Education leaders are exploring new tools and enduring questions.
Educational tools and strategies naturally evolve. Societal changes, emerging technologies, and new insights into learning processes and human cognition drive adaptation and change in education. As educators and policymakers strive to deliver the best education to today’s students, they must also explore new strategies. Developing and implementing impactful and safe educational tools that will define the future of education requires technical know-how, a commitment to student and teacher success, adequate funding, and rigorous evaluation.
The explosion of artificial intelligence has unlocked incredible potential to transform educational experiences — for better and worse — and the boom is likely to continue. The educational AI sector is witnessing rapid expansion, with forecasted market size increasing from $2.5 billion in 2022 to an estimated $88 billion by 2032. Unsurprisingly, AI was a central topic at EdTech Week, a global education innovation festival for educators, innovators, funders, and policymakers to imagine the future of education.
Our team attended the 10th annual festival in New York this month to connect and learn with innovators at the forefront of education innovation. If you couldn’t make it this year, we’ve gathered some of the most notable themes from the convening. If you were there, we would love to hear what you learned at this year’s EdTech Week. Share your reflections by joining the conversation on LinkedIn.
AI is out of the sandbox and in the classroom.
The initial buzz around AI’s potential to transform education is fading and conversations are becoming more focused on bringing this technology to the classroom as practitioners and educators put new tech to the test. While leaders should continue paying attention to the potential risks of AI in the classroom — such as encouraging academic dishonesty, diminishing critical thinking, and compromising student privacy — they can’t ignore the tangible, positive benefits of the technology.
At Edtech Week, innovators and educators described the many ways AI is enhancing student and teacher experiences. AI can increase accessibility by quickly translating learning tools across formats to meet students’ needs. Imagine turning your written lesson into a video or even a podcast; AI can unlock opportunities for personalized learning, helping teachers adapt classroom teaching and individual support to meet the needs of all students. It also has the potential to empower teachers with assessment support by helping teachers more deeply understand the specific needs of their individual students, freeing up more time and attention for teaching and student engagement.
While conference speakers expressed optimism about the ability of AI to transform educational opportunities, they also acknowledged that if AI solutions and tools are going to truly improve educational outcomes, equity has to take center stage. Without addressing and devising solutions to close the digital divide or failing to understand the needs of the most marginalized students, this technology has the potential to further marginalize the most vulnerable populations.
Invest in infrastructure to support innovation.
Bringing together the right players is key to advancing new technologies and transforming industries for the future. Where and how this collaboration happens also matters. With the right infrastructure in place, local and regional collaboration between industry, the educational sector, and government can help develop a workforce that is prepared for the jobs of tomorrow, stimulating economic growth. The National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines program offers a model for collaborative innovation that supports the development of diverse regional ecosystems of researchers, institutions, companies and civil society.
When it comes to implementing new educational tools in America’s classrooms, a new solution’s potential for impact will be determined by the strength and resilience of foundational educational infrastructure. Education can’t benefit from the promise of AI — or any educational technology — if edtech implementation doesn’t get the infrastructure right. But what does it mean to “get infrastructure right”? Educational leaders addressed the many opportunities to improve digital infrastructure for successful learning, including addressing barriers to connectivity, accessibility, cybersecurity, and data privacy to ensure all students and teachers can access the learning tools they need to thrive.
Of course, education infrastructure extends beyond digital to include the physical settings where students learn, as well as the wider communities that support schools, students, and families. The Learning Landscapes Challenge, a $2.2 million competition to design and build future-ready K-12 education environments, is one example of how funders — Siegel Family Endowment and the Walton Family Foundation — committed to strengthening education are addressing this important issue.
Successful edtech implementation requires partnership and collaboration.
When it comes to education, success is not possible by going alone; solving America’s educational challenges will require meaningful collaboration at every level. While edtech startups and innovators can come up with great ideas in the lab or garage, their tools have to be responsive to the real demands and limitations of the classroom.
Throughout the conference, participants engaged in honest conversations about the challenges facing educational changemakers. In a session exploring why edtech fails or thrives in schools, presenters emphasized that successful implementation will require treating schools as partners, not just users or customers. Educators are bombarded by inbound selling, but what they really need and want is a partner who will take the time to understand their needs and be available to help solve problems when they inevitably arise. In edtech, the quality of relationships can matter as much — or more — than the tools.
Edtech is exploring innovative models to balance responsive and responsible R&D.
Technology is moving at an incredible pace, opening up endless possibilities for new tools, applications, and transformative learning experiences. Innovators, investors, and enthusiastic educators are eager to quickly build and deploy new learning tools, but the desire for speed must be balanced with the need for rigorous research and thoughtful deployment. Scaling high-impact products and outcomes can take even more time — and funding. The edtech community is pursuing a range of strategies to strike the right balance between the need for rapid innovation and interaction on the one hand, and thoughtful, rigorous research and development on the other. At Edtech Week, new models and approaches inspired fresh thinking about how to balance these needs.
For example, the Institute of Education Science’s From Seedlings to Scale (S2S) grant program invests in projects that incorporate high quality research, robust solution development, and attention to sustainability and scaling throughout all phases. Inspired by DARPA and similar government advanced research projects agencies (ARPAs), S2S seeks to build education R&D infrastructure and improve outcomes at scale. Other funding programs offering critical early-stage capital were also on the EdTech Week agenda. The U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences administers a Small Business Innovation Research Program for rapid prototype development and evaluation of new education technology. Though it has a broader portfolio, the NSF Seed Fund is another important source of R&D funding for startups with promising edtech solutions.
This tension is not unique to education, and other sectors, like healthcare, may offer lessons for how to navigate high-stakes tradeoffs as innovators navigate a complex product development process. At the conference, speakers issued a call to all players in the edtech ecosystem — from innovators and donors to policymakers and investors — to bring awareness of this tension to their strategies.
Stakeholders need shared standards and frameworks to coordinate resources and maximize impact.
What does success look like for new solutions in a rapidly changing education landscape? With the current pace of innovation, accelerated by the commercialization of AI tech, this question took on new urgency at the conference. By joining forces and complementing rather than competing with stakeholders in the space, innovators, funders, and policy leaders have a better chance at improving educational outcomes for all students and solving America’s most pressing educational policy challenges.
Shared frameworks with legitimacy and support in the field can support innovation and maximize impact. The EDSAFE AI Alliance offers a compelling model: Founded in 2020, this global initiative is building a shared vision for developing a safer, more secure, more equitable, and more trusted AI education ecosystem. We invite you to check out their work and join this very important coalition. The Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity (NICE Framework) developed by the National Institute for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies offers another good example of how clear guidance can help schools across the country take action on critical topics while customizing learning experiences for local needs and contexts.
When it comes to deploying emergent and potentially game-changing technologies, education changemakers can’t unlock the greatest impact without common technical standards developed in partnership with stakeholders across the educational ecosystem.
