Over the past 5 years, Nebraska ESUs have collaborated to implement 8 projects promoting BlendEd Learning Best Practices. From this work, we have coined the term: Digital Age Pedagogy. Digital Age Pedagogy (DAP) is the purposeful combination of best practices associated with Instructional Models with those associated with BlendEd Learning.
DAP: 4 Core Practices
The 4 Core Practices identified through the DAP work are reflected in the NDE Teacher and Principal Standards (link to alignment). The 4 Core Practices are intended to be implemented at the Unit Level. They include:
- Empower Learners
- Engage students in self-assessment, goal setting, action planning and reflection
- Differentiate Instruction
- Use data to tailor instruction and learning activities to students’ needs
- Provide Choice
- Provide students some degree of control over how they practice
- Enable Voice
- Provide students some degree of control over how they show what they know
DAP: Impact on Nebraska Students
In Fall 2020, ESUs conducted an Impact Study to investigate the effect of DAP best practices on NE students. 75 educators (spanning PreK-12) and 369 students participated.
Participating educators and students reported high fidelity to DAP best practices (100%-86% reported engaging with each of the four core phases during a typical unit of instruction). Teachers indicated that DAP best practices positively impact (results on a 4 point Likert scale whereby 4 = strongly agree, 1 = strongly disagree) student autonomy (3.42), enjoyment (3.41), achievement (3.26), accountability (3.26), self-efficacy (3.26), and engagement (2.91). Student responses mirrored that of educators.
The more frequently DAP best practices were used, the better. Linear regression revealed high effect sizes (above .4) for student achievement (1.14), self-efficacy (.49), accountability (.45), and enjoyment (.44). Medium effect sizes (above .25) were reported for frequency on engagement (.30) and autonomy (.27). View the full Impact Study report here.
DAP: Learn More
The results from the Impact Study validate the efficacy of the DAP best practices. To learn more, visit the DAP website and explore the examples in the NE OER Commons Hub. You can also earn a Professional Learning Certificate for completing a 1 Hour course: Here.