In this third blog post of a multi-part series on conversations with edtech developers, researchers, and practitioners, Meaghan Duff, vice president of programs at the Minerva Project, and David Yaskin, CEO coach and consultant at Ed Tech Coaching and founder of Starfish Retention Solutions, offer some strategies they have used to launch successful edtech products and help create a new market. Learn more about this series and the experts here.
In this second blog post of a multi-part series on conversations with edtech developers, researchers, and practitioners, Meaghan Duff, vice president of programs at the Minerva Project, and David Yaskin, CEO coach and consultant at Ed Tech Coaching and founder of Starfish Retention Solutions, discuss how entrepreneurs can think about who their customers are and what needs they should focus on when trying to break into a new market.
In this first blog post of a multi-part series on conversations with edtech developers, researchers, and practitioners, the Collaborative’s principal investigator Rebecca Griffiths spoke with Meaghan Duff, vice president of programs at the Minerva Project, and David Yaskin, CEO coach and consultant at Ed Tech Coaching and founder of Starfish Retention Solutions, about whether and how digital learning products can be designed with equity at the center.
The shift to online learning due to COVID-19 appears here to stay – with a lasting increase in the share of undergraduate students enrolled in online courses. Critical in these online courses is the use of technology. When used effectively, new edtech products can enhance the student experience and instructor effectiveness in a number of ways, including enhancing discussion board interactions, enabling multi-media interactivity, increasing the scaffolding of instruction and materials to meet student needs among many others.
With the huge growth in online courses since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty are increasingly aware that they need to adapt their teaching to the new environment of online instruction. But they may not know how to adapt and, in particular, how to support students’ skills in managing their own learning in online courses.
From the classroom to the workplace, lifelong learners face a complex set of challenges.
In an increasingly tech-centered world, how can educators engage adult students and provide them with the practical and soft skills necessary to succeed in school and throughout their careers?
Despite increasing attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion in postsecondary STEM education, the field continues to see gaps in the participation and success of historically marginalized students (e.g., due to race or ethnicity, gender, first-generation status, and especially intersectionality).
Carlton Fong, a professor of curriculum and instruction at Texas State University, has expertise in motivation, metacognition, and instructional design, with a focus on STEM courses. His work on student agency and how it helps students feel connected to college and motivates them to seek help.
We at the Postsecondary Collaborative are extraordinarily grateful to our institutional partners and advisors for your work with us in 2023 to support faculty and students in online STEM courses. We thank you for your continued partnership and inspiration
Scaling evidence-based education technology (edtech) products in the postsecondary market is challenging. Developers need to figure out how to break into classrooms long dominated by commercial publishers – and how to attract funding when investors tend to focus on the much larger and less fragmented K–12 market.