the realization of equality, justice and brotherhood which are the gifts of modernization.

• Nationalism

Modernization broadens mindsets and perspectives due to which people comes out of the shell of ‘local’ and identify themselves with the nation they inhabit and harbour patriotism. Along with local or regional identity, modernization has led people to take their national identity and develop national ideologies.

Here are two examples that will explain how the process of modernization has transformed the society.

• Universal Adult Franchise

Based on the principle of equality, Universal Adult Franchise refers to  the right to vote to all adult citizens without any discrimination on the basis of caste, class, colour, religion or gender.  It is considered to be the core of democracy and not providing the right to vote is considered to be a violation of human rights. India adopted Universal Adult Franchise in 1949 when the Indian Constitution was passed and successfully implemented on January 26, 1950 and ever since then every Indian citizen enjoy this right.

• The Green Revolution

The green revolution in India is an apt example of modernization that transformed the agrarian sector by the use of technology and modern methods like the use of tractors, fertilizers, pesticides, HYV seeds, irrigation facilities etc. to increase food production in the country.  Although this revolution faced severe backlash from all over the country for the side effects and inequitable distribution of wealth in the country, yet it cannot be denied that it is a result of modernization.

Pros and  Cons of Modernization

Having discussed about modernization and its importance in the society, it is however to be mentioned that this process has its both pros and cons which are as follows –

• Encourage social mobility

Modernization challenge the hierarchical social structures of the society , for instance, caste in India and allows people to explore the opportunities that modernization brought to the society. People are free to choose their occupation no matter to which caste or religion they belong to and with rigorous hard work people can even upgrade their class as well.

• Promote rational values and scientific development

With modernization comes rationality that encourage people to shun illogical practices and values and replace it with rational thoughts and scientific ideas.  

• Participation of people in governance

Modernization leads to democracy where people are required to participate in political processes to elect the leaders of the government, express consent or dissent on political decisions so that the government policies runs in favour of the majority.

• Nurture secular ideology

Secular ideology is a transition from rigid religious values to rational, non – religious values where people does not attach much priority to their own religion but accept all the religions and with the development of secular ideology , people freely participate in those activities which were earlier restricted by their religion.

• Interfere with traditional values

Although modernization encouraged ‘modern’ to coexist with tradition yet many of the traditional values are diminishing. In India, for instance, family was given prime importance but with modernization, the importance of family has decreased and got replaced with individual. Cultures which were unique to a particular region are seen to blend with cultures of other regions due to close contact among people all over due to which the traditional values are threatened because of modernization.

• Social and economic inequality

Although modernization mobilize people yet many people cannot access it. Inequality in both economic and social terms emerges among people as one section of the society enjoy the benefits of modernization and the other section remains untouched by it. For example, people who receive education will land into good jobs and they will earn a good amount of money and a respectable position in the society but people who are not facilitated with education opportunities or are unaware of the benefits of education will not have the same social and economic status. This inaccessibility will lead to inequality in the society.

• Environmental crisis

Modernization popularizes  science and technology through which various developmental activities are done in the society. These activities require raw materials which are the natural resources that gets depleted from continuous extraction and the outcome of those activities often lead to pollution. However, the outcome of developmental activities through technology brings change in society but at the cost of environment.

• Degradation of morality

Because of the prevalence of scientific temperament and rational outlook that modernization brought, people have become quite individualistic and materialist. In the thirst of progress and fulfilling self interest, people do not hesitate to indulge in immoral and unethical activities.

Therefore it cannot be denied that although Modernization is  a blessing to the society yet it has a set of disadvantages that could be detrimental to the growth of society.

 Conclusion

Modernization transforms the society and brings progress, development by eliminating the regressive elements of the society that were the barriers to bring change in the society. The scientific and technological inventions brought tremendous change in every sphere of the society and installed new and scientific ideologies in the minds of people.  It is however to be mentioned that modernization is not an antithesis to tradition but it instigate the society to develop a rational mindset and a scientific outlook to deal with the challenges of society.

Monsoon Rupam

I am Monsoon Rupam. I did my post graduation in Sociology from Dibrugarh University. I have a curious mind and it always excites me to find 'sociology' in everything around me. I am a keen observer and take interest in research work and analysis. Gender Studies, Social Stratification, Health are a few areas that holds my attention to work upon. Besides, I find solace in music, moon gazing, sunsets, rain and flowers.

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Modernization and Educational Implications

Modernization of Indian society refers to the process of societal transformation driven by industrialization, urbanization, technological advancements, and the influence of global ideas and practices. This process has had significant implications for education in India.

Modernization and Education Implications:

Here are the key aspects of the modernization of indian society and its educational implications:.

• Access to Education : Modernization has led to increased emphasis on education as a means for social and economic progress. Efforts have been made to expand access to education, with the goal of achieving universal primary education and reducing educational disparities based on gender, socioeconomic status, and geographical location. Modernization has created a demand for skilled labor, leading to a greater emphasis on vocational and technical education.
• Curriculum and Pedagogy: The modernization of Indian society has influenced curriculum and pedagogy in education. There is a greater focus on scientific and technological subjects, as well as practical skills that are relevant to the demands of the modern economy. The curriculum has evolved to include subjects such as computer science, information technology, entrepreneurship, and environmental studies. Pedagogical approaches have also shifted towards student-centered and experiential learning methods to foster critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity.
• Role of English Language: Modernization has elevated the importance of English as a global language of communication and economic opportunity. English proficiency has become a sought-after skill for employment and higher education. Consequently, there has been a growing emphasis on English language education in schools and universities, with a focus on developing proficiency in spoken and written English.
• Technological Integration: Modernization has brought about the integration of technology in education. Digital tools, e-learning platforms, and internet connectivity have revolutionized the teaching and learning process. The use of multimedia resources, online learning platforms, and virtual classrooms has expanded access to educational resources and facilitated distance learning opportunities.
• Changing Educational Goals: Modernization has led to a shift in educational goals. There is a greater emphasis on equipping students with skills and competencies required in the modern workforce, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration. Education is seen as a means to foster innovation, entrepreneurship, and adaptability in a rapidly changing global landscape.
• Social Mobility and Meritocracy: Modernization has offered avenues for social mobility based on merit and skills rather than traditional social hierarchies. Education has become a key driver of social and economic mobility, providing opportunities for individuals to transcend their socioeconomic backgrounds. The focus on meritocracy in education aims to create a more equitable society by rewarding talent and effort.
• Cultural Change and Diversity: Modernization has brought about cultural change and the emergence of a more diverse and cosmopolitan society. Education plays a crucial role in facilitating intercultural understanding, promoting tolerance, and celebrating diversity. The curriculum incorporates multicultural content, history, and perspectives to foster inclusive education that reflects the pluralistic nature of modern Indian society.
• Global Perspectives: Modernization has made the world more interconnected, leading to increased exposure to global ideas, cultures, and challenges. Education in India has responded by incorporating global perspectives in the curriculum, fostering global citizenship, and preparing students to be active participants in the globalized world. Exchange programs, international collaborations, and cross-cultural experiences are promoted to develop a broader worldview among students.

Overall, the modernization of Indian society has transformed the landscape of education, expanding access, adapting curricula, integrating technology, and emphasizing skills and competencies needed in the modern era. Education is viewed as a catalyst for individual empowerment, social progress, and economic development in the context of a rapidly changing globalized world.

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Also Read: Cultural Determinants of Curriculum

2 thoughts on “Modernization and Educational Implications”

Transforming Education in Modern India is an inspiring journey towards a brighter future. In this paradigm shift, the role of educational institutions is pivotal. Among them, the Best CBSE Schools in Haralur stand out as catalysts for innovation, providing a foundation that empowers students to thrive in the dynamic landscape of contemporary learning. Thank You, Mayank Jain, CEO of ezschooling.com

Modernization in education has revolutionized learning methods, fostering creativity and critical thinking. With technology integration and innovative teaching approaches, schools in areas like BTM Layout have embraced this change. Here’s a list of the top 10 schools in BTM Layout, where modern educational implications thrive, ensuring holistic development for students.

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Understanding How Digital Media Affects Child Development

Technology and digital media have become ubiquitous parts of our daily lives. Screen time among children and adolescents was high before COVID-19 emerged, and it has further risen during the pandemic, thanks in part to the lack of in-person interactions.  

In this increasingly digital world, we must strive to better understand how technology and media affect development, health outcomes, and interpersonal relationships. In fact, the fiscal year 2023 federal budget sets aside no less than $15 million within NICHD’s appropriation to investigate the effects of technology use and media consumption on infant, child, and adolescent development.

Parents may not closely oversee their children’s media use, especially as children gain independence. However, many scientific studies of child and adolescent media use have relied on parents’ recollections of how much time the children spent in front of a screen. By using software embedded within mobile devices to calculate children’s actual use, NICHD-supported researchers found that parent reports were inaccurate more often than they were on target. A little more than one-third of parents in the study underestimated their children’s usage, and nearly the same proportion overestimated it. With a recent grant award from NICHD, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine plan to overcome the limitation of relying on parental reports by using a novel technology to objectively monitor preschool-age children’s digital media use. They ultimately aim to identify the short- and long-term influences of technology and digital media use on children’s executive functioning, sleep patterns, and weight. This is one of three multi-project program grants awarded in response to NICHD’s recent funding opportunity announcement inviting proposals to examine how digital media exposure and use impact developmental trajectories and health outcomes in early childhood or adolescence. Another grant supports research to characterize the context, content, and use of digital media among children ages 1 to 8 years and to examine associations with the development of emotional regulation and social competence. A third research program seeks to better characterize the complex relationships between social media content, behaviors, brain activity, health, and well-being during adolescence.

I look forward to the findings from these ongoing projects and other studies that promise to inform guidance for technology and media use among children and adolescents. Additionally, the set-aside funding for the current fiscal year will allow us to further expand research in this area. These efforts will help us advance toward our aspirational goal to discover how technology exposure and media use affect developmental trajectories, health outcomes, and parent-child interactions.

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Journey to the classroom: Alumna begins new career in education with support from BGSU

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Flexible and convenient programs allow Rachel Lill ‘18 to pursue a career change

By Laren Kowalczyk ‘07

Bowling Green State University alumna Rachel Lill ‘18 may not have been a teacher for the first part of her professional life, but an instinctual desire to educate those around her was ever present.

When she left her career in retail management in search of a better work-life balance, Lill took a job tutoring at-risk students — an opportunity that inspired her to return to BGSU to become a teacher.

“I absolutely fell in love with teaching,” Lill said. “My passion for teaching was always there, but tutoring opened my eyes to the real possibility of changing careers. My path to becoming a teacher might differ from most, but I was led to exactly where I was meant to be.”

#1 University in Ohio for Student Experience

Innovative engineering degrees, #1 public university in the midwest students would choose again for the fourth consecutive year.

Lill’s journey to the classroom began in 2017 when she reenrolled at  BGSU Firelands  in Huron, Ohio, to finish the bachelor’s degree she started more than a decade earlier. 

With a degree in liberal studies, Lill joined Vermilion Local Schools, east of Huron, as an intervention specialist in 2019 through Ohio’s alternative resident educator license, a common pathway into teaching for those changing careers.

To earn her professional teacher license, Lill enrolled in the  alternative resident educator program (AREP)  through  BGSU Online  in Spring 2023. The graduate certificate program, offered in convenient seven-week sessions, is the final step required for professional licensure.

Classes are taught by the same BGSU faculty who teach in-person classes in the nationally-ranked education program in the  College of Education and Human Development.

Through the flexible BGSU Online program, Lill was mentored by Dr. Meg Vostal, an assistant teaching professor in the  School of Inclusive Teacher Education.

“I began my teaching career during the pandemic, which was discouraging at times,” Lill said. “Meg helped me understand that there always will be challenges in education, but you have to focus on the things that are within your control. She helped get me into the right mindset to move forward and make a difference.

“That program was such an amazing experience. It was the recharge I needed coming out of the pandemic.”

Vostal said Lill’s dedication and passion for teaching were supported by the evidence-based pedagogy classes at BGSU, which are designed to help teachers transform their good intentions into excellent instruction.

“Rachel's student-centered classroom practices impressed me from the start,” Vostal said. “She entered the teaching profession with a strong commitment to help students with disabilities reach their goals. It's a joy to support early-career teachers like Rachel who are eager to master the craft of teaching.”

Grateful for the support she received with each BGSU experience, Lill returned once again to pursue her  master’s degree in special education, specializing in secondary transition , through BGSU Online.

“The combination of knowledgeable and caring faculty with an environment suited for working professionals made my decision to pursue my master’s degree at BGSU incredibly easy,” Lill said. “I know I’ll receive a quality education that will help make me a better educator.”

Lill will begin her new role as a middle school intervention specialist in Danbury Local Schools in Marblehead, Ohio, in the 2024-25 school year.

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Media Contact | Michael Bratton | [email protected] | 419-372-6349

Updated: 05/20/2024 01:48PM

Microcertificates

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Looking to boost your current career, impress a potential employer, or explore a new field of interest? Microcertificates can lower the cost and time barriers to earning a credential — and potentially kickstart a longer academic journey.

By earning a microcredential, you demonstrate proficiency in academic knowledge and in real-world applications, adding immense value to your experience and professional acumen.

Microcertificate Benefits

Accelerated. Earn a Harvard credential in 2 courses.

Stackable. Apply courses toward a graduate certificate — or degree.

Actionable. Gain a new skill set for real-world impact.

2023–24 Microcertificates

This year’s microcertificate offerings offer advanced learning in a range of topics in sustainability, business management, and technology. Each set of curated course offerings seeks to help students deepen their existing knowledge and provide momentum for future growth.

No application is required for our microcertificates — you simply register for your first course.

Business Management Microcertificates

Our business management microcertificates provide the opportunity to build specialized knowledge in financial technology, project management, and workplace wellbeing.

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Learn techniques, methodologies, and frameworks to lead a complex project management process from beginning to end. You’ll gain fluency in applying Agile, waterfall, and Scrum methodologies and frameworks to a team-based setting.

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Motivated and engaged employees are more likely to contribute to a positive workplace culture and increase overall effectiveness. In the Wellbeing at Work Microcertificate, you’ll learn how managers can promote balance, engagement, and positivity across professional settings.

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Sustainability is all about the long term. Our selection of microcertificates each serve to address a different facet of sustainability, leveraging essential concepts, tools, and skills needed to apply to real-life problems.

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Gain insight into the viability of circular economics as a solution to the issues created by natural resource depletion. In this microcertificate, you learn how to incorporate circular systems with increased resiliency for both environmental health and business profits.

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Explore the increasingly important role that life cycle assessment plays in sustainable production and manufacturing. You’ll learn how to evaluate data, make key decisions, and gain proficiency using LCA analysis and software. 

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Learn about a more sustainable approach to farming and grazing animals that improves soil health, combats climate change, and improves the nutritional quality of food. In this microcertificate, you’ll explore soil science and ecology and consider how to transform supply chains.

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Technology is an undeniably integral part of our world. Specialized skills in database management, application development, and data modeling are just a few of the valuable skills that can set you apart in today’s highly competitive job market. Our technology microcertificates offer the opportunity to deepen your knowledge and strengthen your skill sets.

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Interested in advancing or launching a career as a database developer, administrator, analyst, or architect? In this microcertificate, you learn to design, develop, and manage modern database systems, including relational and NoSQL databases.

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As the demand for web developers continues to grow, you can gain the foundational skills required to create and maintain modern web applications, programming, and complex web applications.

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Explore the ethics, governance, and laws relevant to data science and artificial intelligence, including privacy, fairness, accountability, and transparency. This microcertificate is designed to provide you with the foundational knowledge and skills required to build ethical and effective data models.

What is a microcertificate?

A microcertificate offers a set of short, competency-based courses designed to help you build and demonstrate mastery in a given area. At Harvard Extension School, microcertificates offer a path to a credential that is shorter (only 2 courses), affordable, and highly focused on a skill set. Our microcertificates also stack toward related graduate certificates and graduate degrees .

Cost of a Microcertificate

At HES, our tuition is $3,220 a course. The whole microcertificate amounts to $6,440.

Who should enroll in a microcertificate?

Microcertificates are designed for career accelerators who are interested in building a focused skill set in an accelerated timeframe.

Microcertificates are a great way to enhance your professional learning and development. Industries across the board are ever-changing and increasingly competitive. If you are looking to fill a skill gap and build confidence in your current field — or even explore a new one — microcertificates are a good fit.

Completing a Microcertificate

The microcertificate curriculum consists of a small set of 2 to 5 tightly curated courses, from which you select 2. To earn the certificate, you complete the 2 courses at the graduate level, with a grade of B or higher, within 1 year. This short timeline will support momentum and reinforce the learning between the 2 related courses.

Who teaches courses for the microcertificates at Harvard?

The courses featured in the microcertificates are taught by Harvard Extension School instructors who teach across Harvard and peer institutions and work as expert practitioners in their fields.

Visit our faculty page to meet some of them.

How will a microcertificate help me improve my career or company?

The completion of a microcertificate shows proficiency in specific industry competencies and awards academic credit at the same time. In a semester or 2, you can upskill or reskill to demonstrate initiative and develop new skills in your place of business. You also have the opportunity to explore new industries without a full career change — or jumpstart a longer academic journey.

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We are here to help. Send us an email at [email protected] .

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Watch HGSE's Presentation of Diplomas and Certificates 2024

• Posted May 23, 2024
• By News editor

Following the University Ceremonies in Harvard Yard, HGSE diplomas and certificates are awarded to all graduates (both doctoral and master's) on stage in Radcliffe Yard. Dean Long will give her address; graduates will be individually presented with degrees and will walk across the stage.

Live stream begins Thursday, May 23, at 1:45 p.m.

For more information on Commencement 2024, visit:  https://www.gse.harvard.edu/commencement .

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Cellphone Headaches in Middle Schools: Why Policies Aren’t Enough

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Middle school has always been a difficult time for kids. But when you tack on their near-constant use of cellphones, this stage of development can become very problematic.

Research shows that early adolescents are particularly susceptible to the seductive risks tied to cellphone use: Think cyberbullying, catfishing (creating a fake identity online to mislead someone), and straight-up addiction. Putting in place strong cellphone-usage policies at school can help curb these associated problems.

Although the majority of K-12 schools (77 percent at last count) have policies that prohibit nonacademic use of cellphones during school hours, according to the National Center for Education Statistics , some teachers, including middle school educators, embrace the use of cellphones for in-class assignments —from making podcasts to taking nature photos for digital journals in science class.

But cellphone policies should be just one piece of a much broader and thoughtful digital educational strategy, experts emphasize.

“Most schools have done very little to address the digital citizenship piece of the technology end, and it’s often very random and hodgepodge—not just from district to district but from building to building,” said Liz Kolb, a clinical professor of learning technologies and teacher education at the University of Michigan. “There’s nobody in the school who’s actually in charge of this curriculum, which makes it difficult to figure out who’s going to teach it.”

It’s a problem worth remedying, say experts, who explain why middle school students are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of social media and how schools can help.

‘In middle school, peers are more important than parents’

During adolescence, students naturally begin to pull apart from their parents and seek approval from their peers. Some psychologists describe it as a process whereby adolescents engage in behaviors and attitudes that they feel help them establish independence from their parents but can oftentimes be very impulsive.

Cindy Bourget, a school counselor who works at Elk Mound Middle School in Wisconsin, sees it all the time. “In middle school, peers are more important than parents,” she said.

Of course, that’s nothing new. What is relatively new is the ubiquity of social media, which allows adolescents to connect with peers—and other sources of information, not always reliable or well-meaning—in a near continuous manner.

Research shows that middle school students are particularly susceptible to the negative effects of social media on their well-being. In a sweeping 2022 study that examined survey results from more than 17,400 teenagers and young adults on how social media use affected their life satisfaction, respondents indicated that social media use during puberty has a particularly negative effect.

Bourget said she hears a lot of feedback related to social media from middle school students, particularly girls, indicating that they’re having trouble navigating the online world. “The conversation surrounding healthy relationships has shifted so dramatically, from ‘how do you engage in a conversation with a boy’ to ‘how do you know if this person is trying to traffic you?’” she said.

Social media has also exacerbated the threat of more common adolescent challenges, like schoolyard bullying. “Before social media, when you went home from school, you could shut it off, talk to adults in the room. Social media has made it so there is very little room for the other voices to penetrate,” Bourget said. The “other voices” Bourget references are those belonging to teachers, parents, and other trusted adults—those who insert reason into what, for many adolescents, has become an otherwise 24-hour reel of input via social media dominated by content driven by peers, advertisers, and even predators.

But unhealthy online communication doesn’t just come from predatory strangers or bullying peers. When middle school kids are allowed to use cellphones at school, the devices provide parents unfettered online access to their adolescent children during the school day, which experts say can be unhealthy, too.

“School is the place where kids get to be independent for the first time,” said Michael Rich, a pediatrician and the director of the Digital Wellness Lab , a nonprofit research center at Boston Children’s Hospital. “They’re building their own society. If you have mom or dad in your head all day long, [adolescents] never get to learn or practice taking care of themselves or being themselves in that environment.”

‘It becomes too much of a distraction’

Rich’s position on cellphones in middle schools is clear: “I think phones should not be in schools,” he said, intentionally avoiding the word “ban.”

“I think we should approach this not as a ban, but as an opportunity,” said Rich. A ban, he explains, can feel threatening to parents—many of whom have expressed the strong desire to be able to contact their child during the school day via cellphone as their (parental) right and a safety issue.

“The minute you talk about this as a ban, parents resist,” said Rich. Instead, he suggests reinforcing to parents the notion of a cellphone-free middle school as one that allows adolescents to gain independence, as they learn how to take care of themselves and behave in a way that reflects the people they are—or at least those they aspire to be. “I think smartphones interrupt that in really profound ways,” Rich said.

Bourget agrees with Rich that middle school students should not have access to cellphones during the school day. “Their brains are not developed to handle it,” she said. “It becomes too much of a distraction.”

‘They don’t know that all these [online] things ... are designed to be addictive’

Middle school students may not have the impulse control to avoid using their cellphones at school, but they can be taught to understand how social media feeds their brain’s desire to engage in the online world, Kolb said. “They don’t know that all these [online] things they’re using are designed to be addictive.”

She suggests that conversations with students focus less on how much time they spend on their phones and more on how this time on social media makes them feel. “This allows students to take ownership, to recognize that it’s OK that I’m using my device but that I need to be smart about it so that my body and brain can be recharged.”

Bourget believes in downplaying the what of “policing” cellphone use and focusing instead on the why . “They’re at an age when boundaries are something they’re going to push against,” she said. At her school, Bourget tries to focus conversations about social media in ways that resonate with her audience. For example, she’s quick to point out to 7th grade boys—many of whom are enamored with professional athletes—how the misuse of social media can dash the hopes of such stardom. It’s a lesson they’re more likely to remember than simply that “cellphones shouldn’t be used in school,” she said.

Ideally, the University of Michigan’s Kolb said, such conversations are couched within a comprehensive K-12 curriculum that addresses a range of health issues. “It’s not a one-time conversation,” she said.

That may seem like a big commitment for schools. But, Kolb explains, the negative effects of social media can quickly become bigger problems when there’s no existing education or curriculum to fall back on, leaving teachers to manage problems episodically.

“Drama, friendship issues, cheating, bullying and the feelings of depression, stress, or anxiety that comes from it,” she said, “it all trickles into school, and then schools have to address the symptoms.”

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