Final Paper: Preparing Teachers to Teach Future Innovators

Kathryn Batwinis

ET690: Educational Technology Seminar

December 19, 2016

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Once we recognize the affordances of a technology - what a technology makes easy or

attractive - we are in a position to look at our vulnerability with a clearer eye. Looking at

things through this lens might put us halfway to making new choices, needed changes (Turkle

126). This semester has shown us that there is more to educational technology than just the

actual technology. This seems to be a myth among many teachers who are not exposed to the

depths of the educational technology side, and many of our readings have debunked this myth.

Our readings have also opened doors to show where educational technology is about to take us.

It is about to take us on an even further path from teaching how we were taught, it is about to

expand what is possible, and it will take our current students into jobs that do not exist yet while

using technology that does not exist yet. Our students will be the ones creating those non-existent

technologies. Yet, we, the current generation of adults, are the ones responsible for preparing

them for this.

As a member of this program and class, I have been exposed to more conversation around

this topic than many teachers ever will be or care to be. This is exactly the problem. One

question that seemed to continually arise, was that of But how do we do this? A frequent

response was then that we need to be the ones to start it, and sitting here having that

conversation, we were. But there are thousands of teachers who are not sitting and having the

conversation about how to prepare students in this respect, and that is what our schools are

starting to lack. Teachers need training and preparation in order to successfully prepare our

students for their innovative futures ahead.

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Teacher Training

One major thing that has become apparent is that there needs to be more teacher training

in order to prepare future innovators. There are many qualities that our readings have talked

about as being important for fostering an innovator, and Wagner talks about creating a culture

of innovation by combining three elements of creativity - expertise, creative thinking skills and

motivation (Wagner 58). However, teachers need more than just their content expertise and

pedagogy classes in college to get them to this point. Building tasks that foster the creative

thinking skills and the intrinsic motivation are essential to building future innovators but are not

always at the forefront of a teachers mind.

Teachers need to be taught too. We cannot expect that just because we are getting

chromebooks or iPads in our classrooms, that we will be professionals at using them or teaching

with them to the extent that our children need. Robert J. Sternberg of Tufts, highlights many

challenges of implementation that teachers face. One of the first challenges he highlights is

compatibility of the new standards and teacher training. Teachers often rely on their training to

get them through, at least during the early years. Although education faculty members do the

best they can, they often teach their aspiring teachers traditional methods that do not prepare

future teachers for standards such as those AASL has proposed (Sternberg). Teacher training is

not fully compatible with our 21st century standards. This is in part due to the fact that 21st

century technologies will not just make things better. We need to get back to the people in

charge. In general, technology results in positive outcomes only where positive, capable human

forces are already in place (Wagner 54). Teachers need to be trained to become these capable

human forces with technology. This very much parallels with Toyamas Three Habits of Highly

Effective Technology Use. His first rule is to Identify or build human forces that are aligned
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with your goals (Toyama 108). Everything needs to start with strong human forces and nothing

will be as effective without those in place first.

In order to build these strong human forces, a strategy I have become very intrigued by

this semester is the concept of mentoring versus coaching. A coach leads someone step-by-step

through the process, with specific goals in mind. A mentor is someone who the mentee can go to

for help on their own terms, the mentor will guide them through whatever they need, and they

are both working for intrinsic growth. Both of these models have a time and a place, but are

important to the practice of teaching. The article Its about Improving my Practice: The

Learner Experience of Real-Time Teaching gives an interesting new look at how to implement

these coaching practices. This model from Australia has set up a system where new, pre-service

teachers in Australia, who are in their final year of graduate school, get real-time coaching

advice through an earpiece. Students are paired with an expert teacher who is watching as they

teach, and coaching them through an earpiece. Students are getting immediate feedback on

certain goals. The expert teachers are not teaching the material for them, but rather each student

has set goals - for example, pacing or classroom movement. Then, the coach gives them real-

time advice as they are teaching. This has proven to be a successful way to teach the graduate

students how to reflect on and immediately improve certain areas of their practice (Sharplin).

This is an amazing example of how to actually incorporate coaching effectively, but also how

you need to have the correct human forces in place first. This is not just about the technology.

The wrong person in this position could use this system the completely wrong way. However,

because the people involved are dedicated to improving teacher performance and helping the

students, they are able to incorporate the technology effectively. This does show too, that maybe

coaching does have a place in education. Originally, I have thought how coaching is too rigid for
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educators. However, this is an example where coaching has been very thoughtfully incorporated

into a new teacher program. It has individualized teacher training to be for what each student

needs. It is not a one-size-fits all model of coaching, and aspects of this could be very beneficial

to teachers. While teaching innovative lessons may not blend with this system, this system

provides an example of why self-reflection is important. Immediate feedback is always

beneficial, but so is self-reflection. Teachers need to be able to reflect on which skills they are

comfortable with, and which skills they need more help in so that they can narrow down what

they need help with incorporating into their lessons.

Mentoring, however, seems to be the better option for currently employed teachers.

Building intrinsic growth of a teacher is important. There are enough must-dos on a teachers

list already, that mentoring helps foster what the mentee wants to grow and learn about. It also

fosters a respectful and meaningful partnership for teachers to rely on. In Educational

Leaderships Ten Ways to Make Mentoring Work, one aspect the author points out is to

adhere to the basics of teaching. Teachers are constantly learning and changing. We cannot

expect new, or seasoned, teachers to fix 10 things at once. Yet, we need to help with 1-2 things at

a time to help guide them towards change, for example, the article mentions classroom

management and basic instructional strategies. You need to let teachers grasp A and B before

doing A through Z wrong because there is too much information. (Breaux). This is an interesting

concept as would apply to technology as well and guiding teachers towards using technology and

preparing students for innovation. Teachers need baby steps towards this. If teachers are thrown

too many technologies, too many resources, or too many suggestions for how to help students

become more innovative, they will shut down. Instead, teachers need help one step at a time.

Mentoring fits well with Elys Conditions for Change as well. Those participating in a
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mentorship setting would be unhappy with the status quo and be more willing to put in the time

and build the knowledge to affect changes. This is where our internship also comes into play. We

are there as technology leaders to mentor teachers as they increase technology use. However, if

we are not careful, we will not get any buy in. We need to introduce technology slowly so they

see the benefits. Toyama gives an example about fishing that describes mentoring well. You can

give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, or you can teach him to fish and he will eat for life.

Or you can teach him to teach other fisherman, encourage entrepreneurs to improve fish markets,

do research to sustain the art of fishing, etc. - through mentoring (Toyama 207). Mentoring

guides teachers to want to do better and to improve their practice. It is not about forcing them to

do something, but about guiding them to want to do it.

Mentorship and intrinsic growth wont solve all of the worlds problems. But if

packaged interventions amplify human forces, then in a world already full of incredible

technologies and brilliant technocratic ideas, what we need much more of is heart, mind, and

will (Toyama 209). We also need to model this for our students. We need to want to be better to

model for our students that heart, mind and will to be better as well. Breaux also mentions how

mentors need training as well. This yet again re-emphasizes the need for more teacher training.

In order for mentors to be supportive, mentors need guidance in how to help. The mentor/mentee

relationship is a great way for teachers to start to incorporate innovative practices. But it comes

back again to the training of human forces. Intrinsic growth will also come from teachers having

choice. An excellent suggestion Breaux mentions, is that mentors should have a say in what

teachers are being trained on. They are in the field and have an understanding of what teachers

need. This could be a critical piece missing from teacher training. Not only do we need more

teacher training, but it needs to be specific. Mentors having say in what training teachers get
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would be an excellent way to build intrinsic growth and for teachers to make the connection

between what they are being trained on and what they are doing in their classrooms. This is also

why the Australian real-time coaching model worked. Teachers were able to directly see a

relationship between knowledge and advice and how it impacted their classrooms. Both the

appropriate coaching and mentoring models can help our teachers be trained on how to support

these future innovators.

Finally, we as teachers need to have a realistic view of technology, be willing to take

risks with and for our students, and build up confidence. Turkle says, Once we recognize the

affordances of a technology - what a technology makes easy or attractive - we are in a position to

look at our vulnerability with a clearer eye (Turkle 126). Teachers have the amazing

opportunity to use technologies in their classrooms. We also have the power to abuse it. So

teachers need guidance on how to effectively and purposefully use technology in our classrooms.

It needs to go beyond a substitution level of having our students use computers for word

processing, if we truly want to prepare innovators. We need to teach them how to use it

respectfully and for its true purpose. Teachers need to be guided and trained in order to achieve

this purposefully blended 21st century classroom.

Inside a 21st Century Classroom

A 21st century classroom is not solely the technology-dazzled classroom with new fancy

gadgets everywhere. This classroom should still hold the principles of what we know is best -

hands on activities, conversation, hand-written assignments and play. In fact, some of these

qualities are exactly what will help our students become ready for their future, but also by

incorporating technology into this picture of school. Rick Miller of Olin College says, Were

trying to teach students to take initiative - to transmit attitudes, motivations and behaviors versus
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mere knowledge (Wagner 158). While this is on a secondary education scale, the concept very

much can transfer all the way down to Kindergarten. Students need their basic content

knowledge - they need to know what 5x8 is, they need to know what the Constitution is, and they

need to know the difference between oil, water and gas. But do they really need to memorize the

exact formula to find the area of a trapezoid that is drawn inside of a circle? We need to broaden

what students do. They need to take that knowledge and learn to use it for a purpose, not just

memorize it. If we give them purpose from a young age, we will start to build that motivation

and attitude for learning.

Classrooms need to incorporate opportunities to be creative and seek out information.

This allows a different type of teaching and learning experience, as Olin College has found, so

that students can find their own purpose and make their own meaning from their learning. This

also allows students to be more willing to try new things, to take risks, and to accept and learn

from failure. These learning opportunities at Olin allowed a student to not be afraid to try

something new (Wagner 170) and integrate different content from very diverse courses. I also

learned to think about problems from multiple perspectives (170). These will be important skills

for students that we need to integrate into classrooms early on. By giving students choice and

freedom with their learning, they will learn to find a passion and problem solve over multiple

content areas.

Classrooms also need to continue to incorporate conversation and problem-solving.

Incorporating technology should not mean that we put students in front of a screen all day and let

them teach themselves. We need to teach children how to converse, how to empathize and how

to problem-solve and collaborate in a group. Turkle states, ...teachers worry whether students

are learning the rudiments of conversation: listening and turn taking (Turkle 161). It is now our
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job to help this. Several readings mentioned how the work force in many fields now is not just

climbing a corporate ladder. Millennials are confusing the older generation because they do not

just want to work on their own. They want to problem solve and work towards a goal that they

are passionate about, even if it is not in the conventional way. Sherry Turkle says that Screens

serve up all kinds of educational, emotional, artistic, and erotic experiences, but they dont

encourage solitude and they dont teach the richness of face-to-face conversation (Turkle 63).

We as teachers, from a young age, need to blend the world of technology and the face-to-face

conversations. We need to teach them to look inside themselves to find what is important to them

and what has purpose for them. We need to teach them to take their opinions and agree and

respectfully disagree with others. We need to teach them how to converse and collaborate in

order to problem solve.

Turkle highlights a school, Holbrooke, where teachers have said that For the first time,

they feel they must explicitly teach empathy and even turn-taking in conversation. One says,

Emotional intelligence has to become an explicit part of our curriculum (162). I very much

agree with this. In fact, it might be more important now than ever. Our students are now in the

age of digital natives. They are raised with technology and constantly surrounded by it. They

are also the generation who will pick up and learn new technologies quicker. So we, as the older

generations, need to explicitly teach what they will not pick up on their own - conversational

skills. CEOs are already noticing this in the millennial generation, saying They have done

amazing things both academically and in their extracurricular lives. But they are struggling with

the simplest workplace conventions and conversations (Turkle 259) and They have a hard

time showing empathy in the workplace. They dont seem to understand the perspectives of their
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colleagues or clients (259). So we need to prepare them for this in our classrooms at an early

age.

There is also a lot of technology out there that we as teachers need to sift through to use

in our classrooms. Within our classrooms, we need to model for students and teach them to find

the purpose in a technology and skill. For example, maybe they have found a new animation

tool. Often when there are new tools and apps, we want to use them as much as we can because

they are flashy and fun. But we cannot let this take away from what we know about good

teaching. We need to model and think aloud for students about when to use technology, and

when it might not be needed. So if we are drawing observations of plants, maybe thats not our

best use of an animation tool even if its there. For this task, well use paper and colored pencils.

But later in social studies, if we are summarizing the voyage of Lewis and Clark, this might be a

better opportunity to try out animation. Turkle tells us to be sure to Choose the right tool for the

job. when you replace a conversation with an email just because you can, there is a good

chance that you have chosen the wrong tool. Not because email isnt a great tool for some jobs.

Just not for all jobs (Turkle 324). Whether the tool is focused around conversation or

academics, this is an important concept for us to teach our students about in our classrooms.

Finally, our classrooms need to explicitly teach students about digital citizenship. Since

students are currently in the age of digital natives, many of them do not realize what the

internet really is about. The internet is not a place to do whatever you want with no

consequences. Their digital footprint will now follow them for much longer than it would most

of us. We exist alongside digital representations of ourselves- digital doubles- that are useful to

different parties at different times, or for some, at a time to be determined. The digital self is

archived forever (Turkle 304). Our students in our classrooms are already creating their digital
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double without realizing it. So we need to prepare them for how to best frame their digital double

so that it works in their favor and not against them. This also goes back to finding the right tool.

There is a time and a place for social media or different online platforms. And there is a time and

a place not for them. Kids need to understand those times and places and also what effects they

might have. We can plan for a future in which the design of our tools and our social

surroundings encourages us to be our best. As consumers of digital media, our goal should be to

partner with an industry that commits to our using their products, of course, but also to our health

and emotional well-being (Turkle 44). We want our students to find this balance of technology

and well-being. We want our students to use technology for the vast opportunities it opens for

their learning, and not for them to get trapped by it.

Preparing for the Future

Our students will be working in new jobs that have yet to be created, will be creating new

technologies, and will be the innovators who come up with new ideas that have not yet even

begun to be a thought in someones mind. We can not make them memorize everything they will

ever need to know. But what we can do is prepare them with problem-solving skills, foster heart

and interest in learning, show them a purpose for learning, teach them to collaborate with others,

and find the desire to want to do something more. Wagner gives us stories of many different

people who have gone off the beaten path of schooling. One that he highlights is of Scott

Rosenberg, a filmmaker who also created an arts program for at-risk New York City youth. He

reflects on his own experiences combined with what he has seen in New York. He says that

they are desperately thirsty for connection, to be taken seriously, and to be purposeful. I believe

our job is to look for the threads, plant the seeds, and provide them with the tools and structures

for purposefulness (Wagner 145). Rosenberg is finding out that much of this is where our
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education system is lacking and has failed to prepare them in some areas. Students to not want to

go through school just to memorize rote information with no purpose. His program is one that is

showing kids purpose, showing them a connection to the real-world and showing them that there

are people who will care and support them. We need to bring these values back to the classroom

so that we can prepare our students. We, as teachers, need to be showing our students these

qualities so they are ready for what lies ahead. We also need to show them this in the classroom

so they do not need to seek these supports from outside what is already set up for them - school.

Rosenberg reflects that like the others, he was an outlier in his school and eventually had to take

some of his most important work out of the classroom altogether (146). This is not to say that

students will never seek opportunities outside of the classroom - they should. But we should also

be fostering this in school to help prepare students for what they might experience outside of the

classroom.

This also ties right back to teacher training in order to prepare these students. Teachers

need guidance and training in order to support the vast types of learners out there who will be

exposed to many opportunities outside of the classroom that we cannot predict. Sternberg

categorizes some of the new standards they will need to meet. Main categories include critical

thinking, application of knowledge to new situations, drawing conclusions, sharing knowledge

with others and participating ethically in society, and pursuing personal growth (Sternberg).

These categories fully support what our readings have helped us see about preparing future

innovators. Our students need to be able to converse and collaborate, apply knowledge and skills

across multiple and new content areas and situations, think critically and outside of the box, and

find their passion to work themselves towards. Postman taught us that we need a god to follow.

We need a purpose that we are driven to improve and see through. This has become that god for
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me. There needs to be more teachers supports to help teachers to feel confident when teaching

and preparing future innovators, who will be working and living in an unpredictable

technological future. Whether our students become technological innovators, lawyers, doctors, or

plumbers, we need to prepare them to think outside the box, to work with others around them, to

find something they are passionate about and to find a purpose in whatever they do.
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References

Breaux, A. (2016) Ten Ways to Make Mentoring Work. Educational Leadership, 73(8).

http://www.ascd.org.ezp.lndlibrary.org/publications/educational-

leadership/may16/vol73/num08/Ten-Ways-to-Make-Mentoring-Work.aspx

Postman, N. (1995) The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. New York: Vintage

Books.

Sharplin, J., Stahl, G., & Kehrwald, B. (2016). Its about Improving My Practice: The Learner

Experience of Real-Time Coaching. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 41(5).

http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1102072.pdf

Sternberg, R. (2009). Challenge of Implementation. Knowledge Quest- Professional Practice,

38(2).

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.ezp.lndlibrary.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0401ed5a-

1e85-45ae-b0c0-3aac71ba8924%40sessionmgr106&vid=8&hid=113#

Toyama, K. (2015) Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology. New

York: PublicAffairs.

Turkle, S. (2015) Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age. New York:

Penguin Press.

Wagner, T. (2012) Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the

World. New York: Scribner.