Category Archives: A. Interview

Theory-to-practice transfer, errors foster learning, networking of teachers

Roland is scientist at UMIT, the University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology in Hall in Tirol, Austria. His background is in biomedical engineering. Before joining the university, he worked for five years as network specialist and computer administration in a company. In the master program in mechatronics, he teaches a lab in biomedical technology, a lab in measurement engineering and a seminar in biomedical engineering. He has around six years of teaching experience. The interview was conducted in his office at UMIT on January 17th, 2018. The interview focused on the labs he is organizing.

Theory-to-practice transfer

The aim of the lab is to independently solve a given problem of biomedical engineering. In each lab, students are organized within small groups. They get a limited amount of time (e.g. one full day) to solve a problem. The problem could be, for example, to conduct a proof of concept study on a new technical idea such as a new ECG tool. The student groups have to plan their inquiry, organize their work, and present their solution at the end.

The major aim of Roland in his labs is to foster application of theoretical knowledge within ill-structured, yet realistic situations. Therefore, he organized the labs around ill-defined problems the students have to work on. He lets the students try first on their own to help them to apply theoretical knowledge in a practical context.

Allow errors to foster learning

At the beginning of a lab, Roland finds that students are often a bit confused due to the lack of structure. This is not what they are used to from other labs. He tries to explain them that the idea of this approach is to show them how practical life will be after their university studies (“At the beginning, I try to explain the idea behind the exercises. It is all about soft skills. I refer to my personal practical experiences to explain why this is important.“)

While working on the problems at hand, students are allowed to make some errors (R: „When working in a group, I deliberately let them try and maybe fail. I also put pressure on them, time pressure.”). Yet, he regularly meets with each group to discuss their progress and their challenges with them and to help if needed.

Teachers’ networks for best practice exchange on educational technology

As instructional technology, he uses Powerpoint, a whiteboard and Moodle. He also uses Kahoot for interactive repetitions (“This is well received, the students are quite ambitious. I have some candies for me for the winner.”). In the future, he plans to use more online resources such as video tutorials to support him in presenting theoretical concepts. But he noticed that students are well able to find tutorials in the Internet by themselves.

Roland states that he often lacks ideas on which technology and tools for teaching are available and could make sense. Often it was only by chance that he heared e.g. about Kahoot. He would like to participate in a network of teachers, where teachers present their experiences with new technologies – a best practice network („Often, I just get the idea from somebody else using a new technology. This would be helpful – a list – a list of tools and technologies that are used by other”). Overall, he feels a bit left alone with selecting and using the technology. He also stresses that technology needs to be reliable (“If I try it once, and it does not work – well, that was it”).

Overall, the lab that Roland teaches is about biomedical technology. Yet, I felt that he did not think too much about using educational technology to support learning of his students. It seems that he lacks ideas on how to do this. Understandably, he would appreciate a best-practice-network of teachers to get these ideas.

Accessibility, Challenges & Collaboration – Oh My!

For my interview, I spoke with the technology coach at my school ‘Trevor.’ This particular individual works collaboratively with teachers in elementary one on one to help with tech integration in the classroom and supports grade level planning during units that have a technology, or Makers Education focus with year level teams. I have a pretty good idea of how classroom teachers view technology integration at my school, so I thought it would be interesting to get the perspective from someone who works across grade levels in a support/coaching role. Three words that stuck out to me during my analysis were Accessibility, Challenging, and Collaboration

Accessibility
During my discussion, Trevor describes many examples of accessibility and explained in different ways how technology allows everyone to access the curriculum. He explained that “writing isn’t the end all be all” in education and there are many ways for students to show their knowledge rather than writing it on paper. Technology has allowed education to progress by providing students with the opportunity to personalize their learning by giving them access to a wide range of platforms and programs. “When I went through school…the only way to show what you knew was either through writing things down or to do a science fair project and that’s it.” We have a very diverse school with many EAL learners as well as students with a wide range of learning disabilities. Trevor emphasized that technology can build confidence in those learners by allowing them to find a good place in school and help them feel like they belong. Having technology accessible to all students is a natural way to differentiate learning as well. Trevor describes this as “a low floor, high ceiling” approach.”… you can take it as high as you wanna go.” Students can produce work with the minimum requirements, or they can take it as high as they want by including things like multimedia and “App Smashing.” Technology also provides access to more hands-on experiences with certain materials that may not be available to your school. For instance, in a chemistry classroom when students are learning about how to mix chemicals properly many schools probably don’t have access to hazardous materials, “but sometimes technology allows us to simulate science, on the computer…We can have access to hazardous chemicals, or other things…” and give students an opportunity to handle them virtually.

Challenging
It was interesting to hear what the challenges were from Trevor’s perspective because they were very similar to the challenges that we saw in the video cases. Trevor believes that our school has been productive and made a lot of progress working with teachers by providing training through professional development and specific grade level planning meetings to get to a point where technology is being effectively integrated into many classrooms across the school. There is still the challenge of time, however. In our school teachers have a heavy workload and many expectations. “Classroom teachers are always juggling, you know, your report card outcomes […] positive education, field trips that you have to go on, the expectations that you have a makers unit, expectations that you are integrating technology throughout your curriculum, you’re developing a new Math program right now […], all these kinds of things.” With so many expectations on a teachers plate, we are still faced with the challenge of teachers seeing technology as something separate and something “they have to do” rather than it being organically embedded into our pedagogical approach to teaching. Many feel as if they don’t have the time to use it, and or explore how they can use it.

Collaboration
In many instances, Trevor mentioned how technology allows us to collaborate with different audiences in different contexts. It opens up conversations with parents and gets them more involved in the classroom, and allows them to connect and collaborate with their child from home. Technology “allows us to connect and collaborate with people outside the classroom…” It gives us the opportunity to “connect with people in [the] community and outside of [the] community [as well as] the global community. It really becomes a classroom without walls when used effectively.” Using technology regularly also gets students in the “habit of sharing” which Trevor describes as an element to collaboration. By using programs like GoogleDocs and SeeSaw, students are continuously sharing their work with their peers, parents, and others outside the classroom “this helps to build this habit of sharing.” By using technology in the classroom, students are continuously developing their collaboration skills by working together to solve problems and by figuring out new programs, with each other and the classroom teacher.

Collaboration, Experience, and Exploration

This interview was conducted with a second year, 4th grade classroom teacher. He also is a new coach this year to the school’s LEGO robotics team. As he is someone who is younger, new to teaching, yet excited about tech (and self-reports and tech competent), I thought he would make for a great subject to interview, especially after seeing so many of the new teachers in the case study videos seems very uncomfortable with technology.

The interview was held in my own classroom on a Friday afternoon, right after school. This interview provides a unique look into a teacher’s classroom that is comfortable and confident with technology, but is still building up the confidence and TPACK to fully integrate technology use into the classroom. The six questions that were asked are listed in order:

  1. What are the main benefits/skills that students in LEGO robotics gain?
  2. What kinds of growth and changes have you noticed in the students as they work with the technology?
  3. Do you feel it is important or necessary that you as the teacher/coach are an expert with the technology? Why or why not?
  4. What are the most effective ways that you use technology in the math and science classrooms?
  5. What is the biggest misconception you have encountered from parents, staff, and/or students related to STEM and technology? 
  6. What were some of the key take always that you have from using technology in the classroom?

 

Collaboration

Over and over again, the topic of collaboration came up in the interview. When asked what the main benefit or skill that students in LEGO robotics gain, the teacher responded, “The biggest thing they take from LEGO robotics is collaboration and the ability to work with the computers and tools.” Yet, as the conversation continued, the tools aspect of the learning seemed to play a secondary role, with collaboration and teamwork being the main focus. “A lot of the kids that come out for LEGO robotics are your natural born leaders. They want to initiate something. They are the GATE kids, the higher level kids. They don’t really struggle with academics so they need something as a challenge. We went from having 14 leaders to having two solid groups.” Even though these kids are all highly qualified to work as individuals, they see the power of collaboration and organize themselves along those lines.

 

Experience

As the teacher was a second-year teacher and first year to LEGO robotics, I was very curious to see how he felt when he didn’t have the answers. He was very relaxed and quickly admitted that this happened all the time. “With this program, the instructor is using just as much as the kids.” He also commented on the fact that teachers are given all the tools and resources to be successful, just like the students are. So, the learning can place simultaneously. “[When I don’t have the answers] the kids think it’s funny. We laugh together. I tell them, ‘I’m new to this, too!'” This relaxed, growth mindset is invaluable for students. In the 21st Century, it almost feels old-fashioned to think of the teacher as the reservoir of all possible knowledge. Ever since the presence of the internet, students and teachers have been given equal access to the full power of the humanity’s knowledge. It appears to be that in the modern classroom, students don’t see it as a fault if the teacher doesn’t have the answers, only if the teacher doesn’t have the resources.

This same thread of experience extends to the students as well. When parents were doubtful that students could be trusted with technology, this teacher took it upon himself to advocate for them. “When I had the students on Google Classroom the first week of school, I was able to prove to the parents that, yes, they can handle the technology. Let them on the computer.” The results were quick and clear as well. He told a story of a student who always struggled with handwriting. Yet, when they typed and submitted their first story online, he was thrilled that his writing, not his handwriting, was the focus of his grade. “I think that’s what technology is for: giving students more pathways to express and show what they have learned.”

 

Exploration

Thinking about not having all the answers lead directly into the next topic. “Usually we tell the kids to look it up and figure it out. They come back to us and tell us, ‘Hey, let’s try this.’ And that’s all part of the problem-solving skills we are trying to build.” Students in the classroom are free to explore and to experience the wealth of knowledge that is out there. They are practicing how to utilize resources, input data, and revise hypotheses every step of the way. Also, the ability to have technology present makes the classroom an exciting place to learn. “This year in science, we’ve been using Mystery Science. It’s all online, with lots of multimedia. I virtually dissected a cow eyeball in front of the kids.” www.mysteryscience.com is a free resource (notice the drastic change from a concretely written curriculum) that is full of hands-on/minds-on experiences for the kids to engage with, all focused around a question or problem that has been developed around NGSS standards.

With that said, this teacher admitted that exploration was much easier to accomplish in the science classroom for him. He could list ways that the was using technology for science, but for math, it seemed that it was mainly being used as reinforcement and practice. He had already self-identified this as an area of improvement and has made it a personal goal to incorporate more technology into the mathematics lessons.

 

 

-Jonathan-

 

 

For a further look into the interview, you can check out my reflection on my ePortfolio.

Collaboration, Experience, and Exploration – Interview Reflection

CHALLENGES, LEARNING, MISCONCEPTIONS

The interviewee, Lisa, is a teacher and educational technology coordinator of an international school in Bangkok Thailand. In addition to these duties, she teaches grade 7 language arts. She has been with the school for 7 years and has held the formal title for the last 4 years. Over the course of these years, she has been heavily involved in the growth of the school. Below is a summary of our interview, split into specific points.

Challenges

One of the main challenges talked about was that of consistency when you are doing the job in an international setting. Many new teachers come in every year and there is a sense of “starting over” in terms of getting full teacher buy into the programs used. Lisa also discussed at length the issue of time. In a job that is not always well understood it can be difficult to manage her time and monitor and encourage the other teachers effectively. She also noted that admin support is a crucial element in the success of the job. When admin is supportive and helps to enforce the importance of the job it increases the chances for success greatly.

Learning

Lisa indicated how important it is to understand the people you work with, realizing not everyone comes with the same passion, interest, and often times they come with preconceived notions they cannot figure the technology out. This led her away from doing professional development that was example based, to workshops where teachers did hands-on activities. This ensured that there was always a takeaway, that teacher could use. Differentiation, she learned, is important when dealing with colleagues also.

Misconceptions

The most common misconception people have about educational technology, according to Lisa, is that it is essentially the same job as an IT technician. Explaining to teachers her job doesn’t include fixing computers is a common occurrence each year.

A further misconception about tech that is often harder to manage than the belief technology shouldn’t be used is the belief technology should always be used and adds value in every instance. Truthfully one always has to evaluate every activity based on its merit and if the tech adds no value to the exercise then you need to upgrade the activity. For example putting a worksheet online into a form may be using technology but it’s still a worksheet and has the same value as it did on paper in terms of learning.

Empowerment, Challenging, and Collaboration

Interview Abstract

 I conducted my interview with my school administrator (Zelda) on Friday, January 12th 2018 from 11:45 to 12:15. The interview took place at a school in British Columbia. Zelda has been teaching for 15 years and has been an administrator for 5 years. Three key words that caught my attention during the interview were empowerment, challenging, and collaboration.

Empowerment:

Zelda emphasized the power of technology and how it can empower students to take charge of their learning especially those students that are at-risk, those with fine motor issues, students with dyslexia, English Language Learners, and those who are blind/vision impaired. Zelda stated that those students with fine motor issues “the thought of a paper-pen task is daunting and that technology can motivate those students and help relieve stress.” Zelda stated that text-to-speech technology like Kurzweil “gives students the opportunity to have access to programs that are at their level.” Technology can inspire “those at-risk learners both in and out of the classroom as it enables them to comprehend and retain concepts, especially in math and helps them to break it down one piece at a time.”

Challenging:

According to my notes on Zelda, technology integration is and can be extremely challenging due to a number of reasons. The implementation of technology needs to be thoughtful; you cannot just throw technology at students. To really “utilize technology to meet the needs of students, there is a huge commitment piece for teachers and this is an immense challenge in itself.” Many educators do not want to use technology due to time constraints, accessibility, reliability, lack of skill-set, and a big reason is that technology can be intimidating. Zelda stated that “people do not want to look stupid in front of students or colleagues but they do not want to put the time in to learn and experiment.” One of the most challenging things is that although “there are six smartboards in the school, no one is using them” and “a lot of educators are overwhelmed that “their students know more about using technology than they do and they need to be okay with this.”

Collaboration:

“Technology can be a great way for colleagues to work together and can allow for a more tech-savvy educator to teach others how to integrate and use technology within their classrooms.” Zelda emphasizes that not only can technology enhance collaboration between student-student but between teacher-student and teacher-teacher. “Technology use and integration is a great way for teachers to learn together and promotes community within the school.” Zelda also emphasizes that the collaboration between students through technology is a great way for students to interact with students that they normally would not talk to and allows for an exchange of perspectives which enhances critical thinking.