Students' math scores jumped 20% with iPad textbooks, publisher says
A yearlong pilot program with digital textbooks on Apple's iPad found that students' algebra scores increased by 20 percent when compared to a curriculum with traditional books.
On the heels of Apple's e-textbook announcement in New York City this week, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced the results of its "HMC Fuse: Algebra I" pilot program at Ameila Earhart Middle School in California's Riverside Unified School District. The Algebra I digital textbook is touted as the world's first full-curriculum algebra application developed exclusively for Apple's iPad.
In its test run, the "HMH Fuse" application helped more than 78 percent of students score "Proficient" or "Advanced" on the spring 2011 California Standards Test. That was significantly higher than the 59 percent of peers who used traditional textbooks.
"By engineering a comprehensive platform that combines the best learning material with technology that embraces students' strengths and addresses their weaknesses, we've gone far beyond the capabilities of an e-book to turn a one-way math lesson into an engaging, interactive, supportive learning experience," said Bethlam Forsa, executive vice president of Global Content and Product Development at HMH. "With HMH Fuse, teachers can assess student progress in real time and tailor instruction as needed.”
The first pilot program took place during the second trimester of the 2010-2011 school year, when students using "HMH Fuse" were said to have scored an average of 10 points higher than their peers. But that number jumped even higher for the California Standards Test in spring 2011, when "HMH Fuse" students scored about 20 percent higher than students who used traditional textbooks.
Earhart math teachers Dan Sbur and Jackie Davis were among the first to use the new digital tool on Apple's iPad. Both said they were encouraged by the initial run and the positive effect it had on students' scores.
"Students' interaction with the device was more personal," Earhart Principal Coleman Kells said. "You could tell the students were more engaged. Using the iPad was more normal, more understandable for them."
A white paper on the HMH Fuse Pilot Program is available for download from the publisher. Other schools and students can download the "HMH Fuse Shell" applications available for free on the iPad App Store, with curriculums available as in-app purchases within the applications.
Comments
-kpluck
...and second, we need better teachers.
It might not be better teachers, it might just be more teachers. Doubling the capacity of a class room makes it harder to control the focus which allows for less time to teach, and then for the children that need additional instruction (for various reasons) you either have to limit their time or see a small percentage of them which may happen as a student might get discouraged if they have to wait an extra long time for additional instruction. Interactive textbooks aren't designed to replace, just assist.
I do think the use of electronic texts will have some advantages, but I doubt if they will result in significant improvement in student performance.
It might not be better teachers, it might just be more teachers. Doubling the capacity of a class room makes it harder to control the focus which allows for less time to teach, and then for the children that need additional instruction (for various reasons) you either have to limit their time or see a small percentage of them which may happen as a student might get discouraged if they have to wait an extra long time for additional instruction. Interactive textbooks aren't designed to replace, just assist.
You need more and you need quality. There's no point in hiring more teachers if there lousy. Yes, class sizes need to be kept relatively small but quality is definitely important.
It has nothing to do with bad teachers, but a history of lazy, detached kids in the middle of a technology revolution none of us had in our formative years.
GENE SIMMONS NEVER HAD A PERSONAL COMPUTER WHEN HE WAS A KID.
How do we know? We know because our own well-documented research has shown conclusively that a child who lacks his own personal computer during those earliest school years will very probably grow up to be a bass player in a heavy metal rock band who wears women's fishnet pantyhose and sticks his tongue down to his kneecaps. Just like Gene Simmons.
Your child's future doesn't have to look like this.
The Banana Junior 6000 Self-portable Personal Computer System, complete with its optional software - Bananawrite, Bananadraw, Bananafile, and Bananamanager - is just what your four-year-old needs to compete in today's cut-throat world of high tech and high expectations.
The Banana Junior 6000...Buy one before it's too late. Gene's mother wishes she had.
Both my daughters were straight A students in middle school and were in top 5%. How much better might they have been if they had iPads?
Straight A+ and top 4%
You need more and you need quality. There's no point in hiring more teachers if there lousy. Yes, class sizes need to be kept relatively small but quality is definitely important.
You get what you pay for. Maybe we should pay them $25,000,000/yr. Seems to work for CEO's.
Both my daughters were straight A students in middle school and were in top 5%. How much better might they have been if they had iPads?
My son was never very good in math. If there would have been an iPad or other device available that showed this kind of promise, I would have given him one in a heartbeat.
You need more and you need quality. There's no point in hiring more teachers if there lousy. Yes, class sizes need to be kept relatively small but quality is definitely important.
Quality is hugely important. The difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher makes a world of difference. But it is an oversimplification to blame teachers. If our teachers had half the class sizes, with more backup for 'difficult' (in the broadest sense) kids, better (more) training and better tools, I am pretty certain we would magically see a higher percentage of teachers being classed as good teachers. 'Teachers' is also a very general term, there are many auxiliary staff at schools that all contribute. A good principal makes perhaps the biggest difference, also.
I did well in math in school in Algebra and Geometry but when I hit Calculus it was very foreign to me and I needed help. I am guessing an iPad course on Calculus that provided explanations and step-by-step for each problem would have helped me immensely (with Calculus).
I quote Bloom County:
GENE SIMMONS NEVER HAD A PERSONAL COMPUTER WHEN HE WAS A KID.
How do we know? We know because our own well-documented research has shown conclusively that a child who lacks his own personal computer during those earliest school years will very probably grow up to be a bass player in a heavy metal rock band who wears women's fishnet pantyhose and sticks his tongue down to his kneecaps. Just like Gene Simmons.
Your child's future doesn't have to look like this.
The Banana Junior 6000 Self-portable Personal Computer System, complete with its optional software - Bananawrite, Bananadraw, Bananafile, and Bananamanager - is just what your four-year-old needs to compete in today's cut-throat world of high tech and high expectations.
The Banana Junior 6000...Buy one before it's too late. Gene's mother wishes she had.
This deserves a link to the comic: http://www.sebsgarage.com/sites/sebs...eneSimmons.jpg
While I would love to think that using the iPad and digital textbooks were going to solve our problems, I am still very skeptical. The 20% increase seen in this study may well be real, but it doesn?t mean that it will carry over into every day. Pilot programs nearly always show an improvement because they use teachers who are committed to the new approach, and their enthusiasm helps motivate the students. When the same approach is then mandated for all teachers, most of whom have no interest in using a new method, the results are usually dismal. This has been true for math since at least the ?New Math? of the 60s, as well as for various reading methods.
I do think the use of electronic texts will have some advantages, but I doubt if they will result in significant improvement in student performance.
I don't think anyone has ever claimed that iPads (or anything else) would solve our educational problems. We got into a mess for a lot of reasons and a lot of factors would help. Among them:
- Parents getting involved
- Better tools for the students
- Insisting on competency (our state is talking about trying to waive the graduation requirements because several thousand students are likely to fail. How about fixing the problem rather than dropping the tests?)
- More teachers
- Getting rid of disruptive students
- Lots of other things.
The iPad alone won't solve the problem, but no one said it would. It may be one factor that will help and if we are committed to doing enough of the right things, the problem will get solved.
Both my daughters were straight A students in middle school and were in top 5%. How much better might they have been if they had iPads?
First of all you are very lucky. If your child is not academically minded, have a hard time sitting still for long hours, struggle with focusing on text and math problem solving, or has an unsympathetic teacher, they may fare badly at school in spite of being intelligent. For those kids an iPad may make a huge difference.
Had they had iPads maybe your girls would have had more time for other pursuits which I am sure they would like
I don't think anyone has ever claimed that iPads (or anything else) would solve our educational problems. We got into a mess for a lot of reasons and a lot of factors would help. Among them:
- Parents getting involved
- Better tools for the students
- Insisting on competency (our state is talking about trying to waive the graduation requirements because several thousand students are likely to fail. How about fixing the problem rather than dropping the tests?)
- More teachers
- Getting rid of disruptive students
- Lots of other things.
The iPad alone won't solve the problem, but no one said it would. It may be one factor that will help and if we are committed to doing enough of the right things, the problem will get solved.
Getting rid of disruptive students? Are you serious? What are you thinking? Extermination, imprisonment, deportation? Disruptive students tend to be disruptive for many reasons. Many of those would be addressed in your fixes above, others would need more resources. Remember that Steve Jobs was a pretty disruptive student. What should we have done with him?