Tag Archives: LOI

Vancouver Foundation – LOI

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Title: The Innovative Learning Centre- technology enhanced learning

Introduction to your organization:

The Faculty of Education at UBC’s Okanagan campus fosters academic excellence and life-long personal growth through the pursuits of learning and teaching. Our program integrates exceptional teacher educators with innovative research and modern technology. Our intent is to inform educational thought, practice and policy and to continually engage in transformational learning opportunities.

Statement of the issues that this project will address:

In our global economy, employers seek a workforce of problem solvers, innovators, and inventors who are self-reliant and have the ability to think creatively and logically.  These attributes are critical foundations for educators and students in order to foster innovative capacity.   Enhancing Math literacy is one example that supports these attributes. The BC Ministry of Education and educators recognize the importance of Math skills in the 21st century economy and have identified Math literacy as crucial for students’ academic and personal success. However, educators continue to struggle to find appropriate resources, training opportunities and access to relevant technologies that support the needs of learners. The current Math curriculum lacks adequate examples of excellence in technology integration that support the development of creative skills and a love of the subject matter.

Exploring possibilities at the ILC:

The Faculty of Education is committed to working with industry, educators and students to find creative ways to integrate technology into learning.   The Innovative Learning Centre (ILC) in the Faculty of Education will be interactive, engaging developmental space at the intersection of research and practice for both real and virtual environments and will empower all parties to think differently about how learning takes place.  The inclusive design will encourage companies in the technology sector to work more effectively with academic partners and imagine and create software, tools, and resources to keep British Columbia on the cutting edge of educational innovation.

For the past 10 months the Director of the ILC has been working with educators, researchers, software designers and technology companies to explore how advanced technology can transform education, especially Math.  Questions guiding the research and collaboration within the ILC include:

  • In what ways can advances in technology increase student engagement?
  • In what ways can innovative technology enhance students’ ability to problem-solve, reason and analyse information?
  • In what ways will technology innovation shape educational practice and professional growth?
  • How will teaching and learning evolve within a student-focused learning environment?

Concise description of activities to be undertaken:

Through the ILC, this pilot project will design and test interactive, web-based Math modules, applets, and apps to enhance Math literacy. The objective of the ILC and its collaborators is to build joyfulness and competence into learning and to stimulate student engagement.  The team believes this can be accomplished by incorporating real world examples into course content and by making learning visual and interactive.  The project will also seek to provide students with the tools to think in creative and innovative ways.  Further, it seeks to develop self-assessment skills and personal motivation and agency.  Longer term, the ILC and its partners will be encouraged to work together to create quality creative content in all subjects to help build teachers’ and students’ skills for a global economy.

The Director of the ILC will oversee the coordination of the project and will be responsible to ensure that expertise is provided throughout the life of the project.  The initial phase will have a research associate working directly with regional Math educators and UBC O faculty to design course content in partnership with local companies, creating highly visual and interactive engaging content that leverages cutting edge technologies.

Supported by researchers from the ILC, teachers will test the modules in the classrooms in Kelowna, Vernon and Nelson.   Feedback from the research and input from instructional designers will inform the design and redesign to ensure the end products meet and exceed both Ministry of Education expectations and the demands of 21st century educators and their students.  The goal of the project is to foster excellence in pedagogy through technology enhancements.

Expected Outcomes:

Initially, the outcomes from this project will provide educators with resources to enhance Math literacy in classrooms and provide practical tools to incorporate technology into curriculum development and delivery.   This project will (1) create a learning environment to support professional growth for educators, (2) engage students with innovative content and technology, and (3) keep British Columbia on the cutting edge of educational innovation.

 

LOI for Western Economic Diversification

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Expression of Interest – Industry Collaborative Projects and Programs

The Innovative Learning Centre (ILC)

Educators, K – 20, are challenged to find ways to enhance student engagement and meaningfully integrate appropriate technologies into their teaching and learning and to personalize learning.  Technology companies grapple with ways to design technologies that are competitive and relevant to the education sector while being both economically sustainable and pedagogically viable.  While both recognize the importance of 21st century skills and their importance in a knowledge economy, neither group has adequate examples of innovative teaching practice or access to creative learning environments where they can design, incubate and research technology enhanced teaching and learning.

The Innovative Learning Centre (ILC) will fill that gap by collaborating with industry partners such as those associated with Accelerate Okanagan, providing pedagogical expertise, research and design support, and access to educational partners and networks.  For the past 10 months, researchers within the proposed ILC have met with local software developers, exploring potential partnerships in response to the significant changes required in classrooms locally, provincially and nationally to maintain and elevate Canada’s position in the knowledge economy. Schools are seeking ways to meaningfully engage learners, and rural and remote schools with declining populations are seeking innovative ways to retain students and provide relevant learning opportunities through the use of appropriate technologies to personalize learning.  Postsecondary intuitions are not immune from these challenges either as they grapple with changes prompted by the “Flipped Classroom” and MOOCs, to name only the most recent and high profile.  They Educators, such as our regional school districts (e.g. Kelowna, Vernon, Penticton, etc.); campus colleagues (e.g. Drs. Lasserre, Desjardins, Bottorff); international partners (e.g. Aga Kahn University – Institute of Education Development, Da es Salaam campus) seek partnerships with ILC to incubate the use of innovative technology and design learning environments for challenging contexts, and to engage practicing teachers in the adoption of innovative pedagogy to meet the needs of learners in traditional and non-traditional settings.

The ILC will build an interactive, engaging space that reflects the energy and opportunity of the Okanagan Valley.  It will be a place that fosters explorations, research, and innovations in pedagogical excellence. The ILC will be a developmental space at the intersection of research and practice, providing participatory and observatory experiences in both real and virtual environments.  The ILC will empower industry, academics, teachers and students to participate fully in the process of imagining learning spaces to foster creativity, deep learning through play and tinkering, and mindful learning which will allow participants to think differently about how learning takes place.

The ILC will provide a locus from which BC and Canadian companies working in educational technology, academics, and educators can explore and address research questions emerging in education at this time of socio-cultural change, globalization and ubiquitous access to information.  Emergent questions include:

  • How is pedagogical excellence re/defined in technology enhanced, inclusive multicultural settings?
  • In what ways can innovative technology better address the needs of diverse learners?
  • In what ways will new media and participatory literacies shape educational practice?
  • What types of learning environments are supported and fostered with ubiquitous media?
  • In what ways will technology innovation shape educational practice?
  • What are the effective pedagogical approaches that support specific software development and design?
  • What types of software / “app” design fosters sustained student engagement and deep learning?
  • What types of technology (devices, software, apps) helps to engage unmotivated students?
  • To what degree does the choice of choice support / limit student engagement, understanding, personalization?
  • How will teaching and learning be manifest in this type of innovative instructional space?
  • What types of furnishings enable engaged, participatory learning in new learning environments?

The inclusive design of the ILC will encourage groups of companies in the technology sector to work more effectively with academic partners and imagine and create software, tools, and resources to keep British Columbia on the cutting edge of educational innovation. The ILC will adopt an iterative development model, staging investments of hardware and software in a phased way in order to leverage resources in a thoughtful and creative manner to match, foster, and enhance pedagogical endeavours.  The ILC recognizes its development will require constant collaboration with emerging industry partners, critical friends, dreamers and idealists in order to foster research, engage in deep play, and incubate innovations that can be commercialized and add benefit to the education sector both locally and globally.

References

Isaacson, W. (2011).  Steve Jobs.  New York: Simon & Schuster.

Lehrer, J. (2012).  Imagine: How creativity works.  Toronto: Allen Lane.

Monaghan, C. (2012).  Creativity and the adjacent possible.  Retrieved from http://chrismonaghan.org/2012/01/creativity-and-the-adjacent-possibl/

MIT, (2012).  Seeding Innovation: The MIT Media Lab at Aspen Ideas Festival. Retrieved from

http://www.media.mit.edu/video/index.php/videos/view/ml-aspen-2012-06-25

Expression of Interest WD ILC