Connected Learner 

Coaches model the ISTE Standards for Students and the ISTE Standards for Educators, and identify ways to improve their coaching practice.

Indicator

4.2.a, Pursue professional learning that deepens expertise in the ISTE Standards in order to serve as a model for educators and leaders.

Description

The “Making Through Failure” grant program is designed to reframe the concept of ‘failure’ within education, and destigmatize the word. The goal is to allow open-ended investigation and creation driven by accepting what went wrong, and how things can be improved. I was selected to participate in this grant program as part of professional development to utilize the ideology while building experiences in the new makerspace within the museum. By bringing the idea of failure as a learning experience while working with additive manufacturing and basic coding exercises I will be able to exemplify the ISTE standards and help coach others. 

Implementation

The grant project is a professional development curriculum for museums and informal educational spaces. The program is a series of online synchronous trainings and in-person trainings. The primary focus is on a change of mindset for educators working in informal education spaces. Our use of the grant will be in focusing on creating a curriculum for the makerspace within the museum. Taking this ideology and using it to create a specific set of methods and projects for other educators to utilize within the space will allow the training of new informal educators in the process.

Impact

This project has impacted the staff by broadening our viewpoint on how the idea of failure can be utilized in our educational programming. We have been able to talk about the idea of debugging in basic coding as learning through failure. Much of our programs and experiences are dedicated to inquiry based learning and so this idea fits well with our space. We have begun to build and implement our curriculum in the makerspace. Discussions with other educators who will be working in the space have shown that the curriculum being designed is already creating a framework for others to increase their comfort with using new and unfamiliar technology due to the celebration of likely failure instead of the fear of it.

Artifact Two: Meeting Agenda on Accessibility 

Indicator

4.2.c, Establish shared goals with educators, reflect on successes and continually improve coaching and teaching practice.

Description

This agenda is from a meeting of educators and administrators at the Museum of Science and Curosity to establish a unified philosophy on accessibility and a training curriculum for new staff in the future. We decided to use a training framework that has been successful for our onboarding before. We met for 45 minutes and discussed our perspectives and backgrounds on accessibility, and identified ideas that we all thought were necessary to train incoming staff about.

Implementation

In creating a unified philosophy about how the exhibits and experiences team will be approaching accessibility we were able to establish interdepartmental goals while working with the guest services team, as well as the marketing and development team. We were able to create a new onboarding segment utilising our existing framework within Microsoft OneDrive, and will be able to maintain and update the content of the training as we are able to keep it in-house.

Impact

The creation of this training has helped empower current staff who are passionate about accessibility due to their involvement in building the training, and influence on its design. After we began implimenting it and allowed existing staff access to the training we have seen an increase in the use of common language, and utilization of the feedback form for staff to ask clarifying questions and provide potential improvements.

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Reflection 

Framing my small part of larger staff development projects through the lesne of standard 4.2 has helped me better understand not only how to model the ISTE and identify ways to improve staff practices, but also to understand how to better leverage my expertise to create more accessible and impactful environments for educators and lerners. In persuing professional development with the Making through Failure grant I have become more confident in my ability to model and coach others in the ISTE standards. In working on the accessibility professional development team I have helped create a better understanding of shared goals within the education team and the building in general, and built systems comfortable with self-assesment and improvement. In the future I would like to furher expand this professional level work and begin to exemplify standard 4.2.b so that I may actively participate in professional learning networks, enhance coaching practice and keep current with emerging technology and innovations in pedagogy and the learning sciences. I think that looking forward in my career attending and hopefuly presenting at conferences would be an exciting next step to stay connected and active in the EdTech professional network.