upgrading teacher education

Teachers can change the world: Scaling quality teacher professional development

Subscribe to the center for universal education bulletin, brad olsen and brad olsen senior fellow - global economy and development , center for universal education @bradolsen_dc molly curtiss wyss molly curtiss wyss senior project manager and senior research analyst - global economy and development , center for universal education.

October 4, 2022

Millions of children recently began their new school year—some of them for the first time in three years—and their learning will be shaped by the 62 million teachers welcoming them. October 5 is UNESCO’s annual World Teachers’ Day and, so, teachers merit a closer look.

Research typically finds that teachers are the most important component of formal education, and quality instruction one of the biggest contributors to student learning . A 2018 World Bank report on global and regional assessments in Africa found that teacher knowledge, teaching practice, and instructional time were the “most consistent sources of impact on student learning.” Teachers often get to know—and become invested in—children and their families for months, sometimes years at a time and teachers’ efforts not only influence students’ academic achievement but also their long-term success and well-being .

We believe that teachers can change the world—and we hope to contribute to that indispensable goal.

Teachers are also costly. Teacher salaries and benefits comprise the largest line item in any government’s education budget: about 75  percent of the education budget in the U.S. and  55 to 75 percent in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In fact, most LMICs spend about 10 percent of their entire government budget on teachers.

Even though teachers are essential to education success and constitute large parts of public sector budgets, there is a shortage of qualified teachers and currently an exodus of teachers from the profession . UNESCO estimates that nearly 69 million additional teachers will need to be recruited by 2030 for primary and secondary education alone. In the United States, many districts are facing a critical teacher shortage this fall. Teacher preparedness is a further challenge. In sub-Saharan Africa, 35 percent of primary teachers and half of all secondary teachers do not meet minimum qualification requirements.

The reasons for the shortage and lack of preparedness are complicated and result from interconnected topics such as school conditions and teacher policies; status, recruitment, and demographics of teachers; retention challenges; and both preservice teacher preparation and in-service professional development contours. In many places, teaching is a low-paid profession and is treated as easy-in/easy-out, nontechnical work. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing strains on teachers and as a result many left or are considering leaving due to health fears, societal disrespect, a lack of professional autonomy, and the effects of burnout.

The importance of quality teacher professional development

We believe the two most pressing issues here are (1) recruiting, preparing, and retaining sufficient numbers of qualified teachers; and (2) improving the way education offers teachers continuing and effective professional development. That first issue is particularly complex and requires confronting intertwined realities such as the unfairly low status of teaching as a profession, frequently untenable work conditions, and the lack of promotion opportunities. These cannot be addressed without transforming whole education systems, which requires engaging with the complex combination of a country’s commitment to education, its overall financial health and donor relationships, its political economy, and various longstanding cultural and gender histories. The tasks can seem, frankly, overwhelming.

The second issue is slightly easier to undertake: the need to design and deliver high-quality teacher professional development (TPD) to all teachers in ways that allow them to grow and learn more, stay up-to-date, and succeed in their work of supporting children to learn and grow in the 21st century.

Increasing the knowledge and skills of teachers to prepare children to thrive is essential. Improving TPD at scale will improve teaching and learning for whole populations, keep effective teachers in the profession longer, and contribute to the success of the many promising education innovations currently being developed and implemented. Just about every education innovation—including those connected to ed tech, foundational literacy and numeracy, and socioemotional development—requires modifying and improving teacher practices. TPD also provides an important opportunity for focusing on equitable teaching and learning, inclusive instruction, and curricula that correspond directly to students’ lives and goals.

Yet, education reformers struggle to design and deliver TPD across regions or whole countries. Almost every partner that the Millions Learning project at the Center for Universal Education has collaborated with has faced challenges scaling teacher training within their broader education scaling efforts. Even when their initiatives are not primarily focused on teacher training, preparing and supporting teachers to deliver the initiatives at large scale and with impact carries challenges—including those related to capacity, affordability, equity, and sustainability. Given this, it is clear that educational improvement requires reckoning with how to scale TPD effectively, efficiently, and equitably.

Not as easy as it might sound

Over the past 20 years, the fields of teacher education and professional development have learned a lot, and small-scale teacher development efforts can be very good. However, this body of research, theories, and best practices has often not translated into quality, cost-effective TPD at large scale.

• What works at small scale does not automatically work at large scale. Identifying and training sufficient numbers of teacher instructors who are familiar with the local contexts and who can provide ongoing, in-person mentoring or coaching that fits the particular teacher’s situation is difficult, as is reaching large numbers of teachers in meaningful ways. Economies of scale can result in diluted effects.
• High-quality TPD is expensive . But cheap TPD’s effects often quickly fade or are washed out by the system. Quantity and quality often oppose each other. Hybrid models might offer one opportunity for striking this balance.
• Policymakers—especially at the national government and district levels—struggle to find good information on how to put evidence-based TPD into practice. It is too often assumed that any TPD program will automatically work, that teacher attendance equals teacher learning , or that delivering quality TPD is simple . In fact, none of those is true.
• It is tempting to assume technology will solve the challenges of scaling TPD, but technology “will not make a bad teacher professional development program better. The use of technology can, in fact, make TPD programs worse ,” such as when the technology frustrates or alienates the participants or excludes those without access or know-how.
• Common approaches to assessing TPD efforts are insufficient . Most large-scale TPD programs are currently evaluated by way of teacher attendance numbers, participant feedback surveys, or quick self-reports at the conclusion of the training, which result in a dearth of information on whether the training is having concrete, extended, positive effects on teachers and students. Conducting longitudinal, mixed-methods studies of TPD quality or the effects of different models is rarely incentivized.

How to move TPD forward?

Designing, adapting, and scaling quality TPD is not simple, but it is critical—and therefore an area on which we in Millions Learning have chosen to focus. Offering lasting, effective teacher development at scale requires knowledge of the particular teachers themselves and contemporary theories of adult learning, experimentation with innovative training models that include in-person coaching and project-based learning, and smart uses of technology. It also requires thoughtful research, meaningful partnerships among TPD groups and their government partners, and a long-term commitment.

We at Millions Learning look forward to embarking on just such a project in the coming months. There are many wonderful TPD efforts and teams out there and we wish to work with them, learn alongside them as they test out different scaling strategies, and support their ability to improve education by way of increased teacher quality, retention, and impact on our world’s students. We believe that teachers can change the world—and we hope to contribute to that indispensable goal.

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The Next Chapter for Teacher Education

• Posted October 25, 2021
• By Bari Walsh
• Career and Lifelong Learning
• Teachers and Teaching

The Harvard Graduate School of Education has launched the Teaching and Teacher Leadership (TTL) master’s program — the last leg of its seven-year effort to reimagine how the school will prepare education professionals to attack the complex challenges facing learners of all ages, now and into the future. The launch of the TTL Program embodies the core commitment that drove HGSE’s curricular innovation: The school’s longstanding dedication to expansive, equitable, transformational opportunity for learners everywhere. 

When the TTL Program welcomes its first cohort of students in 2022–23, it will join the four other programs that launched this year as part of HGSE’s redesigned master’s degree, which also includes coursework dedicated to broad foundational knowledge and specific domain- and role-based expertise. 

A Focus on Teachers

TTL will represent a significant advancement in Harvard’s focus on teachers, exploring the most effective ways to prepare both teachers and teacher leaders and to create schools that can respond to the challenges the world faces today. Dual teacher certification pathways will build on the work of the Harvard Teacher Fellows (HTF) Program, founded in 2015 as an innovative model to prepare Harvard College students to become teachers, as well as the successful legacy of HGSE’s Teacher Education master’s program (TEP). And TTL’s leadership strand will prepare experienced teachers for new roles in schools. With those two elements together, HGSE is poised to expand and elevate teacher education at the university and in the field.

“This really is the capstone of our reimagining of the master’s degree for professionals seeking to have meaningful impact in improving education for communities around the world,” says Dean Bridget Long . “The creation of the TTL program is part of a tremendous effort to advance our training and engagement of aspiring educators while building on the lessons and success of our earlier programs. HGSE has long been committed to preparing innovative, equity-minded educators — and to charting pathways across the university for the study and practice of education, which is one of the central issues of our time.”

By consolidating multiple and previously separate teacher education pathways under one umbrella, TTL will provide holistic preparation for new and experienced educators, drawing on research-backed practices that are effective and inclusive. “TTL will expand and drive forward HGSE’s historic mission to change lives through education — to prepare our master’s students to design and lead transformative learning experiences. We’ve designed TTL to welcome the diverse range of students — with various levels of experience — who seek to contribute to society as educators. I’m especially excited about the benefits of mixing our pre-service teacher candidates with teacher leaders who come to HGSE with more experience and insight,” says Heather Hill , the Hazen-Nicoli Professor of Teacher Learning and Leadership and faculty co-chair of the new program. 

The curriculum will give novice or early career teachers the chance to pursue Massachusetts initial licensure in secondary education, and students will have the option of applying to enter a teacher residency early in their program or applying to a pathway that takes a more gradual approach to learning to teach and includes more time on the HGSE campus. Meanwhile, experienced teachers in TTL will focus on instructional leadership, coaching, and teacher development. By integrating programs that have functioned separately in the past, TTL will create cross-HGSE opportunities for students and will break down some structural barriers that have limited exposure and collaborations across students and programs.

Nurturing Harvard College students as they explore education as a field and a practice has been a hallmark of HGSE’s work in recent years. “From [former Senior Lecturer] Kay Merseth’s pioneering Equity in Education course to the launch of HTF to the creation of the Secondary Field in Education Studies , HGSE has acted to spark undergraduates’ interest in teaching and learning, while making education a viable and supported career,” says Lecturer  Noah Heller , director of the Harvard Teacher Fellows Program and a faculty member in the TTL Program.

HTF admitted its sixth and final cohort of students this fall, but its signature legacies will continue in the new program. “One of the proudest legacies of HTF is the outstanding Harvard alumni who are teaching throughout the country, as well as the postgraduate fellowship opportunity they helped define — one that offered a cohort model of remarkable aspiring teachers, content-specific coursework, and robust field experiences at partner schools. All of that will be rolled into the new TTL, and expanded to other talented candidates as well,” Heller said. Fellowships targeted specifically to TTL’s teacher licensure students will continue to provide substantive financial support and ensure that the program is accessible to Harvard College students.

Expanding Pathways

“This really is an opportunity to grow and expand on what HTF has accomplished,” says Lecturer Victor Pereira , a member of both the HTF and Teacher Education faculties who will co-lead the TTL Program with Hill next year. “But it’s also a chance to advance and expand the work of TEP. Part of what both HTF and TEP did so well is that they recruited and supported amazing students that were committed to teaching. TTL allows us to draw on the features of both programs that helped make that support so distinctive.

“TTL carries forward the fieldwork structures that allow for a customized experience for new teachers, but the exciting part is that preservice teachers will now have a choice in how they will learn in the field,” Pereira continues. “The residency model — based on HTF’s fieldwork approach — will immerse preservice teachers in schools and classrooms, while the gradual-release internship builds off of TEP’s model.” TTL will also benefit from the remarkable partner network that TEP has built over the years. TEP’s legacies also includes a vibrant summer experience through the Cambridge-Harvard Summer Academy, which will continue under TTL.   

The fact that TTL seeks to serve two interconnected populations — individuals learning to teach, and individuals with teaching experience who are preparing to be teacher leaders — is part of what makes the program distinctly valuable, says Hill. “Serving both groups in a single program is a huge advantage, since many of the skills our teacher-leaders develop during the program — providing instructional feedback, leading improvement efforts — will directly benefit our teacher education students,” she says.

The timing for such a step ahead in HGSE’s preparation of teachers could not be more significant. The pandemic — for all the suffering and inequities that it revealed — has prompted a wide reckoning about the importance of education, and of educators, Hill says. “It’s clear to everyone that the role of the teacher is critical. We’re motivated to ensure that teacher preparation at HGSE meets this moment.”

“Teachers are able to imagine and build a world far greater than the one that may exist outside their classrooms,” adds Heller. “They’re able to create sanctuaries from the injustices of society — transformative spaces where everyone is safe from violence, and democratic places where patterns of injustice are disrupted. I’m proud that HGSE is investing new resources in this critical work.” 

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Stay up to date:, education, gender and work.

• Our current education system is built on the Industrial Revolution model and focuses on IQ, in particular memorization and standardization;
• We must update education with job readiness, the ability to compete against smart machines and the creation of long-term economic value in mind;
• Education access, equity and quality must be improved to solve the global education crisis – 72 million children of primary education age are not in school.

Education today is in crisis. Even before the coronavirus pandemic struck, in many parts of the world, children who should be in school aren’t; for those who are, their schools often lack the resources to provide adequate instruction. At a time when quality education is arguably more vital to one’s life chances than ever before, these children are missing out on the education needed to live fulfilling lives as adults and to participate in and contribute to the world economy.

Historically, education has been the shortest bridge between the haves and the have-nots, bringing progress and prosperity for both individuals and countries, but the current education system is showing its age. Founded at a time when industries needed workers with a relatively fixed set of skills and knowledge, it is losing its relevance in an era of innovation, disruption and constant change, where adaptability and learning agility are most needed.

Have you read?

Two things that need to change for the future of education, the world is failing miserably on access to education. here's how to change course, how higher education can adapt to the future of work.

Our current education system, built on the Industrial Revolution model, focuses on IQ, in particular memorization and standardization – skills that will be easily and efficiently supplanted by artificial and augmented intelligence (AI), where IQ alone isn’t sufficient. A good blend of IQ (intelligence) + EQ (emotional intelligence) + RQ (resilience) is critical to unleashing a student’s potential.

Evaluating our current education system against three criteria – job readiness, ability to compete against smart machines for jobs and creating long-term economic value – reveals the following:

• 34% of students believe their schools are not preparing them for success in the job market . We need to fix the bridge from education to employability;
• 60% of future jobs haven’t been developed yet and 40% of nursery-age children (kindergarteners) in schools today will need to be self-employed to have any form of income (Source: WEF Future of Jobs Report). We need to prepare students for jobs that haven’t been created yet and to become entrepreneurs. What we need to learn, how we learn, and the role of the teacher are all changing.

The $1.5 trillion in student debt in the US is the second highest debt after home mortgages . With tuition fees expected to break $100,000 per year , student debt will be crushing for future generations. Even Barack Obama was reportedly paying off student loans in his 40s . With the average new college graduate making $48,400 , many people will be paying off their student loans well into their retirement, hurting their ability to save, buy homes, support their families and contribute to philanthropic efforts.

While we work to transform education, we also need to make it more accessible. According to UNICEF, more than 72 million children of primary education age are not in school, while 750 million adults are illiterate and do not have the ability to improve their and their children’s living conditions . As we take on education transformation, daisy-chaining across three crucial categories (access, equity, quality/impact) is critical for unleashing potential.

Access means ensuring learners everywhere are not prevented by circumstances from being in school and getting an education. Access to education is low in many developing nations, but inequalities also exist within developed countries that are highly stratified socially , for example, in the UK . How do we make education/learning more accessible? What role can technology play? How can countries, particularly developing ones, hold on to top talent to ensure economic progress?

Equity means ensuring every child has the resources needed to get to school and to thrive, regardless of circumstance. While equality means treating every student the same; equity means making sure every student has the support they need to be successful. The essential drivers are fairness (ensuring that personal and social circumstances do not prevent students from achieving their academic potential); and inclusion (setting a basic minimum standard for all students regardless of background, gender or location). This leads to several questions: how do you raise awareness in communities? What role can technology play in creating personalized and differentiated learning so all students get the kind of instruction they need to succeed?

The definition of quality and success has to move beyond standardized test scores to a more holistic measurement tied to life improvements and societal impact. Quality education would provide learners with capabilities and competencies required to make them economically productive, develop sustainable livelihoods, enhance individual well-being and contribute to community. The impact orientation will help shift our gaze away from behaviour and activities (attending school and checking the box) to value-creation environments (from personalized learning and career counselling to job readiness and becoming responsible global citizens).

It’s in everybody’s best interest to solve the global education crisis:

• 13 million US students are likely to drop out of school during the next decade costing the country $3 trillion;
• Compared to high-school dropouts, graduates pay more taxes, draw less from social welfare programmes and are less likely to commit a crime;
• An 8% improvement in US PISA scores in the next 20 years would boost GDP by about $70 trillion in the next 80 years.

“Investing in education is the most cost-effective way to drive economic development, improve skills and opportunities for young women and men, and unlock progress on all 17 Sustainable Development Goals," says United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres .

So let us reset education and learning to meet 21st-century needs , shaping a path from education to employability and economic independence.

Let’s all commit to collectively helping to break a link in the shackles holding education back. Let’s blend the lessons of the past with the technology of the present and future to truly transform education, giving students the ability to think, learn and evolve no matter what the challenges that await them tomorrow and unleash their potential to benefit the world.

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• Journal of Economic Literature
• December 2020

Upgrading Education with Technology: Insights from Experimental Research

• Maya Escueta
• Andre Joshua Nickow
• Philip Oreopoulos
• Vincent Quan
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• O33 Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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• Published: 12 February 2024

Education reform and change driven by digital technology: a bibliometric study from a global perspective

• Chengliang Wang 1 ,
• Xiaojiao Chen 1 ,
• Teng Yu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5198-7261 2 , 3 ,
• Yidan Liu 1 , 4 &
• Yuhui Jing 1  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  256 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Development studies
• Science, technology and society

Amidst the global digital transformation of educational institutions, digital technology has emerged as a significant area of interest among scholars. Such technologies have played an instrumental role in enhancing learner performance and improving the effectiveness of teaching and learning. These digital technologies also ensure the sustainability and stability of education during the epidemic. Despite this, a dearth of systematic reviews exists regarding the current state of digital technology application in education. To address this gap, this study utilized the Web of Science Core Collection as a data source (specifically selecting the high-quality SSCI and SCIE) and implemented a topic search by setting keywords, yielding 1849 initial publications. Furthermore, following the PRISMA guidelines, we refined the selection to 588 high-quality articles. Using software tools such as CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Charticulator, we reviewed these 588 publications to identify core authors (such as Selwyn, Henderson, Edwards), highly productive countries/regions (England, Australia, USA), key institutions (Monash University, Australian Catholic University), and crucial journals in the field ( Education and Information Technologies , Computers & Education , British Journal of Educational Technology ). Evolutionary analysis reveals four developmental periods in the research field of digital technology education application: the embryonic period, the preliminary development period, the key exploration, and the acceleration period of change. The study highlights the dual influence of technological factors and historical context on the research topic. Technology is a key factor in enabling education to transform and upgrade, and the context of the times is an important driving force in promoting the adoption of new technologies in the education system and the transformation and upgrading of education. Additionally, the study identifies three frontier hotspots in the field: physical education, digital transformation, and professional development under the promotion of digital technology. This study presents a clear framework for digital technology application in education, which can serve as a valuable reference for researchers and educational practitioners concerned with digital technology education application in theory and practice.

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Introduction.

Digital technology has become an essential component of modern education, facilitating the extension of temporal and spatial boundaries and enriching the pedagogical contexts (Selwyn and Facer, 2014 ). The advent of mobile communication technology has enabled learning through social media platforms (Szeto et al. 2015 ; Pires et al. 2022 ), while the advancement of augmented reality technology has disrupted traditional conceptions of learning environments and spaces (Perez-Sanagustin et al., 2014 ; Kyza and Georgiou, 2018 ). A wide range of digital technologies has enabled learning to become a norm in various settings, including the workplace (Sjöberg and Holmgren, 2021 ), home (Nazare et al. 2022 ), and online communities (Tang and Lam, 2014 ). Education is no longer limited to fixed locations and schedules, but has permeated all aspects of life, allowing learning to continue at any time and any place (Camilleri and Camilleri, 2016 ; Selwyn and Facer, 2014 ).

The advent of digital technology has led to the creation of several informal learning environments (Greenhow and Lewin, 2015 ) that exhibit divergent form, function, features, and patterns in comparison to conventional learning environments (Nygren et al. 2019 ). Consequently, the associated teaching and learning processes, as well as the strategies for the creation, dissemination, and acquisition of learning resources, have undergone a complete overhaul. The ensuing transformations have posed a myriad of novel issues, such as the optimal structuring of teaching methods by instructors and the adoption of appropriate learning strategies by students in the new digital technology environment. Consequently, an examination of the principles that underpin effective teaching and learning in this environment is a topic of significant interest to numerous scholars engaged in digital technology education research.

Over the course of the last two decades, digital technology has made significant strides in the field of education, notably in extending education time and space and creating novel educational contexts with sustainability. Despite research attempts to consolidate the application of digital technology in education, previous studies have only focused on specific aspects of digital technology, such as Pinto and Leite’s ( 2020 ) investigation into digital technology in higher education and Mustapha et al.’s ( 2021 ) examination of the role and value of digital technology in education during the pandemic. While these studies have provided valuable insights into the practical applications of digital technology in particular educational domains, they have not comprehensively explored the macro-mechanisms and internal logic of digital technology implementation in education. Additionally, these studies were conducted over a relatively brief period, making it challenging to gain a comprehensive understanding of the macro-dynamics and evolutionary process of digital technology in education. Some studies have provided an overview of digital education from an educational perspective but lack a precise understanding of technological advancement and change (Yang et al. 2022 ). Therefore, this study seeks to employ a systematic scientific approach to collate relevant research from 2000 to 2022, comprehend the internal logic and development trends of digital technology in education, and grasp the outstanding contribution of digital technology in promoting the sustainability of education in time and space. In summary, this study aims to address the following questions:

RQ1: Since the turn of the century, what is the productivity distribution of the field of digital technology education application research in terms of authorship, country/region, institutional and journal level?

RQ2: What is the development trend of research on the application of digital technology in education in the past two decades?

RQ3: What are the current frontiers of research on the application of digital technology in education?

Literature review

Although the term “digital technology” has become ubiquitous, a unified definition has yet to be agreed upon by scholars. Because the meaning of the word digital technology is closely related to the specific context. Within the educational research domain, Selwyn’s ( 2016 ) definition is widely favored by scholars (Pinto and Leite, 2020 ). Selwyn ( 2016 ) provides a comprehensive view of various concrete digital technologies and their applications in education through ten specific cases, such as immediate feedback in classes, orchestrating teaching, and community learning. Through these specific application scenarios, Selwyn ( 2016 ) argues that digital technology encompasses technologies associated with digital devices, including but not limited to tablets, smartphones, computers, and social media platforms (such as Facebook and YouTube). Furthermore, Further, the behavior of accessing the internet at any location through portable devices can be taken as an extension of the behavior of applying digital technology.

The evolving nature of digital technology has significant implications in the field of education. In the 1890s, the focus of digital technology in education was on comprehending the nuances of digital space, digital culture, and educational methodologies, with its connotations aligned more towards the idea of e-learning. The advent and subsequent widespread usage of mobile devices since the dawn of the new millennium have been instrumental in the rapid expansion of the concept of digital technology. Notably, mobile learning devices such as smartphones and tablets, along with social media platforms, have become integral components of digital technology (Conole and Alevizou, 2010 ; Batista et al. 2016 ). In recent times, the burgeoning application of AI technology in the education sector has played a vital role in enriching the digital technology lexicon (Banerjee et al. 2021 ). ChatGPT, for instance, is identified as a novel educational technology that has immense potential to revolutionize future education (Rospigliosi, 2023 ; Arif, Munaf and Ul-Haque, 2023 ).

Pinto and Leite ( 2020 ) conducted a comprehensive macroscopic survey of the use of digital technologies in the education sector and identified three distinct categories, namely technologies for assessment and feedback, mobile technologies, and Information Communication Technologies (ICT). This classification criterion is both macroscopic and highly condensed. In light of the established concept definitions of digital technology in the educational research literature, this study has adopted the characterizations of digital technology proposed by Selwyn ( 2016 ) and Pinto and Leite ( 2020 ) as crucial criteria for analysis and research inclusion. Specifically, this criterion encompasses several distinct types of digital technologies, including Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Mobile tools, eXtended Reality (XR) Technologies, Assessment and Feedback systems, Learning Management Systems (LMS), Publish and Share tools, Collaborative systems, Social media, Interpersonal Communication tools, and Content Aggregation tools.

Methodology and materials

Research method: bibliometric.

The research on econometric properties has been present in various aspects of human production and life, yet systematic scientific theoretical guidance has been lacking, resulting in disorganization. In 1969, British scholar Pritchard ( 1969 ) proposed “bibliometrics,” which subsequently emerged as an independent discipline in scientific quantification research. Initially, Pritchard defined bibliometrics as “the application of mathematical and statistical methods to books and other media of communication,” however, the definition was not entirely rigorous. To remedy this, Hawkins ( 2001 ) expanded Pritchard’s definition to “the quantitative analysis of the bibliographic features of a body of literature.” De Bellis further clarified the objectives of bibliometrics, stating that it aims to analyze and identify patterns in literature, such as the most productive authors, institutions, countries, and journals in scientific disciplines, trends in literary production over time, and collaboration networks (De Bellis, 2009 ). According to Garfield ( 2006 ), bibliometric research enables the examination of the history and structure of a field, the flow of information within the field, the impact of journals, and the citation status of publications over a longer time scale. All of these definitions illustrate the unique role of bibliometrics as a research method for evaluating specific research fields.

This study uses CiteSpace, VOSviewer, and Charticulator to analyze data and create visualizations. Each of these three tools has its own strengths and can complement each other. CiteSpace and VOSviewer use set theory and probability theory to provide various visualization views in fields such as keywords, co-occurrence, and co-authors. They are easy to use and produce visually appealing graphics (Chen, 2006 ; van Eck and Waltman, 2009 ) and are currently the two most widely used bibliometric tools in the field of visualization (Pan et al. 2018 ). In this study, VOSviewer provided the data necessary for the Performance Analysis; Charticulator was then used to redraw using the tabular data exported from VOSviewer (for creating the chord diagram of country collaboration); this was to complement the mapping process, while CiteSpace was primarily utilized to generate keyword maps and conduct burst word analysis.

Data retrieval

This study selected documents from the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) in the Web of Science Core Collection as the data source, for the following reasons:

(1) The Web of Science Core Collection, as a high-quality digital literature resource database, has been widely accepted by many researchers and is currently considered the most suitable database for bibliometric analysis (Jing et al. 2023a ). Compared to other databases, Web of Science provides more comprehensive data information (Chen et al. 2022a ), and also provides data formats suitable for analysis using VOSviewer and CiteSpace (Gaviria-Marin et al. 2019 ).

(2) The application of digital technology in the field of education is an interdisciplinary research topic, involving technical knowledge literature belonging to the natural sciences and education-related literature belonging to the social sciences. Therefore, it is necessary to select Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) as the sources of research data, ensuring the comprehensiveness of data while ensuring the reliability and persuasiveness of bibliometric research (Hwang and Tsai, 2011 ; Wang et al. 2022 ).

After establishing the source of research data, it is necessary to determine a retrieval strategy (Jing et al. 2023b ). The choice of a retrieval strategy should consider a balance between the breadth and precision of the search formula. That is to say, it should encompass all the literature pertaining to the research topic while excluding irrelevant documents as much as possible. In light of this, this study has set a retrieval strategy informed by multiple related papers (Mustapha et al. 2021 ; Luo et al. 2021 ). The research by Mustapha et al. ( 2021 ) guided us in selecting keywords (“digital” AND “technolog*”) to target digital technology, while Luo et al. ( 2021 ) informed the selection of terms (such as “instruct*,” “teach*,” and “education”) to establish links with the field of education. Then, based on the current application of digital technology in the educational domain and the scope of selection criteria, we constructed the final retrieval strategy. Following the general patterns of past research (Jing et al. 2023a , 2023b ), we conducted a specific screening using the topic search (Topics, TS) function in Web of Science. For the specific criteria used in the screening for this study, please refer to Table 1 .

Literature screening

Literature acquired through keyword searches may contain ostensibly related yet actually unrelated works. Therefore, to ensure the close relevance of literature included in the analysis to the research topic, it is often necessary to perform a manual screening process to identify the final literature to be analyzed, subsequent to completing the initial literature search.

The manual screening process consists of two steps. Initially, irrelevant literature is weeded out based on the title and abstract, with two members of the research team involved in this phase. This stage lasted about one week, resulting in 1106 articles being retained. Subsequently, a comprehensive review of the full text is conducted to accurately identify the literature required for the study. To carry out the second phase of manual screening effectively and scientifically, and to minimize the potential for researcher bias, the research team established the inclusion criteria presented in Table 2 . Three members were engaged in this phase, which took approximately 2 weeks, culminating in the retention of 588 articles after meticulous screening. The entire screening process is depicted in Fig. 1 , adhering to the PRISMA guidelines (Page et al. 2021 ).

The process of obtaining and filtering the necessary literature data for research.

Data standardization

Nguyen and Hallinger ( 2020 ) pointed out that raw data extracted from scientific databases often contains multiple expressions of the same term, and not addressing these synonymous expressions could affect research results in bibliometric analysis. For instance, in the original data, the author list may include “Tsai, C. C.” and “Tsai, C.-C.”, while the keyword list may include “professional-development” and “professional development,” which often require merging. Therefore, before analyzing the selected literature, a data disambiguation process is necessary to standardize the data (Strotmann and Zhao, 2012 ; Van Eck and Waltman, 2019 ). This study adopted the data standardization process proposed by Taskin and Al ( 2019 ), mainly including the following standardization operations:

Firstly, the author and source fields in the data are corrected and standardized to differentiate authors with similar names.

Secondly, the study checks whether the journals to which the literature belongs have been renamed in the past over 20 years, so as to avoid the influence of periodical name change on the analysis results.

Finally, the keyword field is standardized by unifying parts of speech and singular/plural forms of keywords, which can help eliminate redundant entries in the knowledge graph.

Performance analysis (RQ1)

This section offers a thorough and detailed analysis of the state of research in the field of digital technology education. By utilizing descriptive statistics and visual maps, it provides a comprehensive overview of the development trends, authors, countries, institutions, and journal distribution within the field. The insights presented in this section are of great significance in advancing our understanding of the current state of research in this field and identifying areas for further investigation. The use of visual aids to display inter-country cooperation and the evolution of the field adds to the clarity and coherence of the analysis.

Time trend of the publications

To understand a research field, it is first necessary to understand the most basic quantitative information, among which the change in the number of publications per year best reflects the development trend of a research field. Figure 2 shows the distribution of publication dates.

Time trend of the publications on application of digital technology in education.

From the Fig. 2 , it can be seen that the development of this field over the past over 20 years can be roughly divided into three stages. The first stage was from 2000 to 2007, during which the number of publications was relatively low. Due to various factors such as technological maturity, the academic community did not pay widespread attention to the role of digital technology in expanding the scope of teaching and learning. The second stage was from 2008 to 2019, during which the overall number of publications showed an upward trend, and the development of the field entered an accelerated period, attracting more and more scholars’ attention. The third stage was from 2020 to 2022, during which the number of publications stabilized at around 100. During this period, the impact of the pandemic led to a large number of scholars focusing on the role of digital technology in education during the pandemic, and research on the application of digital technology in education became a core topic in social science research.

Analysis of authors

An analysis of the author’s publication volume provides information about the representative scholars and core research strengths of a research area. Table 3 presents information on the core authors in adaptive learning research, including name, publication number, and average number of citations per article (based on the analysis and statistics from VOSviewer).

Variations in research foci among scholars abound. Within the field of digital technology education application research over the past two decades, Neil Selwyn stands as the most productive author, having published 15 papers garnering a total of 1027 citations, resulting in an average of 68.47 citations per paper. As a Professor at the Faculty of Education at Monash University, Selwyn concentrates on exploring the application of digital technology in higher education contexts (Selwyn et al. 2021 ), as well as related products in higher education such as Coursera, edX, and Udacity MOOC platforms (Bulfin et al. 2014 ). Selwyn’s contributions to the educational sociology perspective include extensive research on the impact of digital technology on education, highlighting the spatiotemporal extension of educational processes and practices through technological means as the greatest value of educational technology (Selwyn, 2012 ; Selwyn and Facer, 2014 ). In addition, he provides a blueprint for the development of future schools in 2030 based on the present impact of digital technology on education (Selwyn et al. 2019 ). The second most productive author in this field, Henderson, also offers significant contributions to the understanding of the important value of digital technology in education, specifically in the higher education setting, with a focus on the impact of the pandemic (Henderson et al. 2015 ; Cohen et al. 2022 ). In contrast, Edwards’ research interests focus on early childhood education, particularly the application of digital technology in this context (Edwards, 2013 ; Bird and Edwards, 2015 ). Additionally, on the technical level, Edwards also mainly prefers digital game technology, because it is a digital technology that children are relatively easy to accept (Edwards, 2015 ).

Analysis of countries/regions and organization

The present study aimed to ascertain the leading countries in digital technology education application research by analyzing 75 countries related to 558 works of literature. Table 4 depicts the top ten countries that have contributed significantly to this field in terms of publication count (based on the analysis and statistics from VOSviewer). Our analysis of Table 4 data shows that England emerged as the most influential country/region, with 92 published papers and 2401 citations. Australia and the United States secured the second and third ranks, respectively, with 90 papers (2187 citations) and 70 papers (1331 citations) published. Geographically, most of the countries featured in the top ten publication volumes are situated in Australia, North America, and Europe, with China being the only exception. Notably, all these countries, except China, belong to the group of developed nations, suggesting that economic strength is a prerequisite for fostering research in the digital technology education application field.

This study presents a visual representation of the publication output and cooperation relationships among different countries in the field of digital technology education application research. Specifically, a chord diagram is employed to display the top 30 countries in terms of publication output, as depicted in Fig. 3 . The chord diagram is composed of nodes and chords, where the nodes are positioned as scattered points along the circumference, and the length of each node corresponds to the publication output, with longer lengths indicating higher publication output. The chords, on the other hand, represent the cooperation relationships between any two countries, and are weighted based on the degree of closeness of the cooperation, with wider chords indicating closer cooperation. Through the analysis of the cooperation relationships, the findings suggest that the main publishing countries in this field are engaged in cooperative relationships with each other, indicating a relatively high level of international academic exchange and research internationalization.

In the diagram, nodes are scattered along the circumference of a circle, with the length of each node representing the volume of publications. The weighted arcs connecting any two points on the circle are known as chords, representing the collaborative relationship between the two, with the width of the arc indicating the closeness of the collaboration.

Further analyzing Fig. 3 , we can extract more valuable information, enabling a deeper understanding of the connections between countries in the research field of digital technology in educational applications. It is evident that certain countries, such as the United States, China, and England, display thicker connections, indicating robust collaborative relationships in terms of productivity. These thicker lines signify substantial mutual contributions and shared objectives in certain sectors or fields, highlighting the interconnectedness and global integration in these areas. By delving deeper, we can also explore potential future collaboration opportunities through the chord diagram, identifying possible partners to propel research and development in this field. In essence, the chord diagram successfully encapsulates and conveys the multi-dimensionality of global productivity and cooperation, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of the intricate inter-country relationships and networks in a global context, providing valuable guidance and insights for future research and collaborations.

An in-depth examination of the publishing institutions is provided in Table 5 , showcasing the foremost 10 institutions ranked by their publication volume. Notably, Monash University and Australian Catholic University, situated in Australia, have recorded the most prolific publications within the digital technology education application realm, with 22 and 10 publications respectively. Moreover, the University of Oslo from Norway is featured among the top 10 publishing institutions, with an impressive average citation count of 64 per publication. It is worth highlighting that six institutions based in the United Kingdom were also ranked within the top 10 publishing institutions, signifying their leading position in this area of research.

Analysis of journals

Journals are the main carriers for publishing high-quality papers. Some scholars point out that the two key factors to measure the influence of journals in the specified field are the number of articles published and the number of citations. The more papers published in a magazine and the more citations, the greater its influence (Dzikowski, 2018 ). Therefore, this study utilized VOSviewer to statistically analyze the top 10 journals with the most publications in the field of digital technology in education and calculated the average citations per article (see Table 6 ).

Based on Table 6 , it is apparent that the highest number of articles in the domain of digital technology in education research were published in Education and Information Technologies (47 articles), Computers & Education (34 articles), and British Journal of Educational Technology (32 articles), indicating a higher article output compared to other journals. This underscores the fact that these three journals concentrate more on the application of digital technology in education. Furthermore, several other journals, such as Technology Pedagogy and Education and Sustainability, have published more than 15 articles in this domain. Sustainability represents the open access movement, which has notably facilitated research progress in this field, indicating that the development of open access journals in recent years has had a significant impact. Although there is still considerable disagreement among scholars on the optimal approach to achieve open access, the notion that research outcomes should be accessible to all is widely recognized (Huang et al. 2020 ). On further analysis of the research fields to which these journals belong, except for Sustainability, it is evident that they all pertain to educational technology, thus providing a qualitative definition of the research area of digital technology education from the perspective of journals.

Temporal keyword analysis: thematic evolution (RQ2)

The evolution of research themes is a dynamic process, and previous studies have attempted to present the developmental trajectory of fields by drawing keyword networks in phases (Kumar et al. 2021 ; Chen et al. 2022b ). To understand the shifts in research topics across different periods, this study follows past research and, based on the significant changes in the research field and corresponding technological advancements during the outlined periods, divides the timeline into four stages (the first stage from January 2000 to December 2005, the second stage from January 2006 to December 2011, the third stage from January 2012 to December 2017; and the fourth stage from January 2018 to December 2022). The division into these four stages was determined through a combination of bibliometric analysis and literature review, which presented a clear trajectory of the field’s development. The research analyzes the keyword networks for each time period (as there are only three articles in the first stage, it was not possible to generate an appropriate keyword co-occurrence map, hence only the keyword co-occurrence maps from the second to the fourth stages are provided), to understand the evolutionary track of the digital technology education application research field over time.

2000.1–2005.12: germination period

From January 2000 to December 2005, digital technology education application research was in its infancy. Only three studies focused on digital technology, all of which were related to computers. Due to the popularity of computers, the home became a new learning environment, highlighting the important role of digital technology in expanding the scope of learning spaces (Sutherland et al. 2000 ). In specific disciplines and contexts, digital technology was first favored in medical clinical practice, becoming an important tool for supporting the learning of clinical knowledge and practice (Tegtmeyer et al. 2001 ; Durfee et al. 2003 ).

2006.1–2011.12: initial development period

Between January 2006 and December 2011, it was the initial development period of digital technology education research. Significant growth was observed in research related to digital technology, and discussions and theoretical analyses about “digital natives” emerged. During this phase, scholars focused on the debate about “how to use digital technology reasonably” and “whether current educational models and school curriculum design need to be adjusted on a large scale” (Bennett and Maton, 2010 ; Selwyn, 2009 ; Margaryan et al. 2011 ). These theoretical and speculative arguments provided a unique perspective on the impact of cognitive digital technology on education and teaching. As can be seen from the vocabulary such as “rethinking”, “disruptive pedagogy”, and “attitude” in Fig. 4 , many scholars joined the calm reflection and analysis under the trend of digital technology (Laurillard, 2008 ; Vratulis et al. 2011 ). During this phase, technology was still undergoing dramatic changes. The development of mobile technology had already caught the attention of many scholars (Wong et al. 2011 ), but digital technology represented by computers was still very active (Selwyn et al. 2011 ). The change in technological form would inevitably lead to educational transformation. Collins and Halverson ( 2010 ) summarized the prospects and challenges of using digital technology for learning and educational practices, believing that digital technology would bring a disruptive revolution to the education field and bring about a new educational system. In addition, the term “teacher education” in Fig. 4 reflects the impact of digital technology development on teachers. The rapid development of technology has widened the generation gap between teachers and students. To ensure smooth communication between teachers and students, teachers must keep up with the trend of technological development and establish a lifelong learning concept (Donnison, 2009 ).

In the diagram, each node represents a keyword, with the size of the node indicating the frequency of occurrence of the keyword. The connections represent the co-occurrence relationships between keywords, with a higher frequency of co-occurrence resulting in tighter connections.

2012.1–2017.12: critical exploration period

During the period spanning January 2012 to December 2017, the application of digital technology in education research underwent a significant exploration phase. As can be seen from Fig. 5 , different from the previous stage, the specific elements of specific digital technology have started to increase significantly, including the enrichment of technological contexts, the greater variety of research methods, and the diversification of learning modes. Moreover, the temporal and spatial dimensions of the learning environment were further de-emphasized, as noted in previous literature (Za et al. 2014 ). Given the rapidly accelerating pace of technological development, the education system in the digital era is in urgent need of collaborative evolution and reconstruction, as argued by Davis, Eickelmann, and Zaka ( 2013 ).

In the domain of digital technology, social media has garnered substantial scholarly attention as a promising avenue for learning, as noted by Pasquini and Evangelopoulos ( 2016 ). The implementation of social media in education presents several benefits, including the liberation of education from the restrictions of physical distance and time, as well as the erasure of conventional educational boundaries. The user-generated content (UGC) model in social media has emerged as a crucial source for knowledge creation and distribution, with the widespread adoption of mobile devices. Moreover, social networks have become an integral component of ubiquitous learning environments (Hwang et al. 2013 ). The utilization of social media allows individuals to function as both knowledge producers and recipients, which leads to a blurring of the conventional roles of learners and teachers. On mobile platforms, the roles of learners and teachers are not fixed, but instead interchangeable.

In terms of research methodology, the prevalence of empirical studies with survey designs in the field of educational technology during this period is evident from the vocabulary used, such as “achievement,” “acceptance,” “attitude,” and “ict.” in Fig. 5 . These studies aim to understand learners’ willingness to adopt and attitudes towards new technologies, and some seek to investigate the impact of digital technologies on learning outcomes through quasi-experimental designs (Domínguez et al. 2013 ). Among these empirical studies, mobile learning emerged as a hot topic, and this is not surprising. First, the advantages of mobile learning environments over traditional ones have been empirically demonstrated (Hwang et al. 2013 ). Second, learners born around the turn of the century have been heavily influenced by digital technologies and have developed their own learning styles that are more open to mobile devices as a means of learning. Consequently, analyzing mobile learning as a relatively novel mode of learning has become an important issue for scholars in the field of educational technology.

The intervention of technology has led to the emergence of several novel learning modes, with the blended learning model being the most representative one in the current phase. Blended learning, a novel concept introduced in the information age, emphasizes the integration of the benefits of traditional learning methods and online learning. This learning mode not only highlights the prominent role of teachers in guiding, inspiring, and monitoring the learning process but also underlines the importance of learners’ initiative, enthusiasm, and creativity in the learning process. Despite being an early conceptualization, blended learning’s meaning has been expanded by the widespread use of mobile technology and social media in education. The implementation of new technologies, particularly mobile devices, has resulted in the transformation of curriculum design and increased flexibility and autonomy in students’ learning processes (Trujillo Maza et al. 2016 ), rekindling scholarly attention to this learning mode. However, some scholars have raised concerns about the potential drawbacks of the blended learning model, such as its significant impact on the traditional teaching system, the lack of systematic coping strategies and relevant policies in several schools and regions (Moskal et al. 2013 ).

2018.1–2022.12: accelerated transformation period

The period spanning from January 2018 to December 2022 witnessed a rapid transformation in the application of digital technology in education research. The field of digital technology education research reached a peak period of publication, largely influenced by factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic (Yu et al. 2023 ). Research during this period was built upon the achievements, attitudes, and social media of the previous phase, and included more elements that reflect the characteristics of this research field, such as digital literacy, digital competence, and professional development, as depicted in Fig. 6 . Alongside this, scholars’ expectations for the value of digital technology have expanded, and the pursuit of improving learning efficiency and performance is no longer the sole focus. Some research now aims to cultivate learners’ motivation and enhance their self-efficacy by applying digital technology in a reasonable manner, as demonstrated by recent studies (Beardsley et al. 2021 ; Creely et al. 2021 ).

The COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as a crucial backdrop for the digital technology’s role in sustaining global education, as highlighted by recent scholarly research (Zhou et al. 2022 ; Pan and Zhang, 2020 ; Mo et al. 2022 ). The online learning environment, which is supported by digital technology, has become the primary battleground for global education (Yu, 2022 ). This social context has led to various studies being conducted, with some scholars positing that the pandemic has impacted the traditional teaching order while also expanding learning possibilities in terms of patterns and forms (Alabdulaziz, 2021 ). Furthermore, the pandemic has acted as a catalyst for teacher teaching and technological innovation, and this viewpoint has been empirically substantiated (Moorhouse and Wong, 2021 ). Additionally, some scholars believe that the pandemic’s push is a crucial driving force for the digital transformation of the education system, serving as an essential mechanism for overcoming the system’s inertia (Romero et al. 2021 ).

The rapid outbreak of the pandemic posed a challenge to the large-scale implementation of digital technologies, which was influenced by a complex interplay of subjective and objective factors. Objective constraints included the lack of infrastructure in some regions to support digital technologies, while subjective obstacles included psychological resistance among certain students and teachers (Moorhouse, 2021 ). These factors greatly impacted the progress of online learning during the pandemic. Additionally, Timotheou et al. ( 2023 ) conducted a comprehensive systematic review of existing research on digital technology use during the pandemic, highlighting the critical role played by various factors such as learners’ and teachers’ digital skills, teachers’ personal attributes and professional development, school leadership and management, and administration in facilitating the digitalization and transformation of schools.

The current stage of research is characterized by the pivotal term “digital literacy,” denoting a growing interest in learners’ attitudes and adoption of emerging technologies. Initially, the term “literacy” was restricted to fundamental abilities and knowledge associated with books and print materials (McMillan, 1996 ). However, with the swift advancement of computers and digital technology, there have been various attempts to broaden the scope of literacy beyond its traditional meaning, including game literacy (Buckingham and Burn, 2007 ), information literacy (Eisenberg, 2008 ), and media literacy (Turin and Friesem, 2020 ). Similarly, digital literacy has emerged as a crucial concept, and Gilster and Glister ( 1997 ) were the first to introduce this concept, referring to the proficiency in utilizing technology and processing digital information in academic, professional, and daily life settings. In practical educational settings, learners who possess higher digital literacy often exhibit an aptitude for quickly mastering digital devices and applying them intelligently to education and teaching (Yu, 2022 ).

The utilization of digital technology in education has undergone significant changes over the past two decades, and has been a crucial driver of educational reform with each new technological revolution. The impact of these changes on the underlying logic of digital technology education applications has been noticeable. From computer technology to more recent developments such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and artificial intelligence (AI), the acceleration in digital technology development has been ongoing. Educational reforms spurred by digital technology development continue to be dynamic, as each new digital innovation presents new possibilities and models for teaching practice. This is especially relevant in the post-pandemic era, where the importance of technological progress in supporting teaching cannot be overstated (Mughal et al. 2022 ). Existing digital technologies have already greatly expanded the dimensions of education in both time and space, while future digital technologies aim to expand learners’ perceptions. Researchers have highlighted the potential of integrated technology and immersive technology in the development of the educational metaverse, which is highly anticipated to create a new dimension for the teaching and learning environment, foster a new value system for the discipline of educational technology, and more effectively and efficiently achieve the grand educational blueprint of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (Zhang et al. 2022 ; Li and Yu, 2023 ).

Hotspot evolution analysis (RQ3)

The examination of keyword evolution reveals a consistent trend in the advancement of digital technology education application research. The emergence and transformation of keywords serve as indicators of the varying research interests in this field. Thus, the utilization of the burst detection function available in CiteSpace allowed for the identification of the top 10 burst words that exhibited a high level of burst strength. This outcome is illustrated in Table 7 .

According to the results presented in Table 7 , the explosive terminology within the realm of digital technology education research has exhibited a concentration mainly between the years 2018 and 2022. Prior to this time frame, the emerging keywords were limited to “information technology” and “computer”. Notably, among them, computer, as an emergent keyword, has always had a high explosive intensity from 2008 to 2018, which reflects the important position of computer in digital technology and is the main carrier of many digital technologies such as Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Assessment and Feedback systems (Barlovits et al. 2022 ).

Since 2018, an increasing number of research studies have focused on evaluating the capabilities of learners to accept, apply, and comprehend digital technologies. As indicated by the use of terms such as “digital literacy” and “digital skill,” the assessment of learners’ digital literacy has become a critical task. Scholarly efforts have been directed towards the development of literacy assessment tools and the implementation of empirical assessments. Furthermore, enhancing the digital literacy of both learners and educators has garnered significant attention. (Nagle, 2018 ; Yu, 2022 ). Simultaneously, given the widespread use of various digital technologies in different formal and informal learning settings, promoting learners’ digital skills has become a crucial objective for contemporary schools (Nygren et al. 2019 ; Forde and OBrien, 2022 ).

Since 2020, the field of applied research on digital technology education has witnessed the emergence of three new hotspots, all of which have been affected to some extent by the pandemic. Firstly, digital technology has been widely applied in physical education, which is one of the subjects that has been severely affected by the pandemic (Parris et al. 2022 ; Jiang and Ning, 2022 ). Secondly, digital transformation has become an important measure for most schools, especially higher education institutions, to cope with the impact of the pandemic globally (García-Morales et al. 2021 ). Although the concept of digital transformation was proposed earlier, the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly accelerated this transformation process. Educational institutions must carefully redesign their educational products to face this new situation, providing timely digital learning methods, environments, tools, and support systems that have far-reaching impacts on modern society (Krishnamurthy, 2020 ; Salas-Pilco et al. 2022 ). Moreover, the professional development of teachers has become a key mission of educational institutions in the post-pandemic era. Teachers need to have a certain level of digital literacy and be familiar with the tools and online teaching resources used in online teaching, which has become a research hotspot today. Organizing digital skills training for teachers to cope with the application of emerging technologies in education is an important issue for teacher professional development and lifelong learning (Garzón-Artacho et al. 2021 ). As the main organizers and practitioners of emergency remote teaching (ERT) during the pandemic, teachers must put cognitive effort into their professional development to ensure effective implementation of ERT (Romero-Hall and Jaramillo Cherrez, 2022 ).

The burst word “digital transformation” reveals that we are in the midst of an ongoing digital technology revolution. With the emergence of innovative digital technologies such as ChatGPT and Microsoft 365 Copilot, technology trends will continue to evolve, albeit unpredictably. While the impact of these advancements on school education remains uncertain, it is anticipated that the widespread integration of technology will significantly affect the current education system. Rejecting emerging technologies without careful consideration is unwise. Like any revolution, the technological revolution in the education field has both positive and negative aspects. Detractors argue that digital technology disrupts learning and memory (Baron, 2021 ) or causes learners to become addicted and distracted from learning (Selwyn and Aagaard, 2020 ). On the other hand, the prudent use of digital technology in education offers a glimpse of a golden age of open learning. Educational leaders and practitioners have the opportunity to leverage cutting-edge digital technologies to address current educational challenges and develop a rational path for the sustainable and healthy growth of education.

Discussion on performance analysis (RQ1)

The field of digital technology education application research has experienced substantial growth since the turn of the century, a phenomenon that is quantifiably apparent through an analysis of authorship, country/region contributions, and institutional engagement. This expansion reflects the increased integration of digital technologies in educational settings and the heightened scholarly interest in understanding and optimizing their use.

Discussion on authorship productivity in digital technology education research

The authorship distribution within digital technology education research is indicative of the field’s intellectual structure and depth. A primary figure in this domain is Neil Selwyn, whose substantial citation rate underscores the profound impact of his work. His focus on the implications of digital technology in higher education and educational sociology has proven to be seminal. Selwyn’s research trajectory, especially the exploration of spatiotemporal extensions of education through technology, provides valuable insights into the multifaceted role of digital tools in learning processes (Selwyn et al. 2019 ).

Other notable contributors, like Henderson and Edwards, present diversified research interests, such as the impact of digital technologies during the pandemic and their application in early childhood education, respectively. Their varied focuses highlight the breadth of digital technology education research, encompassing pedagogical innovation, technological adaptation, and policy development.

Discussion on country/region-level productivity and collaboration

At the country/region level, the United Kingdom, specifically England, emerges as a leading contributor with 92 published papers and a significant citation count. This is closely followed by Australia and the United States, indicating a strong English-speaking research axis. Such geographical concentration of scholarly output often correlates with investment in research and development, technological infrastructure, and the prevalence of higher education institutions engaging in cutting-edge research.

China’s notable inclusion as the only non-Western country among the top contributors to the field suggests a growing research capacity and interest in digital technology in education. However, the lower average citation per paper for China could reflect emerging engagement or different research focuses that may not yet have achieved the same international recognition as Western counterparts.

The chord diagram analysis furthers this understanding, revealing dense interconnections between countries like the United States, China, and England, which indicates robust collaborations. Such collaborations are fundamental in addressing global educational challenges and shaping international research agendas.

Discussion on institutional-level contributions to digital technology education

Institutional productivity in digital technology education research reveals a constellation of universities driving the field forward. Monash University and the Australian Catholic University have the highest publication output, signaling Australia’s significant role in advancing digital education research. The University of Oslo’s remarkable average citation count per publication indicates influential research contributions, potentially reflecting high-quality studies that resonate with the broader academic community.

The strong showing of UK institutions, including the University of London, The Open University, and the University of Cambridge, reinforces the UK’s prominence in this research field. Such institutions are often at the forefront of pedagogical innovation, benefiting from established research cultures and funding mechanisms that support sustained inquiry into digital education.

Discussion on journal publication analysis

An examination of journal outputs offers a lens into the communicative channels of the field’s knowledge base. Journals such as Education and Information Technologies , Computers & Education , and the British Journal of Educational Technology not only serve as the primary disseminators of research findings but also as indicators of research quality and relevance. The impact factor (IF) serves as a proxy for the quality and influence of these journals within the academic community.

The high citation counts for articles published in Computers & Education suggest that research disseminated through this medium has a wide-reaching impact and is of particular interest to the field. This is further evidenced by its significant IF of 11.182, indicating that the journal is a pivotal platform for seminal work in the application of digital technology in education.

The authorship, regional, and institutional productivity in the field of digital technology education application research collectively narrate the evolution of this domain since the turn of the century. The prominence of certain authors and countries underscores the importance of socioeconomic factors and existing academic infrastructure in fostering research productivity. Meanwhile, the centrality of specific journals as outlets for high-impact research emphasizes the role of academic publishing in shaping the research landscape.

As the field continues to grow, future research may benefit from leveraging the collaborative networks that have been elucidated through this analysis, perhaps focusing on underrepresented regions to broaden the scope and diversity of research. Furthermore, the stabilization of publication numbers in recent years invites a deeper exploration into potential plateaus in research trends or saturation in certain sub-fields, signaling an opportunity for novel inquiries and methodological innovations.

Discussion on the evolutionary trends (RQ2)

The evolution of the research field concerning the application of digital technology in education over the past two decades is a story of convergence, diversification, and transformation, shaped by rapid technological advancements and shifting educational paradigms.

At the turn of the century, the inception of digital technology in education was largely exploratory, with a focus on how emerging computer technologies could be harnessed to enhance traditional learning environments. Research from this early period was primarily descriptive, reflecting on the potential and challenges of incorporating digital tools into the educational setting. This phase was critical in establishing the fundamental discourse that would guide subsequent research, as it set the stage for understanding the scope and impact of digital technology in learning spaces (Wang et al. 2023 ).

As the first decade progressed, the narrative expanded to encompass the pedagogical implications of digital technologies. This was a period of conceptual debates, where terms like “digital natives” and “disruptive pedagogy” entered the academic lexicon, underscoring the growing acknowledgment of digital technology as a transformative force within education (Bennett and Maton, 2010 ). During this time, the research began to reflect a more nuanced understanding of the integration of technology, considering not only its potential to change where and how learning occurred but also its implications for educational equity and access.

In the second decade, with the maturation of internet connectivity and mobile technology, the focus of research shifted from theoretical speculations to empirical investigations. The proliferation of digital devices and the ubiquity of social media influenced how learners interacted with information and each other, prompting a surge in studies that sought to measure the impact of these tools on learning outcomes. The digital divide and issues related to digital literacy became central concerns, as scholars explored the varying capacities of students and educators to engage with technology effectively.

Throughout this period, there was an increasing emphasis on the individualization of learning experiences, facilitated by adaptive technologies that could cater to the unique needs and pacing of learners (Jing et al. 2023a ). This individualization was coupled with a growing recognition of the importance of collaborative learning, both online and offline, and the role of digital tools in supporting these processes. Blended learning models, which combined face-to-face instruction with online resources, emerged as a significant trend, advocating for a balance between traditional pedagogies and innovative digital strategies.

The later years, particularly marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerated the necessity for digital technology in education, transforming it from a supplementary tool to an essential platform for delivering education globally (Mo et al. 2022 ; Mustapha et al. 2021 ). This era brought about an unprecedented focus on online learning environments, distance education, and virtual classrooms. Research became more granular, examining not just the pedagogical effectiveness of digital tools, but also their role in maintaining continuity of education during crises, their impact on teacher and student well-being, and their implications for the future of educational policy and infrastructure.

Across these two decades, the research field has seen a shift from examining digital technology as an external addition to the educational process, to viewing it as an integral component of curriculum design, instructional strategies, and even assessment methods. The emergent themes have broadened from a narrow focus on specific tools or platforms to include wider considerations such as data privacy, ethical use of technology, and the environmental impact of digital tools.

Moreover, the field has moved from considering the application of digital technology in education as a primarily cognitive endeavor to recognizing its role in facilitating socio-emotional learning, digital citizenship, and global competencies. Researchers have increasingly turned their attention to the ways in which technology can support collaborative skills, cultural understanding, and ethical reasoning within diverse student populations.

In summary, the past over twenty years in the research field of digital technology applications in education have been characterized by a progression from foundational inquiries to complex analyses of digital integration. This evolution has mirrored the trajectory of technology itself, from a facilitative tool to a pervasive ecosystem defining contemporary educational experiences. As we look to the future, the field is poised to delve into the implications of emerging technologies like AI, AR, and VR, and their potential to redefine the educational landscape even further. This ongoing metamorphosis suggests that the application of digital technology in education will continue to be a rich area of inquiry, demanding continual adaptation and forward-thinking from educators and researchers alike.

Discussion on the study of research hotspots (RQ3)

The analysis of keyword evolution in digital technology education application research elucidates the current frontiers in the field, reflecting a trajectory that is in tandem with the rapidly advancing digital age. This landscape is sculpted by emergent technological innovations and shaped by the demands of an increasingly digital society.

Interdisciplinary integration and pedagogical transformation

One of the frontiers identified from recent keyword bursts includes the integration of digital technology into diverse educational contexts, particularly noted with the keyword “physical education.” The digitalization of disciplines traditionally characterized by physical presence illustrates the pervasive reach of technology and signifies a push towards interdisciplinary integration where technology is not only a facilitator but also a transformative agent. This integration challenges educators to reconceptualize curriculum delivery to accommodate digital tools that can enhance or simulate the physical aspects of learning.

Digital literacy and skills acquisition

Another pivotal frontier is the focus on “digital literacy” and “digital skill”, which has intensified in recent years. This suggests a shift from mere access to technology towards a comprehensive understanding and utilization of digital tools. In this realm, the emphasis is not only on the ability to use technology but also on critical thinking, problem-solving, and the ethical use of digital resources (Yu, 2022 ). The acquisition of digital literacy is no longer an additive skill but a fundamental aspect of modern education, essential for navigating and contributing to the digital world.

Educational digital transformation

The keyword “digital transformation” marks a significant research frontier, emphasizing the systemic changes that education institutions must undergo to align with the digital era (Romero et al. 2021 ). This transformation includes the redesigning of learning environments, pedagogical strategies, and assessment methods to harness digital technology’s full potential. Research in this area explores the complexity of institutional change, addressing the infrastructural, cultural, and policy adjustments needed for a seamless digital transition.

Engagement and participation

Further exploration into “engagement” and “participation” underscores the importance of student-centered learning environments that are mediated by technology. The current frontiers examine how digital platforms can foster collaboration, inclusivity, and active learning, potentially leading to more meaningful and personalized educational experiences. Here, the use of technology seeks to support the emotional and cognitive aspects of learning, moving beyond the transactional view of education to one that is relational and interactive.

Professional development and teacher readiness

As the field evolves, “professional development” emerges as a crucial area, particularly in light of the pandemic which necessitated emergency remote teaching. The need for teacher readiness in a digital age is a pressing frontier, with research focusing on the competencies required for educators to effectively integrate technology into their teaching practices. This includes familiarity with digital tools, pedagogical innovation, and an ongoing commitment to personal and professional growth in the digital domain.

Pandemic as a catalyst

The recent pandemic has acted as a catalyst for accelerated research and application in this field, particularly in the domains of “digital transformation,” “professional development,” and “physical education.” This period has been a litmus test for the resilience and adaptability of educational systems to continue their operations in an emergency. Research has thus been directed at understanding how digital technologies can support not only continuity but also enhance the quality and reach of education in such contexts.

Ethical and societal considerations

The frontier of digital technology in education is also expanding to consider broader ethical and societal implications. This includes issues of digital equity, data privacy, and the sociocultural impact of technology on learning communities. The research explores how educational technology can be leveraged to address inequities and create more equitable learning opportunities for all students, regardless of their socioeconomic background.

Innovation and emerging technologies

Looking forward, the frontiers are set to be influenced by ongoing and future technological innovations, such as artificial intelligence (AI) (Wu and Yu, 2023 ; Chen et al. 2022a ). The exploration into how these technologies can be integrated into educational practices to create immersive and adaptive learning experiences represents a bold new chapter for the field.

In conclusion, the current frontiers of research on the application of digital technology in education are multifaceted and dynamic. They reflect an overarching movement towards deeper integration of technology in educational systems and pedagogical practices, where the goals are not only to facilitate learning but to redefine it. As these frontiers continue to expand and evolve, they will shape the educational landscape, requiring a concerted effort from researchers, educators, policymakers, and technologists to navigate the challenges and harness the opportunities presented by the digital revolution in education.

Conclusions and future research

Conclusions.

The utilization of digital technology in education is a research area that cuts across multiple technical and educational domains and continues to experience dynamic growth due to the continuous progress of technology. In this study, a systematic review of this field was conducted through bibliometric techniques to examine its development trajectory. The primary focus of the review was to investigate the leading contributors, productive national institutions, significant publications, and evolving development patterns. The study’s quantitative analysis resulted in several key conclusions that shed light on this research field’s current state and future prospects.

(1) The research field of digital technology education applications has entered a stage of rapid development, particularly in recent years due to the impact of the pandemic, resulting in a peak of publications. Within this field, several key authors (Selwyn, Henderson, Edwards, etc.) and countries/regions (England, Australia, USA, etc.) have emerged, who have made significant contributions. International exchanges in this field have become frequent, with a high degree of internationalization in academic research. Higher education institutions in the UK and Australia are the core productive forces in this field at the institutional level.

(2) Education and Information Technologies , Computers & Education , and the British Journal of Educational Technology are notable journals that publish research related to digital technology education applications. These journals are affiliated with the research field of educational technology and provide effective communication platforms for sharing digital technology education applications.

(3) Over the past two decades, research on digital technology education applications has progressed from its early stages of budding, initial development, and critical exploration to accelerated transformation, and it is currently approaching maturity. Technological progress and changes in the times have been key driving forces for educational transformation and innovation, and both have played important roles in promoting the continuous development of education.

(4) Influenced by the pandemic, three emerging frontiers have emerged in current research on digital technology education applications, which are physical education, digital transformation, and professional development under the promotion of digital technology. These frontier research hotspots reflect the core issues that the education system faces when encountering new technologies. The evolution of research hotspots shows that technology breakthroughs in education’s original boundaries of time and space create new challenges. The continuous self-renewal of education is achieved by solving one hotspot problem after another.

The present study offers significant practical implications for scholars and practitioners in the field of digital technology education applications. Firstly, it presents a well-defined framework of the existing research in this area, serving as a comprehensive guide for new entrants to the field and shedding light on the developmental trajectory of this research domain. Secondly, the study identifies several contemporary research hotspots, thus offering a valuable decision-making resource for scholars aiming to explore potential research directions. Thirdly, the study undertakes an exhaustive analysis of published literature to identify core journals in the field of digital technology education applications, with Sustainability being identified as a promising open access journal that publishes extensively on this topic. This finding can potentially facilitate scholars in selecting appropriate journals for their research outputs.

Limitation and future research

Influenced by some objective factors, this study also has some limitations. First of all, the bibliometrics analysis software has high standards for data. In order to ensure the quality and integrity of the collected data, the research only selects the periodical papers in SCIE and SSCI indexes, which are the core collection of Web of Science database, and excludes other databases, conference papers, editorials and other publications, which may ignore some scientific research and original opinions in the field of digital technology education and application research. In addition, although this study used professional software to carry out bibliometric analysis and obtained more objective quantitative data, the analysis and interpretation of data will inevitably have a certain subjective color, and the influence of subjectivity on data analysis cannot be completely avoided. As such, future research endeavors will broaden the scope of literature screening and proactively engage scholars in the field to gain objective and state-of-the-art insights, while minimizing the adverse impact of personal subjectivity on research analysis.

Data availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the Dataverse repository: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/F9QMHY

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Zhejiang Provincial Social Science Planning Project, “Mechanisms and Pathways for Empowering Classroom Teaching through Learning Spaces under the Strategy of High-Quality Education Development”, the 2022 National Social Science Foundation Education Youth Project “Research on the Strategy of Creating Learning Space Value and Empowering Classroom Teaching under the background of ‘Double Reduction’” (Grant No. CCA220319) and the National College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program of China (Grant No. 202310337023).

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Wang, C., Chen, X., Yu, T. et al. Education reform and change driven by digital technology: a bibliometric study from a global perspective. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 256 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-02717-y

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Unlicensed teachers now dominate new teacher hires in rural Texas schools

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Professor of Literacy and Education, Texas State University

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James P. Van Overschelde is co-founder and co-executive director of the Research for EDucator Equity & Excellence Center at Texas State University. Dr. Van Overschelde consults with organizations that are involved in teacher preparation and he receives grant funding from numerous sources to conduct rigorous mixed-methods research on teacher preparation, teacher employment, and student achievement.

Minda Lopez is co-founder and co-executive director of the Research for EDucator Equity & Excellence Center at Texas State University. Dr. Lopez consults with organizations that are involved in PK-12 education, teacher preparation, and teacher training. She receives grant funding from numerous sources to conduct rigorous mixed-methods research on teacher preparation, teacher employment, and student achievement.

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The passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015 eliminated the federal requirement that teachers be highly qualified to teach. This regulatory freedom, combined with a shortage of trained and qualified teachers , has led some states to allow unqualified people to teach children.

Texas used this freedom to adopt a new state law that allows almost any school to hire unlicensed teachers. As a result, Texas schools now hire more unlicensed new teachers than licensed ones . The supply problem is especially acute in rural and small-town schools, where almost 75% of new teachers hired in 2023-2024 were unlicensed. This is up from 17% in 2013-14.

Research shows, however, that these unregulated hiring practices can have a negative impact on students’ academic achievement. It disproportionately affects Black students, English learners and rural students .

Why does it matter?

What’s required to get a teaching license varies by state, but for the most part all states require licensed teachers to have at least a bachelor’s degree. Many also require prospective teachers to complete a certain number of hours of student teaching and take a test as well.

While the practice of hiring unlicensed teachers may fill an immediate staffing need in classrooms, research shows it has a number of negative consequences.

First, unqualified new teachers negatively impact student learning in middle and high school math. The learning loss that students experience is equivalent to missing up to three months of instruction during a nine-month school year.

Second, unlicensed new teachers quit teaching at much higher rates than licensed and qualified new teachers. Only 45% of unlicensed new teachers in rural communities stay in teaching beyond three years, while almost 80% of fully qualified new teachers continue in the profession. The high attrition rate for unlicensed teachers is disruptive to schools and can lead to lower student test scores . And teacher turnover is expensive, costing school districts US$9,000 to $21,000 to hire and train a replacement for each teacher who leaves.

Third, unlicensed teachers in Texas can earn the same salary and benefits as fully trained and licensed teachers and remain employed indefinitely. As a result, this new state law removes the incentive for people to invest their time and money in getting trained and licensed to teach. In the long term, this is likely to further erode the supply of highly qualified teachers.

Finally, Texas law requires public schools to provide equal educational services and opportunities to all children. Federal law says all children must “ receive a fair, equitable and high-quality education .” Despite these laws, unqualified new teachers in Texas are 1.4 times more likely to teach Black students than white students , 2.1 times more likely to teach emergent bilingual students than native English-speaking students and six times more likely to teach students in rural communities than in suburban communities.

What’s next?

Three changes to state policy and practice could result in higher student achievement, a greater supply of highly qualified teachers, better government transparency and lower costs to taxpayers.

Since 1999, Texas law has required schools to notify parents and guardians when their children are taught by “ inappropriately certified or uncertified teachers .” However, the new state law allows school districts to exempt themselves from this government transparency clause, and nearly 400 had done so as of March 2024, based on our calculations using state data. If Texas legislators removed this exemption, parents would be empowered to ensure their school districts were taking positive steps toward hiring more licensed teachers.

One way to potentially reduce the educational harm of employing unlicensed teachers is to cap how long they can teach before they must get licensed. Before 2015, school districts were required to request an emergency permit from the state for unqualified teachers when the district was unable to fill an open teaching position with a licensed teacher. These permits are valid for only one year. This time limit could also be applied to all unlicensed teachers being hired now.

Under Texas law, school districts can pay teachers differently based on their qualifications. If most school districts created tiered teacher pay scales – where the salary for fully qualified teachers is higher than for unlicensed teachers – then this could provide additional incentives for unlicensed teachers to become fully trained and licensed.

In addition, rural and small-town schools currently struggle to hire highly qualified teachers because they compete with wealthier and larger school districts. Differentiated state funding that enables rural and town districts to offer similar salaries for qualified teachers could also help level the educational playing field across the state.

Collectively, these three policy changes could help increase the supply of highly qualified and effective teachers who stay in the profession for longer, especially in rural schools. This in turn could lower costs to school districts and ensure all students get the equitable and high quality education they are entitled to by law.

• Test scores
• K-12 education
• Teacher turnover
• Higher ed attainment
• Achievement
• rural students

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Building the Next Generation of Teachers Through Apprenticeship

Registered Apprenticeship is an effective "earn and learn" model with a long history of establishing career pathways in growing industries by providing structured, paid, on-the-job learning experiences with a mentor combined with job-related technical instruction that leads to a nationally recognized credential. To learn more about Registered Apprenticeships, visit www.apprenticeship.gov .

Building on the Biden administration’s Good Jobs Initiative, we’re expanding Registered Apprenticeships for educators and investing in quality teacher preparation programs. These efforts started with a joint effort, leadership, and call to action from our departments through a Dear Colleague Letter for education and workforce leaders to address educator shortages, and investments to support developing, expanding and scaling high-quality and affordable pathways into teaching. This call to action aims to ensure teachers have access to increased pay and better working conditions across the early childhood, K-12 and higher education workforce.  

The Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration has continued to partner with the Department of Education to make significant investments to develop and scale teacher apprenticeship programs, including: 

We also recently announced the availability of nearly $200 million to support Registered Apprenticeship expansion, prioritizing projects that support the Investing in America agenda by increasing access to Registered Apprenticeships in high-demand sectors and occupations, including K-12 teacher occupations. Strategies to use Registered Apprenticeship to train a next generation of teachers continue to expand, with 37 states and territories now providing K-12 teacher apprenticeship programs, up from just two states in 2022. Today, over 100 K-12 teacher Registered Apprenticeship programs have been registered and over 3,000 K-12 teacher apprentices have been trained. That’s a lot of progress made in just two years! And this administration is committed to ensuring that progress continues. 

To support raising awareness around K-12 teacher Registered Apprenticeships, ETA industry intermediary partner RTI International published a Profile in Educator Registered Apprenticeship Programs report, which explores different program design models, varying target populations, modernized onramps to successful teacher pathways, innovative funding models, and opportunities for degree attainment. 

The report is the first in a series, which ETA will release in partnership with RTI to explore various strategies to expand the use of Registered Apprenticeship to train America’s educators. K-12 teacher Registered Apprenticeship programs will continue to play a key role in increasing pathways to rewarding careers in the education sector, filling vacant positions with high-quality, well-trained teachers, and a focus on diversifying the workforce.  For additional information on any of these programs, please visit Apprenticeship.gov.

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• Registered Apprenticeship

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Symposium considers how technology is changing academia

While moderating a talk on artificial intelligence last week, Latanya Sweeney posed a thought experiment. Picture three to five years from now. AI companies are continuing to scrape the internet for data to feed their large language models. But unlike today’s internet, which is largely human-generated content, most of that future internet’s content has been generated by … large language models.

The scenario is not farfetched considering the explosive growth of generative AI in the last two years, suggested the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Kennedy School professor.  

Sweeney’s panel was part of a daylong symposium on AI hosted by the FAS last week that considered questions such as: How are generative AI technologies such as ChatGPT disrupting what it means to own one’s work? How can AI be leveraged thoughtfully while maintaining academic and research integrity? Just how good are these large language model-based programs going to get? (Very, very good.)

“Here at the FAS, we’re in a unique position to explore questions and challenges that come from this new technology,” said Hopi Hoekstra , Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, during her opening remarks. “Our community is full of brilliant thinkers, curious researchers, and knowledgeable scholars, all able to lend their variety of expertise to tackling the big questions in AI, from ethics to societal implications.”

In an all-student panel, philosophy and math concentrator Chinmay Deshpande ’24 compared the present moment to the advent of the internet, and how that revolutionary technology forced academic institutions to rethink how to test knowledge. “Regardless of what we think AI will look like down the line, I think it’s clear it’s starting to have an impact that’s qualitatively similar to the impact of the internet,” Deshpande said. “And thinking about pedagogy, we should think about AI along somewhat similar lines.”

Computer science concentrator and master’s degree student Naomi Bashkansky ’25, who is exploring AI safety issues with fellow students, urged Harvard to provide thought leadership on the implications of an AI-saturated world, in part by offering courses that integrate the basics of large language models into subjects like biology or writing.

Harvard Law School student Kevin Wei agreed.

“We’re not grappling sufficiently with the way the world will change, and especially the way the economy and labor market will change, with the rise of generative AI systems,” Wei said. “Anything Harvard can do to take a leading role in doing that … in discussions with government, academia, and civil society … I would like to see a much larger role for the University.”

The day opened with a panel on original scholarship, co-sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center and the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics . Panelists explored ethics of authorship in the age of instant access to information and blurred lines of citation and copyright, and how those considerations vary between disciplines.

David Joselit , the Arthur Kingsley Professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, said challenges wrought by AI have precedent in the history of art; the idea of “authorship” has been undermined in the modern era because artists have often focused on the idea as what counts as the artwork, rather than its physical execution. “It seems to me that AI is a mechanization of that kind of distribution of authorship,” Joselit said. He posed the idea that AI should be understood “as its own genre, not exclusively as a tool.”

Another symposium topic included a review of Harvard Library’s law, information policy, and AI survey research revealing how students are using AI for academic work. Administrators from across the FAS also shared examples of how they are experimenting with AI tools to enhance their productivity. Panelists from the Bok Center shared how AI has been used in teaching this year, and Harvard University Information Technology gave insight into tools it is building to support instructors. 

Throughout the ground floor of the Northwest Building, where the symposium took place, was a poster fair keying off final projects from Sweeney’s course “Tech Science to Save the World,” in which students explored how scientific experimentation and technology can be used to solve real-world problems. Among the posters: “Viral or Volatile? TikTok and Democracy,” and “Campaign Ads in the Age of AI: Can Voters Tell the Difference?”

Students from the inaugural General Education class “ Rise of the Machines? ” capped the day, sharing final projects illustrating current and future aspects of generative AI.

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‘I feel so much more prepared': How a new Texas program could help with teacher retention

Texas education officials hope a newly approved certificate for aspiring teachers who complete a residency program will encourage more potential educators to complete the rigorous program and enter the field better prepared.

School districts statewide have struggled to retain early-career teachers, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, and some education industry experts say studies show such yearlong programs — which are growing in popularity — create better developed first-year teachers and better outcomes for students.

The State Board of Education approved the new certificate — the enhanced standard certificate — last month. The certificate recognizes students who complete a residency on their path to obtaining a teaching license in Texas.

The state hoped to standardize a practice that has already becoming popular in Texas, said Emily Garcia, associate commissioner for educator certification and enforcement at the Texas Education Agency. About 40 of the state’s educator preparation programs already use a residency program.

“The residency prep route creates a path to the classroom that’s akin to the medical model for preparing doctors,” Garcia said.

In the program, a teaching candidate would be embedded in a teacher’s classroom and act more like a second teacher, she said.

While student teaching is common, especially among college-based teaching programs, a residency is typically longer and more intensive, Garcia said.

A typical student teaching program involves a minimum of 490 hours in a classroom, while a residency has a 750-hour minimum requirement, according to the TEA.

“The more prepared a teacher is, the more experience and practice a teacher has, the better able they are to meet their kids' needs in their first few years of teaching,” Garcia said.

Texas struggles to retain teachers

Teacher attrition peaked to 13.4% in the 2022-23 school year and is at 12.2% in the current school year, according to TEA data.

In the 2019-20 school year, teacher attrition was 10.2%. Only 58% of entry-level teachers in Texas are still working in public education five years later, according to TEA data.

A larger share — 34% — of new hires are noncertified teachers this year.

Residency programs give aspiring teachers a more realistic understanding of what it’s like to be in the classroom all year, which helps better prepare them for their first few years of teaching, said Stacey Edmonson, dean of the College of Education at Sam Houston State University.

The university started introducing a residency model to the university’s education degree about six or seven years ago and is working on transitioning every student to this kind of program.

“We anticipated pushback from the teacher candidates because it's more work for them,” Edmonson said. “They're out in the schools twice as long. They were our biggest cheerleaders for that. They said, ‘I feel so much more prepared. I'm walking in as a second-year teacher instead of a brand-new teacher.’”

Teacher residents are also typically, though not always, paid.

The residency certificate will require teaching candidates to get paid for their work, though that money could come from their college, preparation program or the district they work in.

State lawmakers last year proposed legislation that would have allotted some state money for teacher residencies, but the bill died amid the political fight over school vouchers, a program that would give state money to students for private school tuition.

It’s important to pay the residents to remove barriers for a yearlong commitment to learning, Garcia said.

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• The Upgrade Programme for the DPTE SBA subjects with project/practical component and their corresponding instructions where applicable shall be uploaded in the KNEC portal https://cbate.knec.ac.ke on 3 rd May 2024 for colleges to download and administer between 6 th May and 31 st May 2024 . Written assessments will be administered through the CBATE e-assessment system from 27 th to 31 st May 2024 .
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• You are requested to bring this information to the attention of all the teacher trainers and teacher trainees taking part in the upgrade programme in your college.

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National ranking of teacher pay spells bad news for Florida educators. Here's what to know

The report ranked average teacher pay and starting teacher pay across the country, and compared both to what's considered a livable wage in each state..

Florida has officially dropped to 50th in a ranking of average teacher pay across the country, according to a report published in April by the National Education Association.

Only West Virginia ranks below Florida's average educator salary of $53,098. The report included all states and Washington, D.C., and ranked both average starting teacher salary and average teacher salary using data reported directly by school districts.

Despite recent pushes by Gov. Ron DeSantis to allocate more money for better teacher pay, Florida remains low on the list compared with other states.

Florida was ranked slightly higher in teacher pay last year at 48th in the nation.

The report comes as the Florida legislature has approved modest increases in the amount of money it gives schools based on the number of students who attend. At $12,488 per student, Florida's per-student allocation ranks 42nd in the country, according to the report from NEA.

New York, which ranks first in funding per student, spends $30,867, more than double Florida's amount. Neighboring Georgia spends $14,083 per student, the report found.

The Florida Education Association, the statewide federation of teachers unions, has called on lawmakers to increase funding by $2.5 billion a year to address teacher pay, hire more mental health specialists and address students' post-pandemic academic needs.

More on teacher pay: Some Palm Beach County teachers get second jobs to pay bills. Now they're in for a 7% raise

"Once again, despite a thriving economy, Florida is failing to prioritize the needs of students by not fairly compensating teachers and staff," said Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association.

Spar blamed a mentality in the Legislature "that teachers in Florida should just shut up and be quiet."

"They’re not going to do that," Spar said. "They’re walking away from the profession or they're saying, 'Our public schools matter too much for us not to stand up and speak out.' "

Here's what to know about teacher pay and the report.

What is starting teacher pay in Florida?

Florida fared far better in the ranking of average salaries for starting teachers.

At $47,178, Florida's average starting teacher pay ranks 16th in the country. The place with the top salary for starting teachers is Washington, D.C., with an average of $63,373.

Average salaries are far below minimum livable wage in Florida

The report shows that both starting teacher pay and average teacher pay come in far below what's considered a livable wage in Florida, which is $58,970 per year.

The report defined a livable wage as the "income needed for family of one adult and one child to have a modest but adequate standard of living in the most affordable metro area in 2023 dollars, as defined by the Economic Policy Institute."

How much do teachers in Palm Beach County make?

The starting salary for teachers in Palm Beach County is $51,500, according to 2023 figures from the school district.

Teachers can be paid up to $77,233 if they have 25 years of experience.

All teachers with more than one year of experience currently get a supplement to their salary worth up to $10,000 due to a referendum passed by voters in 2018 and again in 2022.

Top 5 states for teacher pay

Here are the top five states and districts for average teacher pay:

• California — $95,160
• New York — $92,696
• Massachusetts — $92,307
• Washington state — $86,804
• Washington D.C. — $84,882

Bottom 5 states for teacher pay

Here are the bottom five states for average teacher pay:

• 47. Missouri — $53,999
• 48. Mississippi — $53,354
• 49. South Dakota — $53,153
• 50. Florida — $53,098
• 51. West Virginia — $52,870

How did NEA get this teacher pay data?

All but four state and district departments of education provided NEA with estimated teacher pay data for the current school year in February.

Connecticut, District of Columbia, Montana and Rhode Island salary averages were estimated from data from the 2022-23 school year.

The national average salary was weighted by the number of teachers in each state.

How was this report funded?

The report compiled data from each state and was conducted by the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the U.S. that represents public school employees.

The NEA gets funding from its dues-paying members and investments. The association has about 3 million members, according to its website.

Although it is a nonpartisan organization, the NEA has endorsed or provided support for every Democratic presidential nominee from Jimmy Carter to Joe Biden.

Fast facts from NEA teacher pay study

• Even with record-level increases in some states, average teacher pay has failed to keep up with inflation over the past decade. Adjusted for inflation, on average, teachers are making 5% less than they did 10 years ago, according to the report.
• About 77% of U.S. school districts pay a starting salary below $50,000, while teacher salaries top out over $100,000 in 16.6% of districts. About 28% of school districts start teachers at less than $40,000 per year, the report says.
• Teachers earn 26% more, on average, in states with collective bargaining. Education support professionals covered by unions earn 16% more, the report found.

Katherine Kokal is a journalist covering education at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at [email protected]. Help support our work: Subscribe today!

Teachers across the state share anger over new literacy licenses requirement

In a packed state school board meeting on Wednesday, teachers from across the state shared their frustration and anger with the Indiana Department of Education's rollout of new requirements for early literacy training, which they say place too many burdens on teachers.

Many teachers said they were concerned about how long it will take to complete the training, the lack of fair compensation for the training and the difficulty of the final test. Teachers who meet all these requirements will earn a credential the state is calling an "early literacy endorsement."

“Colleagues have expressed they would rather let their licenses lapse at the next renewal date than be subjected to more hoops and mandates to prove their worth,” said Diana Reed, a teacher at the Union Township School Corporation near Valparaiso.

The early literacy endorsement was part of the series of laws passed last year that focused on revamping the state’s literacy efforts in an effort to improve early literacy scores, which have declined in Indiana over the past decade.

The state has embraced the science of reading – a vast body of research that focuses on how brains learn to read with an emphasis on phonics. This new credential aims to familiarize teachers with pedagological practices based on the science of reading research.

More on science of reading: This Marion County school district had the highest growth in reading scores. This is why.

The new endorsement requires any current teacher who holds a preK-6 license or a special education license to complete 80 hours of training and pass a final written exam.

The state is offering free training through the Keys to Literacy program and a $1,200 stipend for those who complete the training.  

All future teachers who do not currently have a teaching license must apply for the endorsement beginning July 1, 2025.

Current teachers have until July 1, 2027, or their next license renewal to fulfill the endorsement requirement.

However, multiple special education teachers said Wednesday that the new endorsement is unnecessary for them, considering they already undergo numerous licensing requirements in addition to a typical teacher license.

“Your free training feels like a slap in the face to someone who has earned an AA, a bachelor's, a master's and a license in special education,” said Maya Simon, a special education teacher at Arsenal Tech High School.

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Other teachers said that the $1,200 stipend to cover 80 hours of training – which amounts to about $15 per hour pay – was not enough compensation especially considering that most of that training would come out of a teacher’s personal time.

“Keys to Literacy requires significant time commitments outside of school taking even more time from teachers than we already donate on behalf of our craft,” said Sarah Craft, an English and economics teacher at Borden High School in Borden, IN. “No stipend can replace that loss.”

Indiana Secretary of Education Katie Jenner addressed some of the teachers’ concerns briefly, saying that the IDOE plans to ask for more funding for the training stipends during next year’s budget session.

Teachers said they were open to the training but wanted to see some changes.

“No one is asking for the science of reading training to go away, we just want to be able to apply it in a realistic way to prove we are effective,” said Aaron Eastom, a third-grade teacher at Fort Wayne Schools.

Contact IndyStar reporter Caroline Beck at 317-618-5807 or  [email protected] . Follow her on Twitter:  @CarolineB_Indy .

Caroline’s reporting is made possible by Report for America and the  John S. and James L. Knight Foundation . 

Report for America is a program of The GroundTruth Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening local newsrooms. Report for America provides funding for up to half of the reporter’s salary during their time with us, and IndyStar is fundraising the remainder. To learn more about how you can support IndyStar’s partnership with Report for America and to make a donation, visit  indystar.com/RFA .