Embedded Files
About our Learners
About our Learners
All information comes from our interviews and communications with Hannah Jaris, unless specified.
The following questions are from Brown & Green.
Who is the intended audience?
Kindergarten through 12th grade teachers
Working in a variety of content areas but primarily science
Where and when are they learning?
In the school environment: during planning periods, including before, during, and after school hours
At home: summer and weekends
Professional development and workshops, excluding the NY SunWorks training and bootcamps
What common traits do members have?
Limited time for training and transferring new information to the students (Hardé, et al, 2010, p. 169)
Professional and educational standards or constraints set by the school board or administrators (Zimmerman & May, 2003)
Responsible for their own learning
Responsible for accommodating a variety of learners in their classes
Need to physically/emotionally adjust to the set-up of the system into classroom floor plan, and incorporate movement into the lesson plan structure
What are the differences among learners (teachers)?
Teachers Backgrounds
Science education background: novice or expert
Teaching experience: new teacher or mentor (Roegman, 2020, p. 108)
Gardening experience: brown thumb to expert gardener
Technology experience: paper/pencil only to virtual reality user
Comfort levels in classroom: strict control to free exploration based learning
Teacher resilience, also known as the “capacity to buffer change” (Wright et al., 2019, p. 21)
Classroom Backgrounds
Subject: interdisciplinary or strictly science class
Science standards: freedom to strict administration or state curriculum
Grade level: Pre-K to AP science
Access to technology: minimal vs max budgets
Wide variety of students: economically, racially, abilities
What is their motivation to participate?
Increase student engagement (Malin, 2019)
Empower and support student exploration
Value of hands-on, project-based learning and authentic investigation
Environmental concerns: climate change, sustainability, human impact
Sometimes adherence to administration's wishes: no choice
Do the teachers have non-instructional needs that must be met so they can fully focus?
Comfort in transformed classrooms: new noises, lights, smells, less space
Teachers need instruction to fit within their busy schedules and duties
What will make the instruction appealing and efficient for the teachers?
Research indicates that technological and subject knowledge heavily influence teacher response to professional development (Affouneh et al., 2020), so our design will need to include appropriate coverage of technology and content elements involved.
Information is well organized and easy to locate
On-demand resources
Highlighting value & benefits, what they will get from this (Espinoza & Neal, 2018)
Making it more entertaining than other existing professional development courses, interactivity
How can we accommodate culturally and physically diverse teachers?
Build accessibility into the design instead of adapting for it (e.g., closed captions, screen reader-friendly)
Ensure that our content is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust (POUR Method) no matter the format (Accessibility Guidelines Working Group, 2018).
Use clear language: avoid slang and colloquialisms, provide explanations of technical terms
What evaluation strategies will we use to determine the success of the learner?
To be determined
Personas
(Zimmerman & May, 2003; Redman, Weik, Redman, 2018)
(Hardé, Nanny, Refai, Ling, Slater, 2010; Espinoza & Neal, 2018)
Reflection
Motivation gaps: To address motivation gaps that may be caused when teachers do not choose to participate in the Greenhouse Lab and are instead assigned the task, we will be best served if we can show the observable impact of its use and/or share anecdotal evidence of positive outcomes from other teachers (Malin, 2019, p. 4).
Lack of Interviews: Since we are unable to interview teachers with motivation gaps or obtain information about their opinions from our primary source, we may need to find informal sources, in addition to scholarly articles, on platforms that allow for frank conversations between teachers. Although we will be unlikely to hear from teachers in the same situations as our learners, we may be able to read the insights of teachers in similar situations. We may also be able to learn of additional non-instructional needs and professional development desires that apply to our audience.
Assessment Component: We will need to evaluate whether or not an assessment component would be valuable to our learners and/or NY Sun Works.
References
Accessibility Guidelines Working Group. (2018, June 5). Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. W3C. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
Affouneh S, Salha S, Burgos D, et al. Factors That Foster and Deter STEM Professional Development among Teachers. Science Education. 2020;104(5):857-872. Accessed March 12, 2021. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.library.nyu.edu/login.aspx? direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1262388&site=eds-live
Brown, A. H., & Green, T. D. (2005). Chapter 5: Analyzing Learners. In The Essentials of Instructional Design: Connecting Fundamental Principles with Process and Practice. New York, NY: Routledge.
Jaris, H. (2021, March). 2020 NYU + NY Sunworks Background [Powerpoint Slides]. Google Drive. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tLVudmvB7gjcgDTxlK1Tpk7y8gSp6GS/edit#slide=id.p1
Jaris, H. (2021, March 5). Initial Conversation about NY Sunworks [Zoom], Brooklyn, New York.
Jaris, H. “Updates on our NYU-NYSunworks ‘Challenge project’." Email. March 5, 2021, 3:36pm.
Jaris, H., & Bouwmeester, M. (2021). Interviewing NY Sunworks [Zoom], Brooklyn, New York.
Holmlund, T., Lesseig, K., Slavit, D. (2018). Making Sense of ‘STEM education’ in K-12 Contexts. International Journal of STEM Education, 5(32), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-018-0127-2.
Malin, J.R., Brown, C., Saultz, A. (2019). What We Want, Why We Want It: K-12 Educators’ Evidence Use to Support Their Grant Proposals. International Journal of Education Policy & Leadership, 15(3), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.22230/ijepl.2019v15n3a837
Malina, D. (2013, September 26). Performance Anxiety: What Can Health Care Learn from K-12 Education? The New England Journal of Medicine, 369(13), 1268-1272.
Roegman, R., & Kolman, J. (2020). Cascading, Colliding, and Mediating: How Teacher Preparation and K-12 Education Contexts Influence Mentor Teachers’ Work. Journal of Teacher Education, 71(1), 108-121. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0022487119850174
Sancar R, Atal D, Deryakulu D. A new framework for teachers’ professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education. 2021;101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103305
WeTeachNYC. Science Scope and Sequence: PK-8. NYC Department of Education.
https://www.weteachnyc.org/resources/resource/science-scope-and-sequence-pk-8/
WeTeachNYC. Scope and Sequence: Science. NYC Department of Education.
https://www.weteachnyc.org/resources/collection/new-teacher-resources/
WeTeachNYC. STEM Framework. NYC Department of Education.
https://www.weteachnyc.org/resources/resource/stem-framework/?collection_id=457
WeTeachNYC. Vision for School Improvement: Applying the Framework for Great Schools. NYC Department of Education. https://www.weteachnyc.org/resources/resource/vision-school-improvement-applying-framework-great-schools/? collection_id=457
Wright, D. S., Balgopal, M. M., Sample McMeeking, L. B., & Weinberg, A. E. (2019). Developing Resilient K-12 STEM Teachers. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 21(1), 16–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422318814483
Zimmerman, J.A., & May, J.J. (2003). Providing Effective Professional Development: What’s Holding Us Back? American Secondary Education, 31(2), 37-48.
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