Researcher Recap: Takeaways From DLAC

 
 ExploreLearning's Senior Researcher Dr. Megan Conrad shares her experiences at the 2024 DLAC Conferences. 

 
I attended the Digital Learning Annual Conference (DLAC) this past week in Austin, TX. This conference is organized by Digital Learning Collaborative (DLC) and focuses on the full range of online, hybrid, blended, and digital learning. Since the conference started in 2019, the community has grown from just 500 attendees in the first year to 1,700 attendees and 300 program sessions in 2024!

During the conference, I got to sit in on several amazing talks about research and data hosted by engaging speakers from the Michigan Virtual Learning Research Institute, The Learning Accelerator, CAST, and the Evergreen Education Group, amongst others. I had some wonderful conversations with teachers, administrators, researchers, and EdTech leaders, digging into our shared interests in the digital learning and teaching space. Everyone I had the pleasure of talking with, from informal table talks to Q&A sessions, was incredibly forward-thinking and ready to kickstart creative and collaborative solutions to some of their stickiest problems in the classroom.

My time at the conference was great, and I’m already looking forward to next year! For those of you who missed out on DLAC this year, I’d love to share these three cross-cutting takeaways from my experience that sync up with the latest work of our Research and Product Development teams here at ExploreLearning:

Using technology to support student-centered learning

Student-centered learning puts the learners' interests and needs at the center of the educational process, emphasizing engagement and student autonomy. Virtual programs are a perfect example of how schools can support the need for options for students to learn in the format that is best for them. The themes of voice and choice were highlighted in nearly all of the sessions I attended. This model of learning also directly supports the development of skills that the majority of Americans believe should be the priorities for the future of education.

A recent survey conducted with our Gizmos product users highlighted a number of ways that teachers use Gizmos to engage their classrooms in student-centered learning, including learning through exploration, allowing students to progress at their own pace, and enabling cooperative learning.

Improving student learning through data: the opportunities and the challenges

In one table talk session, I sat down with educators and administrators and heard about data they think is most critical to supporting their students and what their most pressing pain points around data are. Many attendees shared the sentiment that data was most helpful when it could help them track student usage, product engagement, and support formative assessment. However, they also shared that they often felt they had access to too much data without the guidance to know where to look first to assess these metrics.

Data-driven instruction allows teachers to respond to each child’s needs with more relevant instruction and transforms learning in their classrooms. Our math fact fluency program, Reflex, monitors data, such as fact fluency progress, effort, and usage, as students work. With individual and group reports available every 24 hours, teachers can easily monitor and adapt based on understanding.

Leveraging partnerships and co-design to enable iterative program improvement

Finally, an exciting theme that emerged across a number of the talks I attended shared information about using different methods of iterative and collaborative research cycles (like co-design approaches and action-research cycles). Non-profit organizations like TLA and CAST shared examples of how they support programs in designing, piloting, and assessing changes to their courses or curriculums. These types of partnerships, starting from the very beginning of program development, give teachers and instructional designers the freedom to make their courses and programs fit their student’s needs while ensuring they align with best practices in virtual instruction, resulting in the highest quality learning experiences for their students.

In our own talk at DLAC, we discussed how our Collab Crew program aims to do just that, engaging teachers in all phases of product development and iterative improvement, and supporting administrators in conducting action research to monitor and celebrate student growth outcomes related to program usage.

While this was ExploreLearning’s first time at DLAC, it definitely won’t be our last. The themes and interests of so many session speakers, like voice and choice and co-design approaches to supporting student success, are so important and relevant to teaching and learning with EdTech programs. Voices of the digital learning community paired with the choices of educators to deliver impactful educational experiences are a powerful combination for student success, and we were excited to spend time with this vibrant community.

Dr. Megan Conrad (pictured), along with Suzanne Kehret and Jenna Mercury, presented the best practices behind the design of ExploreLearning products and thoughts about data as a tool for supporting the iterative improvement of both teaching strategies and student learning.

Account executives Paula Taylor and Hannah Carlson met with educators at the ExploreLearning booth!