Many view digital learning as a way to make it easier
for students to be more successful while cutting the costs of education at
every level. A new study from the
National Education Policy Center, a research institute at the University of Colorado,
Boulder, suggested that might not be the case.
The report found that despite all the hype and money spent on digital learning, it rarely
improves student outcomes and costs more when it does. By comparing online-only
learning with blended-learning methods where students used digital materials to
prepare for class, researchers discovered the online-only course had no extra
impact on learning. The flipped classroom, did improve learning, but cost more
than traditional methods.
“On the whole, it is very difficult to have faith in
the path we’re going down,” Noel Enyedy, a researcher from UCLA who helped
conduct the study, said in an NPR report.
As one might expect, not everyone agrees with the
findings.
“We have the best chance that we’ve ever had to
dramatically improve achievement rates for students,” Tom Vander Ark, CEO of
Getting Smart and author of Getting Smart: How Digital Learning is Changing the World, told
NPR. “That’s me looking through the front windshield. It’s entirely possible to
look through the rear windshield as this group did and say, ‘That was dumb, and
it didn’t work.’”
