I have just received, after much hard work and research and writing, my Masters in Education from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota. DocentEDU has also just passed 1000 users. Things are looking great!
As you may already know, I cofounded DocentEDU with another talented teacher, Matt Nupen. Not to knock other edtech companies, but many of them are founded, designed, and run by people who’ve never been in a classroom in a teaching capacity. This shows in not only the user design, but more importantly, the product’s lack of connection to pedagogical best practices.
Matt and I started DocentEDU based on a pedagogical need, not out of a business opportunity. Throughout DocentEDU’s frenetic and fast development, pedagogical practices have always been our guiding principals. This is true from user experience, to our grading dashboard, to every feature we develop.
I have been finishing my Masters in Education throughout the whole time DocentEDU has been developed. My main project consisted of analyzing the effectiveness of blended learning. I’m glad to say that all research that I found, as well as my own action research, showed that blended learning does in fact improve student engagement.
DocentEDU’s main focus is allowing teachers to create a blended learning classroom to engage each and every student. Our goal is not to make money, or saturate the education market simply to saturate the market. Our goals are not business goals–they are education goals. Our goal has been and always will be to improve learning outcomes for students and ease of teaching for students. Getting my Masters in Education has only underlined those goals.