#109 – Making Data Work for Teachers
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Welcome to this ninth episode of the The Future Tech for Education Series on The Edtech Podcast, supported by Pearson. My name is Sophie Bailey and each week, in this series, I’ll be exploring the challenges and opportunities of future tech for education with contributors from across industry, research and academia.
What’s in this episode?
With technology, teachers actually sometimes see less student work than they do with a traditional worksheet. How can resources developers best communicate about students’ work to teachers? What instructional decisions do teachers make for which it is helpful to have data to answer? Are data points useful beyond intervention alone? What do teachers actually seek from data and how it is presented, without adding to existing workload? What latest design methods of communicating information can be used to feedback student performance to teachers whilst maintaining the agency of all stakeholders? Is the “data-dashboard” here to stay? Or, is there another way?
People
Dr. Kristen DiCerbo, Vice-President of Education Research, Pearson Dr. Kristen DiCerbo is the Vice-President of Education Research at Pearson. She leads a team of researchers focused on conducting and translating research about learners and learning to inform the development curricula and tools developed by Pearson. Her personal research program centers on simulation and game-based assessment. She has published more than 20 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, as well as white papers on transformations of education in the digital world. Prior to joining Pearson, Kristen provided research support to the Networking Academies at Cisco and was a school psychologist in a local school district in Arizona. Kristen received her Master’s Degree and Ph.D. in Educational Psychology at Arizona State University.
Jeff Dieffenbach, Associate Director of the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative Jeff Dieffenbach is the Associate Director of the MIT Integrated Learning Initiative, which funds, connects, and disseminates transformational MIT research investigating learning effectiveness across pK-12, higher education, and workplace learning.Previously, Jeff has served in senior product management, business development, sales, and marketing roles across a range of education companies: online teacher professional development provider Medallion Learning; education consulting firm Consulting Services for Education; workplace learning/software company Global Project Design: large publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; mid-sized publisher Cambium Learning, and reading software publisher Lexia Learning. In parallel with his education work, Jeff served for ten years as an elected school board member in a suburban town west of Boston and for six years on the advisory board of HILL for Literacy, which develops and deploys sustainable literacy programs in K-12 school districts. Prior to entering the field of education, he led business development for a boutique management consulting firm. Jeff has master’s degrees in Technology and Policy and in materials engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Twitter: @mit_ili
Ross Morrison McGill, AKA TeacherToolkit, Former Deputy Headteacher and Teacher Ross Morrison McGill also known as @TeacherToolkit, the ‘most followed educator on Twitter in the UK’ is the founder of one of the most popular education websites in the world. He is an award-winning blogger, author and teacher with over 25 years teaching and school leadership experience in some the most challenging schools in London. In December 2015, he was nominated for The Sunday Times ‘500 Most Influential People in Britain 2015‘ and remains the only classroom teacher to have featured to this day. Twitter: @teachertoolkit
Samantha Ahern, Learning Technology Project Officer, Information Services Division, UCL and Former Teacher At present I am Learning Technology Project Officer within UCL’s ISD’s Digital Education team. I am currently working on two projects, one for the Digital Education team, for the other I am working with Research IT Services as a Learning Designer. I quite often describe myself as a storyteller, either through data analysis or learning design. Twitter: @2standandstare
Quotes from this episode
References
Tell us your story
We’d love to hear about innovative technology or approaches you are developing or using in education. Leave your stories in the comments below. Alternately, record a quick free voicemail via speakpipe for inclusion in the next episode. Finally, you can post your thoughts or follow-on links via twitter @podcastedtech @kristendicerbo via The Edtech Podcast Facebook page.
The Pearson Future Tech for Education Series is produced by The Edtech Podcast and supported by Pearson Education. If you’re interested in the themes that come out of the series, check out more ideas in the “open series” here.
