Using Digital Tools: Inquiry, Collaboration, and Learning Microcredential

Digital tools can expand opportunities for students to explore ideas, collaborate with peers, and share their thinking in new ways. When thoughtfully integrated into instruction, technology can support inquiry-based learning, reveal student thinking, and provide teachers with valuable insight into student understanding.

Mathematics learning deepens when students explore problems, test strategies, explain their thinking, and make sense of mathematical relationships. When instruction focuses primarily on procedures, students may learn how to perform calculations but may not develop strong conceptual understanding.

Inquiry-based mathematics instruction invites students to engage in reasoning, problem solving, and discussion about mathematical ideas. In inquiry-centered classrooms, students investigate problems, represent their thinking in multiple ways, compare strategies, and build understanding through discussion and reflection. Digital tools can strengthen these learning experiences by making student thinking visible, supporting collaboration among students, and providing teachers with immediate feedback about student understanding.

This microcredential supports educators in strengthening mathematics instruction through the intentional use of digital tools that support inquiry, collaboration, and formative assessment. Participants will analyze lessons with attention to the mathematical goal of the lesson, anticipate how students may reason about the mathematics, and design questions that reveal and extend student thinking.

Participants will work with either one lesson or a short sequence of 2–3 connected lessons from their own teaching context. Lessons may come from a published curriculum such as Illustrative Mathematics, Eureka, EnVision, or another program, or from lessons participants have designed themselves.

Rather than replacing existing curriculum materials, participants will analyze and enhance lessons to strengthen opportunities for reasoning, representation, and mathematical discussion.

Participants will leave the course with a lesson or short lesson sequence that has been analyzed, implemented, and revised based on evidence of student thinking and classroom discussion.

Participants will also consider issues of access, participation, and digital equity when selecting and implementing digital tools in classroom instruction.

Microcourse 1: Using Digital Tools to Reveal Student Thinking

This microcourse explores how digital tools can surface student thinking in real time. Participants examine examples of student responses gathered through digital platforms and design a short task that prompts students to share and explain their reasoning.

Microcourse 2: Supporting Collaboration with Digital Platforms

This microcourse explores how digital platforms can foster student collaboration and discussion. Participants examine real examples of student interaction in digital environments, then design and implement their own collaborative digital activity. Afterward, they reflect on how the experience influenced student participation and engagement.

Microcourse 3: Using Digital Tools for Formative Assessment

This microcourse focuses on using digital assessment tools to gather and analyze evidence of student learning. Participants examine student responses to identify misconceptions and emerging understanding, then design and implement their own formative digital assessment. Afterward, they analyze the results and reflect on how digital assessment data can inform instructional decisions.

Microcourse 4: Designing Technology-Enhanced Learning Experiences

This microcourse brings together the course's key themes as participants design and implement a technology-enhanced lesson using digital tools explored throughout the course. By examining examples of effective technology integration, teachers move beyond using tech simply to present information, leveraging it instead to promote student reasoning, peer response, and reflection. Participants close by reflecting on how technology shaped student engagement and understanding.