In 2012, my school offered me an iPad for my classroom, but I didn't take it because the app that I needed didn't exist yet.
I didn't need a game, a gimmick, or a classroom flip. I needed to grip the classroom. I needed something simple, something that would make me a better activator and assessor of learning every day. Why? Because behind genetics and home environment, teachers have the greatest effect on student learning outcomes. In other words, what I do, what every teacher does, really matters.
In education, we talk a lot about the achievement gap—you know, that label that ends up on an accreditation report, something that "we should be paying more attention to." Personally, I find it more helpful to think about "the instruction gap"—the part of the achievement gap that I can control because it's within the four walls of my classroom. The instruction gap is local. It's in my face, and keeping it in my crosshair is my best shot at making a difference. What I sought, that app I didn't have yet, was a tool for bridging the instruction gap.
Attacking "The Stack"
My need for a better tool stems from the daunting task of being a teacher. Every day, approximately 175 people would come through my classroom, and every time I collected work from my kiddos, I had 175 pieces of potential formative assessment. Brilliant! Until I had to grade it. The cruel logic of math inevitably won out, and I buckled under the inefficiency of collecting, grading, entering scores, and returning work, eating up time I didn't have. Good teachers know this situation well. The "formative assessment" becomes something else entirely. It becomes some dreadful obelisk of pressed pulp looming in the corner. I call it "the stack."
Of course, pragmatic teachers always find a hack for the stack (e.g., packets, stamps, cover sheets), but these shortcuts deny both the purpose and the power of progress-monitoring assessment. They become a mere repository for work completed, where too often the hiccups in learning are buried and unnoticed until after the test. In this process, we short-circuit one of the best instructional tools: formative assessment.
Leahy and Wiliam (2009) speak to the immense power of formative feedback:
"… when formative assessment practices are integrated into the minute-to-minute and day-by-day classroom activities of teachers, substantial increases in student achievement—of the order of a 70 to 80 percent increase in the speed of learning—are possible, even when outcomes are measured with externally-mandated standardized tests" (p. 15).
Moreover, Stewart Yeh's work on the cost-effectiveness of 22 approaches to learning found that rapid formative assessment gives the most bang for the buck, confirming its power (2011). To efficiently harness the power of formative assessment without diluting it with simple "stack hacks," I created my own app.
An App for Actionable Data
Ultimately, my need for a better instructional tool to bridge the instruction gap wasn't unique: a 2014 Gates Foundation publication titled "Teachers Know Best" concluded that, "Certain types of products that teachers said they need for specific instructional purposes are simply not available" (p. 2).
The problem presented itself, and I took a stab at it. In March 2013, I set out to create the mobile tech that I needed. Armed with an idea but lacking a plan, I teamed up with Jacob Bullock, an app developer, and we started a company with a simple goal: Marry the best research on classroom instruction and the best technology to create an app that teachers want to use. The result is an instructional app called Oncore, targeted toward formative assessment and student engagement.
Oncore is a classroom productivity app for iPad that allows me to collect and integrate student data within my daily workflow. The app's "assignments" feature allows me to digitally create an assessment tied to a standard. I can then track students' progress toward that standard through data that is visually layered onto my seating chart on the iPad's screen. The formative assessment data I record transforms the seating chart, and a color scale allows me to quickly scan which students need more instruction or practice and which students are ready to move on. Using Oncore has made me a better assessor of student work because it encourages me to clarify the criteria for mastery before giving an assignment and allows me to easily access the data I need to give feedback during learning.
Because I grade student work using specific standards, I can now more easily identify errors in learning and use feedback to guide my instructional choices as I capture one-touch formative assessment data through Oncore's color scale. Homework is no longer "busy work," the stack has virtually disappeared, and my classroom is a feedback-rich environment.
Oncore doesn't only collect data; it makes that data actionable. Because Oncore calls on students equitably and favors those I've interacted with the least, I engage 100 percent of the class consistently, which gives me a true read on how all students are doing. Now, I can easily identify the students in class that have achieved mastery and those who have not. I can then use that data to modify instruction for an individual using Oncore's student performance snapshot, or I can create mixedperformance-level groups using Oncore's grouping feature.
Oncore has made me more aware as a teacher. I know how quickly students learn something, what I need to review, and how I can articulate goals for my students. Students also get a host of benefits from Oncore: equitable student participation; one-on-one feedback from me; clarity about how work relates to standards; customized grouping based on ability level; and increased awareness of their own learning, goals, and my expectations.
Connected Education
Developing a mobile instructional tool has reshaped my perspective on learning. I know that formative assessment should be the foundation of effective instruction and that effective education is a dance between the teacher; the students; and meaningful, actionable data.
Ultimately, Oncore has revealed how much untapped yet usable formative assessment data is available in any classroom. I also learned that mobile technology can simply and intuitively make teachers more aware of the learning relationships in their classroom. The net effect of this heightened awareness is the narrowing of the instruction gap. While these methods also have an effect on the achievement gap, fixing this prevalent problem is complicated and mobile technology is by no means a panacea. However, the instruction gap is within reach.
As a teacher, I've realized I can have the most influence on closing the achievement gap by focusing on making my instruction more effective. And now, with my development of Oncore, there is an app for that. Learn more about my project at www.oncoreeducation.com.
By the way, when my administration recently offered me a new iPad for my classroom, I took them up on the offer.