A new survey from Front Row Education, Inc. highlights technology trends in the classroom for the 2015-16 school year; finds teachers’ use of technology is driven by access to devices and positive learner outcomes.
San Francisco, CA- October 16, 2015— The use of technology in K-8 classrooms is increasing, according to a survey released today by Front Row Education, Inc., a company that provides adaptive, gamified and data driven education programs. Of nearly 1,000 teachers surveyed, four out of five say they will increase their use of technology during the 2015-2016 school year. The largest driver of this increase is access to devices, with more than three-fourths of teachers surveyed noting that the availability of technology resources at their school is either good (40%) or great (37%).
Second to access to devices, teachers are embracing technology further as a result of the positive impact they have seen to-date.The survey results paint a clear picture that for teachers, a key driving force in this increased use is superior learner outcomes. When choosing which software to use, the most important factor teachers cited was the advancement of student learning, followed by the availability of valuable information on a student’s progress. Aligning to the Common Core and ease of use came in third and fourth, respectively.
When teachers were asked how technology has changed the way they teach, determining the skill level of their students more efficiently topped the list – followed by determining a student’s skill level more deeply. These two benefits play directly into the third-most-cited impact teachers are seeing: freeing up time to focus on giving students individual attention.
“In a class of 30 students, it’s nearly impossible for a teacher to know the exact level of each student without the use of technology,” said co-founder and CEO of Front Row, Sidharth Kakkar. “The time we’ve spent in the classroom observing obstacles teachers face made this clear. One of Front Row’s key goals, therefore, is to make the initial and ongoing assessments easy for teachers. These survey results validate the way we’ve developed our programs, which is to design our products to help teachers quickly and efficiently understand where their students need help.”
Additional findings include:
- High Administrative Support: 75 percent of teachers surveyed noted an increase in administration support for technology in the classroom; less than 1.5 percent said that it has declined.
- Daily Use: Four out of five teachers surveyed use technology in their classroom every day; nearly nine out of 10 use it 4 days a week or more.
- Age is just a number: No difference was found in the use of technology by the age of the teachers surveyed, or by number of years an individual has been teaching. Those in the classroom are embracing technology across all age ranges.
“The impact of any new tool in the classroom is directly correlated with the degree to which it is utilized,” said Lindsay Helman, a third grade teacher at Mary Frank Elementary. “Teachers are mission driven and our goal is to bring out the best in our students, and so we use technology when we can see that it has impact. Technology is having a huge impact not only on the way we teach, but on the way students learn, resulting in incredibly positive advances in education.”