[IAEP] [realness] RE: [support-gang] Fwd: Teacher training observations

[Caryl Bigenho]

Yes, what Mike mentions used to be called "Triple T" which, in English stood for "Teachers Training Teachers." It started with our "experts" from the tech office training interested teachers (like me) who then went back to their schools and trained the interested teachers there.  It is a good and proven model.  There were some caveats however. To be most successful we had to do these extra things:
Treat the teachers as the professionals they are.  Respect their time. Pay them for their time, even if it is just a pittance. Start on time. Finish on time. Try to do it on release time if at all possible. Have coffee/tea, fruit, cookies, cheese and crackers or similar as snacks. Don't talk down to the teachers, but at the same time don't confuse them with a lot of technical jargon. Make it fun. Encourage them for any little progress they make. Make very detailed plans... "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail," but be willing to throw the plan out the window if needed to make learning happen... then plan differently for the next workshop. Seek feedback and evaluate the results of each workshop to use in future planning.
Caryl
> Subject: Re: [realness] RE: [support-gang] Fwd: Teacher training observations
> From: mike at paiwastoon.com.af
> To: cbigenho at hotmail.com
> CC: support-gang at lists.laptop.org; maho at realness.org
> Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 12:47:10 +0430
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> My experience is that almost no matter how much training you do you when
> an external comes and says "was it enough?" / "would you need more?" the
> answer is invariably yes - even if the topics covered were adequate to
> start teaching.  The only way around this was to provide additional
> training to some kind of 'elite' group to create go to people and create
> some improved reference materials ...
> 
> I think many cultures in the developing world are far more oriented (at
> least here) to the idea of learning things by attempting to swallow the
> entire book (e.g. apprentice - master style) than learning as you go.
> 
> The most critical thing to me seems to be expectation setting - in this
> training we can cover x/y/z - we cannot cover python programming with
> pippy to hack into Nasa or bank accounts.
> 
> The default reaction of the educator is that "we need to know what we
> are educating folks in completely ourselves"...
> 
> Perhaps one could try the trick of providing them an extremely thick
> extremely useless foundation computer studies book with stuff like
> binary / hex code in it?  Maybe they will feel like they know more after
> reading that?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -Mike
> 
> On Thu, 2010-08-12 at 20:54 -0700, Caryl Bigenho wrote:
> > Hi Christoph and All...
> > 
> > 
> > Very interesting report!  It is too bad they only had 2 1/2 hours for
> > this.  It sounds like their immediate needs were met with the basics
> > that they should have been taught in their initial training.  I wonder
> > why they didn't get that important information earlier.  It also
> > sounds like the communication between the smallest schools and the
> > rest of the educational community is almost nil. This will need to
> > change if they are to be successful in making a the difference in
> > education that they hope to do with the XOs.
> > 
> > 
> > Caryl (retired educator... also used to train teachers in the use of
> > technology "way back when.")
> > 
> > > Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:08:11 -0500
> > > From: e0425826 at student.tuwien.ac.at
> > > To: maho at realness.org
> > > CC: support-gang at lists.laptop.org
> > > Subject: [support-gang] Fwd: Teacher training observations
> > > 
> > > Hi all,
> > > 
> > > I wrote up some quick'n'dirty observations from a teacher training
> > > session that I attended here in Huaraz, Peru this afternoon for
> > OLPC's
> > > Claudia Urrea. Looking over them I thought that they might also be
> > of
> > > interest to some of you.
> > > 
> > > Please note the disclaimer in the message below in that these are
> > very
> > > raw and unfiltered impressions so don't hold me accountable for
> > anything
> > > and please don't spread it to the wider public for now.
> > > 
> > > Cheers,
> > > Christoph
> > > 
> > > -------- Original-Nachricht --------
> > > Betreff: Teacher training observations
> > > Datum: Thu, 12 Aug 2010 22:01:25 -0500
> > > Von: Christoph Derndorfer <e0425826 at student.tuwien.ac.at>
> > > An: Claudia Urrea <claudia at laptop.org>
> > > 
> > > Hi there,
> > > 
> > > as mentioned in my tweet these are just some very raw impressions
> > but
> > > maybe you find them useful.
> > > 
> > > So the setting was that the start of school was postponed by a week
> > here
> > > so the teachers have an extra week of vacation. Don't know whether
> > it
> > > was the local UGEL (Unidades de Gestión Educativa Local) or someone
> > else
> > > who decided that offering an extra training session for teachers who
> > had
> > > previously expressed their interest in more training.
> > > 
> > > So in the end we had 6 teachers and 1 "especialista" (haven't quite
> > > figured out what their role is) in a room with a guy who's a
> > > "macro-regional" coordinator for 3 departments. The teachers all
> > came
> > > from "uni-docente multi-grado" schools which have been the focus of
> > the
> > > first implementation phase here. The size of their schools ranged
> > from 6
> > > to approximately 20 pupils whereby the multi-grado component
> > generally
> > > seems to go from 1st through 4th grade (while in generally primary
> > > school goes until 6th grade if I'm not mistaken).
> > > 
> > > One of the teachers works in a school where they don't have
> > electricity
> > > to just keeping the XOs charged is a massive hassle. He sometimes
> > takes
> > > home his pupils' XOs and charges them there or the pupils go to
> > > neighbors in other settlements to charge them. More recently that
> > has
> > > stopped though as people have started charging 3 Nuevo Soles for
> > > allowing pupils to charge their XOs.
> > > 
> > > The schools of these teachers had all received their XOs
> > approximately
> > > one year ago. At that time they also received a 5-day training which
> > > they all agreed on wasn't nearly enough.
> > > 
> > > Anyway, the session itself started around 3:30PM and lasted
> > > approximately 2 1/2 hours. The first half hour or so was spent
> > > demonstrating how to re-flash and re-activate an XO since people
> > often
> > > run into issues which require these steps.
> > > 
> > > The next 45min were dedicated to:
> > > 
> > > (a) how to change the name from the command-line (via the Terminal
> > > Activity) since build 703 which they're using in Peru doesn't have
> > the
> > > Control Panel to facilitate that step and with changing pupils this
> > > needs to be done quite regularly
> > > (b) set the date via the command-line since (if I remember
> > correctly) an
> > > issue causes the XOs to forget it which leads to activation issues
> > and
> > > whatnot
> > > 
> > > The next step was a joint Chat session with an associated
> > introduction
> > > into the Neighborhood View, networks and Internet (or lack thereof
> > since
> > > none of the schools in the region have connectivity at the moment).
> > Of
> > > course this ended with the teachers finding themselves on two
> > different
> > > Mesh channels and hence in two Chat sessions.
> > > 
> > > The last 30min were spent with eToys whereby the teachers made a
> > > story-book consisting of text, a drawing and an audio recording.
> > > 
> > > The coordinator did a good job in my opinion and seemed to know his
> > way
> > > around the XO and the activities quite well even though he only
> > started
> > > working on the project in May.
> > > 
> > > I happened to have a copy of the "Manual básico de uso de XO, 2
> > edición"
> > > (http://www.impo.com.uy/descargas/manual_xo_web%20.pdf) that
> > volunteers
> > > in Uruguay had created on me and showed it to the group at the end
> > of
> > > the session. They were very excited and ended up going to a
> > copy-shop so
> > > everyone could their copy.
> > > 
> > > I was also asked whether I knew of more materials that could be of
> > use
> > > to them and so I'm currently downloading the things listed on
> > > http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Recursos_en_espanol so I can pass them on
> > to
> > > them on a USB drive tomorrow. I was particularly surprised that none
> > of
> > > them had heard about Sdenka Salas' "La Laptop XO en el Aula"
> > >
> > (http://pe.sugarlabs.org/wiki/images/b/b5/La_Laptop_XO_en_el_Aula.pdf)
> > > given that to me it seems like the Peruvian bible of XO use. (On a
> > > related note Sdenka invited me to come to visit her in Puno but
> > > unfortunately I won't have time to do that this time 'round.)
> > > 
> > > Anyway, that's about all I think of off the top of my head now. Hope
> > > it's of use to you. :-)
> > > 
> > > Cheers,
> > > Christoph
> > > 
> > > -- 
> > > Christoph Derndorfer
> > > co-editor, www.olpcnews.com
> > > e-mail: christoph at olpcnews.com
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > support-gang mailing list
> > > support-gang at lists.laptop.org
> > > http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/support-gang
> > 
> 
> 
 		 	   		  
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