My coffee is still warm when the first alert comes in. A teacher cannot access Canvas, and their students are stuck at the login screen. I walk the teacher through the SSO steps, confirm access, and move on. By midmorning, I have visited classrooms, supported teachers with technology integration, and observed lessons to plan follow-up coaching. After that, I sit with our engineers to review system performance, troubleshoot issues, and test several EdTech tools and updates planned for release.
At two o’clock, there are three messages on LinkedIn about a new AI tool that promises to transform learning. I scan one, note the potential and the hype, and return to the work I already committed to do. The afternoon goes to email, planning professional learning, and reviewing the week ahead.
Sound familiar?
For many of us in EdTech and instructional leadership, this mix of strategic and immediate work is the norm. Some hours go to multi-year plans, budgets, and compliance. Others are dedicated to making sure one specific app works for one teacher so students can keep learning. The pace makes it easy to lose focus when the day is packed and many things are going on simultaneously. I return to a single question: how do people learn, and how can instruction and technology work together to support that? If we cannot answer that question, systems, budgets, and tools will have little impact.
This post shares how I connect what we know about learning with the daily realities of leading technology and instructional change in schools. I will describe several major themes and then provide a summary of the next steps to help you further reflect upon your leadership and programs.
Teaching and Learning as Our Main Goal
If student learning is the mission, long-term memory is the bar we measure against. Exposure is not learning. Techniques that strengthen long-term memory, such as retrieval practice, spacing, and desirable difficulties, consistently outperform passive approaches (Bjork & Bjork, 2011; Dunlosky, Rawson, Marsh, Nathan, & Willingham, 2013; Latimier, Peyre, & Ramus, 2021; Willingham, 2009). For leader’s this means asking where in a program learners will have to recall and use new ideas over time, favoring practice, low-stakes formative assessment, and modeling in professional learning through the same strategies we expect teachers to use with students (Kirschner & Hendrick, 2020).
Next Steps
- Ask, “Where in this program do learners have to recall and use new ideas over time?”
- Favor practice, semester‑long spirals, and low‑stakes quizzing over one‑off events.
- In PD, model the same strategies you want teachers to use with students.
The Diffusion of Innovation
Learning at the individual level is only the first step. For a school system to adapt, new knowledge and practices must spread through the social system. The diffusion of innovations describes five adopter groups that typically adopt along an S curve, and momentum often stalls between early adopters and the early majority, who seek local proof and lower risk (Rogers, 2003; Sahin, 2006; Moore, 2014). To cross that gap, we begin by empowering innovators and early adopters with access, coaching, and visibility. We then shift the communication toward proof for the early majority by sharing classroom cases and local data, reducing risk through clear support channels and service level expectations, and by making principals and department leads the storytellers rather than vendors.
Next Steps
- Start with innovators and early adopters. Give them access, support, and visibility.
- Pivot your message for the early majority. Share case studies, classroom videos, and local data.
- Remove risk. Provide clear support channels and opt‑out paths during pilots.
- Design for social proof. Principals and department leads present results, not vendors.
EdTech Investment and Return on Investment
EdTech is a material investment, so we treat budgeting as design rather than defense. We start with a district goal, define the learning change that will achieve it, and estimate the full costs to get there. Education agencies increasingly expect cost analysis to accompany program decisions, and the Institute of Education Sciences provides a practical starter kit leaders can use (Institute of Education Sciences, 2020). We use return on investment and cost effectiveness as tools to design the solution, not just to justify it after the fact. A clear statement might read, we will increase teacher retention and effectiveness by investing a specified amount in coaching and professional learning, and we will measure net benefits relative to total cost using a standard ROI calculation (Phillips & Phillips, 2011).
Next Steps
- Align each line item to a student‑learning goal and a measurable leading indicator.
- Estimate the total cost of ownership, including PD, coaching time, data integration, and support.
- Specify the evaluation plan before funding: impact metrics, timeline, and evidence sources.
Cognitive Load and Instructional Design
Once an initiative is funded, its success depends on the quality of design. Working memory is limited, and strong designs reduce unnecessary load so learners can focus on essential content and practice. Cognitive Load Theory distinguishes intrinsic load, extraneous load, and germane load, and programs improve when we reduce extraneous load through clear visuals, chunked content, and guided examples that fade over time (Sweller, 1988; Sweller, van Merriënboer, & Paas, 1998; van Merriënboer & Sweller, 2019).
Next Steps
- Replace dense slides with worked examples and then fade the guidance.
- Chunk new material into small steps with opportunities to retrieve and apply it.
- Remove non‑essential elements from interfaces and materials.
Systems Thinking By Solving the Right Problems
Design also fails when it targets the wrong problem. Systems thinking helps leaders see interdependencies and feedback rather than symptoms. In schools, that means examining how scheduling, data flows, incentives, and communication patterns interact before prescribing more training. Research on systems thinking in school leadership shows its value in navigating complexity and aligning improvement work (Shaked & Schechter, 2019). Practical routines include mapping the process from teacher need to student experience and looking for bottlenecks and handoffs, running short after action reviews that surface system causes rather than individual blame, and pairing every initiative with the system change it requires to stick.
Communicating Your Vision and Implementation with Stakeholders
Next Steps
- Map the process from teacher need to student experience; look for bottlenecks and handoffs.
- Run short after‑action reviews to capture system causes, not just individual errors.
- Pair each initiative with the specific system change it requires to stick.
Communicate for Buy‑In: One Plan, Many Audiences
A strong initiative still needs a communication plan matched to each audience. District and school leaders want strategic alignment and projected impact on student achievement, graduation, and teacher retention, paired with cost analysis and a clear plan for how learning will be measured (Institute of Education Sciences, 2020; International Society for Technology in Education, 2024). Principals and department heads want to see operational feasibility, timelines, support, exemplars, and early results. Teachers and staff want to know how the change will help them, how much time it will take, what workflows will change, and what support will be provided. Use plain stories about real classrooms, simple data displays, and a one-page action guide for each role.
People will not practice new skills or surface problems if it feels risky to do so. Psychological safety, the belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking, predicts learning behaviors and improvement. Leaders build it by modeling fallibility, inviting input, and responding to issues with curiosity rather than blame, which makes pilots and iteration possible at scale (Edmondson, 2018). Helpful team habits include opening meetings with quick learning wins and open issues, using pilot language such as test and learn and iterate, and recognizing improvement cycles along with outcomes.
Next Steps
- District Leaders. Frame strategic alignment and projected impact on student achievement and teacher retention. Reference the cost analysis and how learning will be measured (IES, 2020; ISTE, 2024).
- Principals and Department Heads. Show operational feasibility and social proof: timelines, support, exemplars, and early results.
- Teachers and Staff. Answer “What’s in it for me?” Clarify time, workflows, classroom impact, and available support.
Moving Forward
The day-to-day work with tickets, coaching, budgets, professional development, and vendor calls only matters if it improves how students learn. When we design for long-term memory, plan for diffusion of practices and programs, budget to outcomes, reduce cognitive load, solve system causes, communicate for buy-in, and build organizational psychological safety, we make it more likely that learning sticks and that programs deliver value where it counts, in our classrooms. This is not easy, yet not impossible. Therefore, the goal is to showcase ideas that EdTech and instructional leaders need to always think about and reflect upon to continue growth and improvement.
References
Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. In M. A. Gernsbacher, R. W. Pew, L. M. Hough, & J. R. Pomerantz (Eds.), Psychology and the real world: Essays illustrating fundamental contributions to society (pp. 56–64). Worth.
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100612453266
Edmondson, A. C. (2018). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. Wiley.
Institute of Education Sciences. (2020). Cost analysis: A starter kit (IES 2020‑001). U.S. Department of Education.
International Society for Technology in Education. (2024). ISTE standards: For education leaders (Version 4).
Kirschner, P. A., & Hendrick, C. (2020). How learning happens: Seminal works in educational psychology and what they mean in practice. Routledge.
Latimier, A., Peyre, H., & Ramus, F. (2021). A meta‑analytic review of the benefit of spacing out retrieval practice episodes on retention. Educational Psychology Review, 33, 959–987. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-020-09572-8
Moore, G. A. (2014). Crossing the chasm: Marketing and selling disruptive products to mainstream customers (3rd ed.). HarperBusiness.
Phillips, P. P., & Phillips, J. J. (2011). Measuring ROI in learning & development: Case studies from global organizations. Association for Talent Development.
Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5th ed.). Free Press.
Sahin, I. (2006). Detailed review of Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory and educational technology‑related studies based on Rogers’ theory. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 5(2), 14–23.
Sweller, J. (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: Effects on learning. Cognitive Science, 12(2), 257–285. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4
Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Paas, F. (1998). Cognitive architecture and instructional design. Educational Psychology Review, 10(3), 251–296. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022193728205
van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Sweller, J. (2019). Cognitive load theory: 20 years later. Educational Psychology Review, 31, 261–292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09465-5
Willingham, D. T. (2009). Why don’t students like school? A cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind works and what it means for the classroom. Jossey‑Bass.
Navigating the Present and Future of Education 