Adaptive Tech

Why is living in this generation so much better for teachers and students? Adaptive technology! Adaptive technology enables programs to differentiate automatically based on answers from scholars. Our school uses a program called iRead. This program allows student responses and answers to dictate the next move. For example, if a scholar in Kindergarten has mastered their letter sounds then the program will advance them to something further, such as CVC words or rhyme. This technology is amazing because scholars are always being challenged but on a differentiated level. These programs also provide teachers with a great deal of data to look through, which is amazing because it can also be used for differentiation and remediation plans.

At our campus we use these programs within our blended learning model, as they also provide small group lessons to scholars to either differentiate higher or lower to differentiate. We use this to also provide us with a smaller student to teacher ratio when we pull for small group intervention or for guided reading. From the ITSE standards for students, this truly aligns with evaluating and selecting information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks. It is also smart to teach your students about adaptive technology and why "everyone gets what they need." Explain to them why the computer screen or tablet screen next to them may look different from their own and why that is okay.

There are so many amazing benefits of having adaptive technology within our classroom and I believe that it truly is going to be the future of every classroom. Please share your experiences with adaptive technology and how it has either been a challenge or a success within your classroom!