Watch the webinar on demand here: https://www.edtechupdate.com/frs/11617078/leveraging-learner-variability-to-elevate-equity-in-edtech Open the door to any classroom and you are sure to see challenges. Some students will certainly be absorbing their lessons – but many others won’t be, for a wide array of reasons. If you look at this scene with an understanding of learner variability, you’ll know that this is a design challenge, not a student problem. And design challenges can be solved. Learner variability recognizes the uniqueness of each learner; not just in cognitive skills, but in social-emotional considerations, and student background factors. It is steeped in designing for both equity and excellence to ensure that each student, regardless of circumstances and external biases, will thrive and succeed in school and beyond. In this webinar, Vic Vuchic, Chief Innovation Officer of Digital Promise, will share his insights into the modern boom in neuroscience and learning sciences research. You'll discover how much more we know now about how students learn - and how we can use that knowledge to create EdTech-enabled classrooms that can meet the diverse needs of diverse students. During this webinar, you will: - Become comfortable with the concept of learner variability, including why the research says it matters in designing learning opportunities for each student - Develop knowledge on how EdTech products can be designed to reach the full diversity of learners in every classroom - Discover best practices for running an EdTech-enabled classroom that is accessible to every student

1. Leveraging Learner Variability to Elevate
Equity in EdTech
Eve Lyons-Berg
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Vic Vuchic
With:

2. Discovery Education is the global leader in standards-based digital
curriculum resources for K–12 classrooms worldwide. They are the home
to award-winning digital textbooks, multimedia content, and the largest
professional development community of its kind. Discovery Education
supports K–12 teachers and students with award-winning curricular
resources and dynamic professional development.

3. 3
Click on the Questions panel to
interact with the presenters
https://www.edtechupdate.com/frs/11617078/leveraging-learner-variability-to-elevate-equity-in-
edtech

4. About Vic Vuchic
Vic is a seasoned thought leader in education technology and philanthropy. He is an expert in learning science,
innovation, and scaling what works and has launched game-changing initiatives that have increased access to
education and improved learning for tens of millions of learners in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. At Digital
Promise Global (DPG), Vic leads the Learner Variability Project, which is mapping the learning science of how kids'
learning varies (i.e., a learner genome) and figuring out how to design for that variability.
Leveraging Learner Variability to
Elevate Equity in EdTech
About Eve Lyons-Berg
Eve graduated in 2017 from Grinnell College, where she majored in English and took an eclectic assortment of
courses. She now works with Aggregage as editor, content marketer, and webinar host on sites including EdTech
Update, eLearning Learning, and Data Leaders Brief.

5. Learner Variability Project – LVP
10/17/19

6. Poll Question
What professional role do you play in education?
A) Teacher/Practitioner
B) Administrator
C) EdTech Designer/Developer
D) Non-Profit Organization
E) Researcher
F) Other

7. Sofia’s Story
…and why
understanding learner
variability matters

8. It’s Personal

9. What We Know – Learning Sciences
Learning is Developmental
Unique Jagged Profiles
Personal and Meaningful
Prior Knowledge
Social Interaction
Challenging and Achievable
Practice Practice Practice
Habits of Mind
Emotion Matters
Total Environment

10. Learners Vary

12. Learner variabilityis the young person who…
lives in poverty, or is learning to speak English and may not yet have the
background knowledge to enable comprehension of a reading passage. Or, the
student who already has the skills to excel at a pace beyond the curriculum and is
bored because traditional methods of instruction do not engage her or meet her
needs. It is the student who has experienced trauma in a single event or on a
day-to-day basis. Learner variability is the learner whose learning difference,
color, ethnicity, or gender makes them susceptible to stereotype threat and low
expectations. It’s the learner with working memory, decoding, or or attention
challenges who retreats into silence or acts unruly out of fear they will be asked a
question they are not yet ready to answer. It also defines the student who
excels at classwork but is devastated socially and emotionally in school.

13. Learner Diversity in the US
Subgroup Past Present
Poverty
14.4% of people under 18 in
poverty (1973)
17.5% of people under 18 in
poverty (2017)
Diagnosed
Disabilities 8.3% of people age 3-21 (1976-1977) 13.7% of people age 3-21 (2017-2018)
Learning
Differences
<No comparable data available> 20.0%+ (est.) of K-12 students (2014)
ELL 4.0% of people age 5-18 (1980) 9.6% of K-12 students (2016)
Gifted /
Talented 4.06% pre-K - 12 students (1987-1988) 6.7% of K-12 Students (2013-2014)
Trauma <No comparable data available>
46.3% of children had at least 1
adverse childhood experience (2016)

14. Lack of Research Driving Products
A 2015 report from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center indicated that over 70% of the
180 most popular literacy apps made no reference to research or learning expertise
in the design of their products1.
1. Vaala, S. et al. Getting a Read on the App Store. pp 5. Dec 2015.

15. Photo by PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
10s of Millions of learners are at risk of being re-marginalized in
the new technology enabled world of learning

16. ?
How might we improve the precision
and accuracy of personalization in
order to support the full diversity of
learners especially with the new
world of technology supported
learning?

17. You can only
personalize based on
what you know about
the learner.
Students deserve to
be understood.

18. Learner Variability Project

19. Learner Models
Learner
Factor Map
Literature
Review
Factor
Summaries
Audience
Specific
Strategies
Carol Connor
Chancellor’s Professor,
Education Program
Todd Rose
Director of Mind, Brain, and
Education
Bruce McCandliss
Professor, Neuroscience
and Education

20. How do Learner Models Fit?
Educators and
Administrators
Learners and
Families
Education
Researchers
Product
Developers

21. Testimonial
“On features like the split-screen and the guided
reading strip, we're getting so much feedback from
our teachers who have seen them. We realized there
are a lot of participants in our user base that we
weren't supporting. Now we're supporting them
more, and they're like, ‘Holy Moses. I love this. I never
thought about this.’ That's terrific.”
– Readworks
(used by over 1 million teachers)

22. When a teacher opens the door to their classroom
with the lens of learner variability, they don’t see
student problems, they see design challenges.

23. Learner Variability Navigator

24. http://bit.ly/CRTworkspace
Culturally Responsive Teaching
Workspace

25. Sofia’s Story
…and why
understanding learner
variability matters

26. 26
Q&A
Chief Innovation Officer & Executive Director,
Learner Variability Project
Linkedin page: vicvuchic/
Email: vic@digitalpromise.org
Website: lvp.digitalpromise.org
Vic Vuchic
Speaker
:
Editor and Content Marketing Specialist,
Aggregage
Twitter ID: @edtech_update
Email: eve.lyons-berg@aggregage.com
Website: edtechupdate.com
Eve Lyons-Berg
Moderator:
https://www.edtechupdate.com/frs/11617078/leveraging-learner-variability-to-elevate-equity-in-edtech