00:00.00

Dan Gizzi

Hi everyone, this is Tech In EdTech, and in this podcast, we discuss technology that powers education and improves learning for all. Welcome to today's episode. I'm your host Dan Gizzi from Magic EdTech, and our guest today is David Bain, SVP of Innovation and Analytics at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. David, thanks for joining me, and welcome to the show. 

00:21.20

David Bain

Oh thanks, I'm glad to be a part of it.

00:31

Thank you. It's really ah, an honor to have you on the show today because you know I have the opportunity to talk with HMH, and um the analytics and data part is one side of the house where I don't think we've really had an opportunity to bring folks on yet. And you know I'd love to just understand how you got your start in education, a little bit about your background, and what makes data exciting for you.

00:49.25

David Bain

Sure. Well um, as you know Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's the largest provider of education technology across the country, we work in about 90% of all classrooms, and I think there are 50 Million students this year that will experience one of our solutions. And so there's a context there for for doing really big data analytics and and collecting learning data on a lot of different students to try to gather insights as far as what might work. Ultimately, I'm a traditional educator I was a classroom teacher and and a high school principal, the director of curriculum, and assistant superintendents I have about as traditional of ah of a public school background as you can have.  And most of my career was in Chicago public schools but worked in some other suburban districts around Illinois also, but at HMH we use analytics to try to get some insights to so that we can help improve learning outcomes for students and classrooms.

01:44.52

Dan Gizzi

That's great. So your journey through the education system particularly on the Chicago Public School system, but I'd love to hear a little bit more around that. You know what was the most exciting part of your day, what was some of the things that you would say that being data-driven in some of those roles could have had led you to where you are today.

02:05.24

David Bain

Well, I think you know it by going through every role in education you experience the challenge of it. I think about my myself as a dark-haired young spry twenty-something-year-old kid in a humble park on the west side of Chicago and working with students and really probably you know not being overly effective and definitely not having a good sense or understanding as far as how can assessment data or program data inform instruction. In fact, ah, most of the assessment systems we know today were just beginning at that time, and we're just starting to enter the market. But over the course of years, I started to think about like how can data inform you know RTI or MTSS systems? How could you start building entrances and exit criteria for students? And and that really led to my research work and ah, my doctoral work was really about measuring learning outcomes with different types of assessments. But but always with an eye of thinking about how can you leverage that data to get better outcomes? How can you help principals to know you know which intervention system works the best? Or which student truly needs a more intensive support than another student ah, who might be able to be serviced in the classroom?

03:19.72

Dan Gizzi

It's great to hear that you were doing that, and especially when it comes down to being able to have you know the analytics actually drive decision making. It's so important, especially with the way the world has changed so rapidly in ah and the the technology in the classroom more importantly than than anything else. You know one of the things that we do also hear um and I've got a career on the other side of education, I never actually was a teacher or an instructor. But you know one of the things we always hear when it came to using technology prior to the shift to fully online and now pull back to what's more of a traditional classroom in some sense of the imagination - was that there's always a confidence level that tends to be missing either on the student side or you know on the instructor's side when it comes to using technology. What are some of the things that you can shine on on that and in in your time at HMH with you know how confident instructors are with technology, or just that level of getting them to that point where they feel like they can use this in the classroom?

04:17.89

David Bain

Yeah, that that number is really exponentially rising, um each year at HMH does a study we call the Educator Confidence Report or ECR and this year it was it was shocking that almost 70% of all respondent teachers said that ed tech is essential, that that word really popped out at me essential, in order to deliver instruction. And I know that some of that is on the heels of the last two crazy school years that we've had. Ah but I think that those perceptions go far beyond just putting their lessons on LMS, or you know, having their students log in with a single sign-on or something. I think that we're starting to see teachers truly try to integrate technology to increase personalization or customization for their students.

05:07.17

Dan Gizzi

That's great. Ah, the personalization thing is is interesting to me. I would love to hear a little bit more around that, you know what are some of the things that you can see on how just this the little things of just making a tweak here or there to personalize it makes that difference.

05:19.73

David Bain

I think we we wound ten years ago what we saw as far as technology in most classrooms was really just practice that was facilitated by a computer. Kids got more problems more time to get extra practice or a reading assistant along the way. But to think what we can see now is that through the input of computer adaptive testing, ongoing utilization, even student interest into content that you can start to create unique learning pathways for students. And so I think we're starting to see a next generation of supplements. Ah, that not only create unique learning paths for students that might far surpass what a teacher could do at least on scale. But secondly how you could augment those learning paths with um, artificial intelligence ah to really try to understand what a student knows, what they need to learn, and what steps might have to go in between so that that practice could really become like ah, an AI-generated teacher assistant. Um, by no means not taking away the relationship of the teacher but almost augmenting the teacher or supporting the teacher, ah to create this differentiation that we believe students need in their learning pathways.

06:34.46

Dan Gizzi

It really is interesting to hear that those intervention solutions and focusing in on on supplements because supplements had always been the forgotten hero that was always left out or wasn't even involved in decision making. You know could you elaborate a little bit more around that?

06:50.32

David Bain

Well, we recognize that there's different categories of of supplements. There's a whole category of intensive interventions that without question have a place, especially for at-risk learners, students who with severe learning deficits, but and students multiple years below grade level. And um and there's definitely a place for intensive Intervention, we work deeply in that space to make sure that there are resources for districts. But there's incredible challenges with those resources also. As far as oftentimes being deployed at a different time of day, or maybe with a a ah different educator so there's full time equivalencies or FTE challenges for districts. So Ultimately, we're starting to see expanded use of supplements to provide some of the same kinds of support you only used to see with intensive intervention products. And that is um, actually addressing foundational reading or foundational math support. Not only rebuilding the practice but also addressing students' confidence in themselves as learners and some of the soft skills about gaining confidence to acquire new new material or to solve problems in new ways. Um, and recently we've seen many of those models deployed in what we call the tier one or the regular classroom and so right alongside students that are learning on-grade content.

08:15.66

Dan Gizzi

You know the perspective I think you bring to this having that humble park experience and then now moving into the suburbs. Would you say that you know from just the resourcing standpoint as you were coming up and learning, how how have you seen it from the other end of it now? Obviously, you know not being in the classroom and and being on the other side of it producing the materials, would you say that you you know it's It's being addressed appropriately? Not appropriately? You know we know it's great to have the tools but you know can we use the tools?

08:46.95

David Bain

I think every classroom is starting to realize that um that students are in many different places in their learning journeys. There are above grade level students, or on-grade level students, there are maybe students that are just slightly below, or missing certain learning standards. And then there are students that might be learning English for the first time or have severe deficits in reading our mathematics. And that one of the challenges that's made it so difficult to be an educator is ah we've created such an emphasis on standards alignment that we've really looked to teachers to differentiate or to modify curriculum materials for all those different learners while they sit together in the classroom. And that's really where I think technology comes in so you could be in an incredibly high-performing school with many students above grade level and perhaps the technology is supporting those students as they acquire content that may not be exposed to future grade levels or in the future. But right down the hall, we could be in another classroom where students might be you know, developing their language skills or even getting practice in their native language alongside English. Also maybe working on English or math skills that are in different spots and that personalization allows the teacher to, within a station, actually support those students while she also provides whole class experiences for everyone.

10:10.70

Dan Gizzi

And that whole class experience is such an interesting topic knowing that on a district level decisions may not always be made to to stick with one publisher across all disciplines or you know even to just have that ability to have from one school to another having having differences. You know what are some of the ways to potentially customize tech solutions in your mind when you know it's not, you're not necessarily getting every discipline every time for that student?

10:38.37

David Bain

I think this is this is ah where there's still a great deal of growth to occur, is that the many districts have taken the right step by implementing things like learning management systems and LMSs. Um, or even expanding single sign-on or what they call Common cartridge bringing content all together. But ultimately there's shortcomings even in that approach because those resources don't speak to each other. They don't inform one another, they might produce reports in different ways for parents to understand their children's learning. So I think that as as education technology providers move forward, you're going to see more connected solutions, where different solutions designed for different purposes still inform the same reporting, still work together to provide insights, ah, that the resources cross-program and cross-platform, and so that teachers can gather those and ah deploy them out to either groups of students or whole classes or perhaps even individual students as needed but those lines get blurred ah between these categories. But most importantly, the data from each of those categories comes together to provide a ah more robust view of insights about the students’ learning.

11:50.40

Dan Gizzi 

It really does feel like we're on the cusp of of that change happening. You know we can I can almost say we can look back a lot of the conversations we have on on the podcast revolve around accessibility and accessibility in the class. So you know five, six, seven years ago that was just something we didn't even think of and now it's required. You know it feels like this analytics and data conversation is the next one that's going to happen.

12:16.57

David Bain

I think you're right on. But I think to balance this as as exciting as it is I think we have all of us who work in Ed Tech must not undervalue the human connection. Ah, we recognize that the magic in a classroom happens when a teacher interacts with a student, when students interact with other students and so as we further our expertise in developing technology solutions. We have to also think about how those technology solutions enhance those relationships and don't detract from them. We still want Group Learning, we still want you know teachers and kids having real learning activities authentically in the classroom - and so that's the balance. It's exciting to think about all the data that can be gathered when the learning experience is on a device but we also need to make sure that that device is supporting those ah kid to kid teacher to kid interactions in the room.

13:11.13

Dan Gizzi 

That's a great insight. If I were to give you a magic wand and you were to just walk into ah the districts tomorrow and you had the chance to fix one thing you know besides obviously saying interoperability. What would be the change you would make with that wand?

13:25.20

David Bain

I think that we would take steps in taking the data that exists today that literally exists in almost every classroom in America today and use it to do, more precisely match the right kind of content to students I think when. When we work across the country There's an incredible challenge in matching the right resource, the right content, to the learner. And I think it goes back to probably where I was as a young man or a young Principal many years ago where there's a lot of good intentions and a lot of hope. That there's a match between the right reading intervention and the right kid. But um I think that we could really make incredible strides by making the small step of knowing who truly needs foundational supports, who needs supplemental supports, and what those supplemental supports look like. And doing a better match between the curriculum resource and the student's needs.

14:23.91

Dan Gizzi

That's a great answer and I want to go back um, one of the the words you used earlier was Confidence. You know that confidence level, It's almost more important than the knowledge transfer. You know what would be some of the things that you would try to instill on a confidence level? And a teacher to pass down to those those young learners?

14:44.46

David Bain

Well, I think when you said that I went right back to the educator confidence report I think one of our challenges in our country is right now the sentiment of our public educators is at an all time low. Um and their feelings about the profession and the future The profession um, is not strong right now and we we see many gifted ah school leaders and teachers leaving the profession. And I think one of the ways that we can really address that and address that is to try to give teachers the tools they need, um allow them to take some control over their own professional learning, but also recognizing the incredibly challenging situations we've placed them in the classroom. And make sure that the tools that we're giving them are are very appropriately matched to the needs of their students and in order to do that. Also. We also have to to rethink how we equip those professional educators to learn how to use those tools. Um, we we don't have an infinite amount of time outside the school day and so we have to really integrate professional learning to rebuild that confidence to use these new kinds of tools, but also use the tools to make their jobs simpler and more time-efficient instead of more complicated.

16:00.85

Dan Gizzi

That's a great approach to it. The last section that we we usually have here is an advice section and so I would love to hear some of your thoughts around you know what you would have loved to have known when you were in those shoes that you know now? You know some of the areas where you can say hey I made this mistake and I wouldn't make it again. Would love to hear you know, just some of the advice you you know might give someone coming up into your into the roles that you had previously held.

16:31.78

David Bain

I think many times we think about assessment data, whether or not that comes from ah universal screening assessments like computer adaptive tests or ah unit assessments. Are you ready for formative type assessments we use as something extraneous or even something that I might even infringe on the learning time in the classroom. And so I think if I had it to all do over again I wish I would have known better how to use that data, how to how to think about how to put it into the right type of technology to make my job a little easier in running my stations or running some learning experiences for students. I wish I would have known how to know how to measure what appropriate learning gains are so that when I do have students that are far below grade level I wouldn't think about them as just being proficient or not proficient I would I would think about whether am I making the kind of learning growth with the student to get them caught up, are they closing their learning gaps? Are they gaining expertise on the standards we're exposing them to? Um, so I wish that I would have known how to use that assessment data. But I also wish when I was a teacher that I would have had resources in my classroom that talked to each other, that that actually was that that supplemental resource, intensive intervention, that core product, and also even the professional services I was receiving on the time were all brought together in an ah, a simple way so I had a better more 360 view of my students. Ah, I think one it would have made my job easier but it would definitely make me more effective because it would have given me insights that my eyeballs probably weren't able to pick up on their own at that time.

18:13.73

Dan Gizzi

Is there One professional resource or any that you would recommend to someone today getting started?

18:20.49

David Bain

I think when you would think about if you're going to go into a classroom today you'd hope that that the district leaders are looking at the platform-based resources that do what we're describing that truly integrate assessment data, that provide insights, that they don't just attach a number to a student. They help the teacher or the principal understand, based upon the data, that this is how we understand the student better as a learner. And then also provides guidance as far as you know what's next, what do I teach different tomorrow?  Um. Right now I see so many assessment systems implemented in the schools and they're done 3 times a year and literally, the day after ah, the teacher gets the data and the reports she looks at them but she may not have any idea how to teach different tomorrow. So you know I'd ask every district leader to really think about, you know, is your assessment system is your learning platforms are the different resources You're bringing in the classroom are connected? Do they inform one another? is it easy to go from an assessment data report to a resource or to a personalized lesson the next day?

19:30.61

Dan Gizzi

It's connected and informed. It doesn't get any better than that.

19:36.70

David Bain

You know I think that's it. That's the Holy Grail we're all working towards and and luckily I think the past two years if if it did anything positive for education. It accelerated those pathways we see enhanced partnerships between LMS providers and ah, education content developers. We see you know dramatic increases in the type of assessments. Ah, we actually see you know many learning platforms, not only incorporate that universal screening type assessment data that we're so used to but also incorporate the standards-driven Ah, data that's associated with individual learning paths so that those two become combined to provide a more 360 view of a student. Um, I would say five years ago almost every district we worked in would use 2 different assessment systems or under-gather that data and even the best of those districts would do so in an effective way. And now that's become almost table stakes in our industry.

20:35.51

Dan Gizzi

Yeah, it's great to finally see everything talking to each other in in the outcome for the students that is gonna be effective in helping the growth.

20:48.42

David Bain

It is and I think that also allows, it affirms a teacher's work that learning growth can be seen in different ways. Ah sometimes, learning growth is catching a student up to where they can access grade-level content on their own. And so it's recovery growth or it’s movement or learning growth across grade levels. But learning growth can also be measured in response to how students access content through a learning experience and oftentimes that learning growth is measured through the acquisition of learning standards. And so it's so important that we're able to use both. Now I think one of the most exciting pieces and we see this now with some districts across the country is, they're actually capturing the learning activities that are associated with that growth so they can learn from their top teachers and their top schools on what were the actual learning experiences that were experienced on a learning platform that led to the biggest increases in student achievement from both that catch-up experience but also through the standard space acquisition experience.

21:52.67

Dan Gizzi

That's so great I think the parting thought here as we as the students get caught up in the work that is being done with HMH and all of your partners out there to get students caught up. It's gonna be exciting to see how we help them advance in the future as well.

22:06.89

David Bain

I think that's it you know I guess ah circling back one more time to ECR, you know, almost half of all teachers stated that they would need help in catching kids back up. Ah you know they recognize that for the last two years that learning gains were sporadic. We've known that but I think there's also an acknowledgment now that it's going to be difficult and the curriculum, as it was designed prior to the pandemic, has to change in order to simultaneously address those learning goals and learning standards. But also simultaneously bring kids back to where we we would expect them to be for their ages.  And so I think that's where ah, the technology has to be leveraged.

22:48.33

Dan Gizzi

David thank you for joining me today in the latest Tech In EdTech podcast, we appreciate your insight, and look forward to you and our audience joining us in the future. Have a great day.

22:57.60

David Bain

Thank you very much.