Technology is certainly changing the way students are being taught—but is it actually improving their learning?
That's the question being tackled at the Jefferson Education Accelerator, born earlier this year at the University of Virginia out of a need for evaluating how edtech is impacting learning. Now, as the school year begins, JEA has chosen Reston Va.-based Echo360 as its first partner and is ready to determine where and what kind of research they will support first.
Echo360 is a popular platform for higher education institutions. It offers a selection of teaching tools such as a way for students to ask questions anonymously during class and follow along with slides and lectures. It also lets professors see real-time analytics on student engagement and learning. The platform, which has received $31 million from the Steve Case-backed Revolution Growth Fund, is in use at about 650 institutions in 30 countries, claiming a reach of almost 3 million students.
"Echo360 is very much the kind of company we want to work with," said JEA CEO Bart Epstein. "It's already at a good initial scale and is collecting strong evidence of student impact. We have a strong appetite for real data, and Echo360 has plenty."
All of that data can be a big help to universities trying to figure out how well students are learning, especially in the case of large lecture classes. But there's a lack of central data collection and sharing among researchers, which is why JEA is building a database of people researching educational methods and impact. Echo360 already has arrangements with some of its university clients to bring in the data collected by their researchers, applying it to a broader scale.
"We're identifying researchers at our university partners to work with," Epstein said. "We want to help them figure out what to study and how to study it. It comes down to helping educators and schools figure out how they define success."
The actual partnership is based mostly on JEA's connections and general expertise in the world of education. That's part of why it is looking at companies that are already fairly mature, with a solid enough base for a focus on scaling up products and clients. JEA does have an investment fund, but Epstein said they made a decision to keep quiet on the details of the amount in the fund and which partners will get financial as well as resource backing.
"We want to help them figure out what to study and how to study it."
"We're not going to say who gets cash investments because we don't want the fact of a cash investment to be interpreted as how we think of a company," Epstein said. "Not giving a cash investment doesn't mean we think a company is less worthy of interest."
The decision on where to do the research for this school year will be decided soon, although Epstein wouldn't give any hints as to where they are looking. Both JEA and Echo360 are based in Virginia, that's no guarantee that the school picked will also be in the area, though he admitted the logistics would be easier if the research was being conducted at a nearby institution.
Regardless of where the research gets done, the focus will be on measuring and improving the impact on students of Echo360. The partnership is supposed to help Echo360 scale up its work in a way that benefits the students, its client institutions and ultimately the company itself.
"We''ll help develop faculty pilot programs and support new research projects and focus on the interplay of everyone involved," Epstein said. "We're really helping them figure out how they define success, not just selling them on what we offer."
Featured photo via wavebreakmedia / Shutterstock; Bart Epstein photo courtesy of Tina Krohn/LifeAndTimesPublication.com.
