Why edtech engagement strategies for high school students fail
- Jolie Radunich
- Mar 16
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 24
The chocolate-covered broccoli of edutainment doesn't work at the high school level.
On literacy edtech landing pages everywhere, a vague promise to engage your students sits between a testimonial and a CONTACT US button.
Our industry prides itself on helping teachers make instruction more effective. But this leaves the accompanying student experience feel like the cherry on top of the sundae, instead of sitting at the heart of the learning experience.
To truly motivate this grade band, we need to think beyond the learning portals and gamified quizzes we're used to, to help them engage.
Not enough edtech solutions are student-first by nature
When educators invest in a new curriculum tool, they're (hopefully) thrilled by the library of articles, videos, and other resources created to help them teach the content. As a product marketer, I know that common selling points include:
What do students get out of this? More content that falls on uninterested ears.
Most of my favorite years spent learning with edtech were the earlier ones. It simply took less to get hooked and continue growing my knowledge. Enter, the complete library of charming BrainPOP videos I had no problem watching over and over.
I went from taking it upon myself to strengthen my home-to-school connection in elementary school, to sloughing through a high school experience where the magic of edtech faded away. The bright, cartoonish enthusiasm inside platforms melded into blues and greys. Logging on felt like clocking into a job.
Remember...
✨A content library isn't engaging your students.
✨A teacher guide isn't engaging your students.
✨Reporting isn't engaging your students.
These things are great for you. And valuable. And necessary. They just aren't enough to truly break through and engage. This is the fault of poor product thinking, not you.
The high schooler persona, in particular, is an afterthought
Sometimes, edtech tools that don't intend to support high school students make content for those grade levels.
Imagine a K-5 or K-8 literacy startup that succeeds. They decide to scale by adding content for high school students.
Surely this brand will position itself as a more comprehensive option if it boasts expansive support for a wider group of learners.
But instead of starting from the ground up to create best-fit materials to engage grades 9-12, the product team makes big kid versions of content they already have, ie: the same kiddie music videos BUT set to more graphic historical content.
It doesn't take a certified engineer to tell you how that's gonna turn out.
This hypothetical 9-12 grade band wasn't the original user profile. Swapping content themes and degrees of difficulty won't magically transfer the engagement that perhaps worked with the younger students.
This student demographic is at a different life stage than their younger counterparts. The struggles of adolescence and anxiety about life after high school are constantly on their minds.
Edtech shouldn't ignore this. But we do, in the name of supplying content first.
Teachers deal with the collateral damage of disengagement
Think about all the edtech solutions you have. Ask yourself this:
Which solutions address the disinterest my students may have toward learning?
It's okay if you can't come up with a clear answer.
I'll bet few if any of your tools create specific user experiences that even empathize with students who don't want to complete their assignments. That's how we end up with the chocolate-covered broccoli of edutainment.
We can't get high school students to care unless they understand the value upfront.
And when that doesn't work, teachers and parents are left with empty platitudes and threats.
🥱Reading is good for you.
🥱You'll appreciate these later in life.
🥱Do you want to be jobless?
That last one might scare some students into putting in minimum effort and getting a decent grade.
But it won't push them closer to developing a passionate relationship with learning.
If edtech wants to engage high school students can we find another word to use, and provide what we say?
We need to show high school students that content is their ticket to becoming something inspirational.
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