12 Creative Faculty Who Put Digital Learning Tools Into Action And Improved Equity

How do college and university instructors actually use the growing number of digital learning tools to support learning for every learner? Imagine we could visit and observe a classroom after all the professional development, course redesign, and preparation. The instructor has committed to equitable principles and evidence-based practices. They’ve designed a culturally responsive syllabus. And they’ve worked with their campus center for teaching and learning and information technology offices to select and implement a technology tool.

The tool might be something small like a single feature in the LMS. It might be a specialized software suite unique to their discipline. It might be a videoconferencing tool designed for the workplace that the instructor is creatively adapting for the classroom.

If we dropped into a class meeting during the term, what would we observe about how that tool is actually used? Most importantly, how would we see the tool deployed to address the equity gaps experienced by Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, poverty-affected, and first-generation students or other learners disproportionately impacted by traditional practices, such as working adult students?

The answer to these questions is made vivid in a collection of personal stories from individual faculty featured in a new publication from Every Learner Everywhere, The Impact of Digital Learning on Minoritized and Poverty-Affected College Students: 12 Instructors’ Stories. It presents short case studies from instructors at two-year and four-year institutions, including both historically white institutions and HBCUs, and both public and private. Their narratives include teaching in math, writing, and several sciences.

The digital learning tools that the profiled instructors describe using include those that have been available for years and emerging tools that incorporate AI. The examples include both OER and commercial tools and content, though the reader will see that, in the latter case, instructors often select no-cost options.

The faculty share their experiences adopting these digital learning tools to promote equity, detail the problems they are addressing, explain how they selected a specific tool, and outline the activities they designed. Nine of the profiles were developed from interviews from the profiled instructor, and three are written contributions from the instructor.

Most interesting, the 12 profiles blend personal narrative, testimony from students, and, whenever possible, outcomes data on retention, pass rates, engagement, and confidence and connection for students from historically marginalized populations.

Below is a sample of what the profiles in The Impact of Digital Learning on Minoritized and Poverty-Affected College Students include.

A lightweight free poll software for knowledge checking

In her Quantitative Reasoning course at Jackson State University, Stephanie Baxter uses the freemium version of Poll Everywhere to check student understanding during class meetings — an update to traditional paper-and-pencil knowledge checks. Students use their cellphones to respond to quick polls, and Baxter is then able to adjust her lesson accordingly.

One unanticipated result is that students “took pride in getting a large overall class ‘correct’ percentage for the Poll Everywhere activities,” Baxter wrote. That increased sense of community contributed to a decrease in fail rates for the course from 31% to 8%.

Using industry software to introduce data analytics

SAS is a statistical modeling and analytics software suite commonly used in a variety of industries and careers, so SAS On Demand for Academics, a free cloud-based version, is often used in advanced statistics courses to give students a leg up in the job market.

Wesleyan University, however, has incorporated it into introductory psychology and dual-enrollment courses, along with research methods courses. They use SAS to create short inquiry-based projects that teach specific skills in working with data.

In Wesleyan’s assessment comparing these software-based courses with traditional lecture courses, Black and Hispanic students were more likely to opt for the former, had levels of increased confidence similar to their white peers, and were twice as likely to report increased interest in conducting research. All students in the software-based course were more likely to enroll in another course focused on statistical concepts, applied data analysis, and/or use of statistical software.

Peer teaching by video to improve mastery

Nicholas Panasik Jr. has long used an innovative exercise in his biochemistry courses at Claflin University that results in improved comprehension of difficult material. After a period of traditional lectures, he has students each prepare their own attempt to teach a concept to their peers. The digital technology element is that students record a 10-minute video of the peer teaching effort they have planned and submit it to Panasik on a video-sharing platform. He then records himself watching the video and giving feedback to the student. The peer teaching videos that earn an A grade are distributed to the rest of the class.

On final exam questions covering material where there had been an associated peer teaching activity, students scored on average 12% higher than on questions that had no associated peer teaching activity.

Multiple benefits to recording face-to-face class meetings

Camila Alvarez at Indian River State College wanted to improve the success rates in her composition course and narrow the disparities experienced by students with fewer resources. Her solution was to add in some of the advantages of remote and hybrid classes even though it was a face-to-face class.

She did this by integrating the Blackboard Collaborate feature included in the Blackboard LMS, which her campus uses. Collaborate shares a course meeting online and records it for review later, allowing students to join remotely or to rewatch parts of it as they need.

The first use supports working parents or other students who had difficulty attending every class meeting. In Alvarez’s course, that resulted in the female student success rate increasing from 65% to 80%.

The second use turned out to be widely valued by all students who used recordings to review lessons and Alvarez’s directions for assignments. She said students even asked for access to the recordings at the end of the term so they could refer to them in the future.

Many tools, many approaches

As one of the instructors profiled said, “no single tool solved the problem” of equity gaps in their courses. Nor is their formula. Collectively, these 12 stories show that a commitment to teaching excellence and to equity must be complemented with experimentation.

With that, amazing things are possible with digital learning technologies, as the profiles also show measurable improvements in engagement, student sense of agency, and academic outcomes.