Engaging Teachers with Technology Increased Achievement, Bypassing Teachers Did Not

Using two RCTs in middle schools in Pakistan, we show that brief, expert-led, curriculum-based videos integrated into the classroom experience improved teaching effectiveness: student test scores in math and science increased by 0.3 standard deviations, 60 percent more than the control group, after 4 months of exposure. Students and teachers increased their attendance, and students were more likely to pass the high-stakes government exams. By contrast, providing similar content to students on personal tablets decreased student scores by 0.4 SD. The contrast between the two effects shows the importance of engaging teachers and the potential for technology to do so. (JEL I21, I28, J45, O15, O30)