What Does EdTech Recommended Dosage Look Like in Real Classrooms?

When schools and districts select an edtech tool, including AI-enabled tools, how do leaders and educators plan to implement the tool to best support learning?

All too often, this core question is overlooked due to busy schedules, a lack of clarity about the tool’s purpose, how it fits into day-to-day use, and the recommended practices. Deep partnerships between districts and providers committed to shared accountability through Outcomes Based Contracting (OBC) have revealed critical gaps in understanding whether a product is implemented with fidelity—or even in defining what fidelity means. This challenge is largely driven by limited and unclear implementation guidance from edtech providers and how these recommendations translate into real-life classrooms.

What is recommended dosage?

“Recommended dosage” typically describes how often and for how long learners need to use a tool to realize its intended benefits. All edtech providers should clearly articulate a “recommended dosage” for their tool. Ideally, districts use the tool enough to meet the recommended dosage, often referred to as “implementation with fidelity.” Recommended practices call for edtech providers to utilize efficacy research to define the appropriate dosage for their tools. However, there is no standard definition of “dosage,” and how edtech providers define recommended dosage varies widely across tools.

What are some examples of recommended dosage?

We reviewed dosage recommendations across some of the most used edtech tools within the United States K-12 market to provide examples:

• Amira Learning provides one of the most straightforward-seeming dosage recommendations available. They recommend students use the tool for 30-60 minutes per week. At the same time, they also recommend students complete at least 3 sessions per week and read 2-4 stories each session, citing “research by Carnegie Mellon University shows 30 minutes every week on Amira dramatically accelerates reading growth over the course of the year.”
• i-Ready tends to encourage personalized dosage recommendations to districts directly through the development of an implementation plan, though commonly in discussions about implementation for the tool, the guideline is 45 minutes per subject per week.
• Many popular tools, such as Seesaw, Kahoot!, and Epic!, do not specify a recommended dosage on their websites. Instead, they focus on integrating the tool into daily classroom routines, often emphasizing frequent use to encourage fun and interactive learning.

In many cases, a tool’s recommended dosage is not listed on its website. However, districts and schools should ask about dosage when considering using the edtech tool to understand: 1) whether the tool’s efficacy is supported by research, and if so, 2) whether the research-suggested dosage is feasible for their context.

What does typical implementation look like?

Even if dosage requirements were clear from the providers, districts often don’t have the right data they need to understand their own edtech usage. In fact, less than one third of districts report any data collected on frequency or effectiveness of their edtech tool use. Research that has looked at implementation fidelity specifically has found that less than five percent of students are using the tools “as recommended.” To address a myriad of market challenges, including implementation, the OBC model is designed to require mutual accountability between the districts and the edtech providers.In these contracts, the providers name upfront the expected dosage requirements and offer data reporting to enable districts to track progress and meet the required dosage expectations.

What are the barriers to implementing edtech with fidelity?

The challenge with recommended dosage that has surfaced through OBC implementation is that it doesn’t always fit well within the reality of classrooms. Often, implementation practices do not include accountability requirements, which means districts and products lack clarity on usage expectations or a plan to track usage. The traditional approach to purchasing tools without collaborating with school leaders, coaches, and educators to develop an implementation plan often prevents districts from identifying this misalignment. The accountability requirements in the OBC model have enabled districts to focus on how much they should use the tool by clearly identifying the recommended dosage, and ensuring the right district leaders, school leaders, coaches, and educators have the data they need to understand and monitor usage in real time. This approach has created “superusers,” or users who are actually implementing the tool as closely to recommended dosage as they can.

Furthermore, the disconnect between recommended dosage and implementation is not typically seen as a market issue. Most providers have only a handful of superusers who have identified the dosage issue. Because so few users have reported the issue, most providers have not dedicated the necessary resources to understand or clarify dosage. Providers usually develop their definition of dosage through randomized controlled trials or similar research, which may not account for the myriad users and contexts in which the tool will be used. In practice, dosage recommendations may need to be adjusted to reflect real-world implementation.

• For example, a recommendation of “10 minutes per day” is unlikely to be followed with fidelity every school day. In many cases, this dosage is expected to mean 10 uninterrupted minutes, possibly with a specific number of tasks completed within that timeframe to qualify as the intended usage. However, this level of detail can be a barrier to implementation in and of itself and is consequently often missing from dosage definitions, adding to the confusion. Additionally, classroom variability—such as students leaving for the restroom, firedrills, or uncharged devices—makes this type of recommendation difficult to implement in practice.
• In another example, randomized controlled trials may have been conducted with students at a grade level that does not align with those the district aims to support with the tool. This misalignment could significantly impact the appropriate dosage needed to drive meaningful improvements in student learning.

In these cases, the ideal scenario is for the provider and district to collaborate on research-informed adjustments to the implementation plan, ensuring developmentally appropriate use of the edtech tool for the given context. OBC superusers highlight an under-researched area worthy of deeper exploration and a seemingly “quick win” opportunity for immediate impact in the field.

What strategies can schools and districts use to create an implementation plan?

During contract negotiations, district leaders and providers should:

• Work together to understand dosage in practice, as well as the research basis informing the recommended dosage.
  • To understand dosage in practice, the provider can provide a measurable, observable, and practical way to measure dosage.
• Establish what data administrators, school leaders, and educators should access to be able to see trends in progress towards dosage at the school, classroom, and student level, including what professional development and resources teachers have accessed.
• Collaborate closely with school building leaders and, if possible, teacher leaders to clearly determine how teachers and administrators will be able to view progress toward dosage with fidelity, for both students and teachers.
• If the tool is being used as an intervention for particular student groups, ensure there is an ability to remove data from reporting from students who should not be counted toward fidelity to get a clear picture of those focus students.
• Establish a clear strategic plan for moving from initial implementation to implementing with fidelity, including key information such as:
  • Whom teachers go to when they have an issue and where they can access self-service resources.
  • What classroom routines and procedures need to be in place to support implementation.
  • Include provisions in your contract stating that providers will make adjustments to the product if barriers to accessing implementation data arise.

Throughout implementation, district leaders and providers should:

• Ensure regular check-ins to establish clear communication and strategies for achieving dosage, considering that school days and routines are often interrupted and technology may not always function as intended.
• Clearly communicate when barriers to implementation with fidelity are identified, and collaborate to develop solutions.

By strengthening their partnership, districts and providers can better identify and remove barriers to implementation, ensuring learners have the best opportunity to gain the greatest benefits from the products at no additional cost.