Cultivating digitally prepared teachers to cater for girls in schools

CRICOS No. 00213J

Kar-Tin Lee

Head School of Mathematics,Science and Technology Education, Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Australia.k5.lee@qut.edu.au

We are

here

Australia’s Teachers: Australia’s Future – Advancing Innovation, Science, Technology and Mathematics(DEST, 2003)

The review, recognised that much remains to be done to translate national goals into effective action.

Key issues:

Current STEM teaching does too little to stimulate curiosity, problem solving, depth of understanding and continued interest in learning among students, or to thus encourage them to undertake advanced study in science and mathematics at school and beyond.

Ministerial Advisory Committee for Educational RenewalMarch 2004

Teacher training:

Teachers as knowledge workers

Teachers have high levels of formal education

Teachers regularly upgrade their stock of complex knowledge on a voluntary basis

Teachers need to be paid well

A Creative Workforce for a Smart StateProfessional Development for Teachers in an Era of Innovation

Part of this process is the reprofiling of the teaching workforce as producers – of material and human resources, intellectual content, to provide learning services to clients – rather than as providers of curriculum.

In this model, students are creators of demand for learning rather than comprising an endless supply of raw materials for a timeless profession called teaching.

A Creative Workforce for a Smart StateProfessional Development for Teachers in an Era of Innovation

Access to robotics kits on Field Studies

(Australian Microelectronics Centre)

Participation in FIRST Lego League

MDB005: TEACHING PRIMARY DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY

Teaching Objective: Problem Solving (FLL Challenges)

Year 3

Year 1

Year 4

MDB004: TEACHING PRIMARY ICT

Teaching Objective: Integrating robotics in REAL

classrooms

MDB004: TEACHING PRIMARY ICT

Teaching Objectives: Integrating robotics in classrooms

MDB001 – FOUNDATION STUDIES SCI & QUANTITATIVE LITERACY

Teaching Objective: Introducing Robotics

MDB392: LEGO Elective

Advanced Robotics

MDP459: Middle

Pre-service primary unitsintegrating robotics

Extension opportunities

Postgrad-Middle Years, Grad Dip

Robotics Education in MSTE units – 4 yr BEd

Response to course survey (MDB004 -2009)

(75% female, 25% male)

Very good Satisfactory No idea

Start of the semester

Question: How would you rate your knowledge and skills on using robotics?

7.7% 19.2% 73.1%

Question: How would you rate your ability to apply robotics in teaching?

3.7% 14.8% 81.5%

End of semester

Question: How would you rate your knowledge and skills on using robotics?

27.3% 63.6% 9.1%

Question: How would you rate your ability to apply robotics in teaching?

36.4% 45.4% 18.2%

Nov 2008 FLL @

Media Coverage

Statement from a pre-service student

One of the QUT pre-service teachers, Sam Young, of Cannon Hill, said she expected to be working a lot with Lego robotics in the future, and was keen to get a look at how young students responded to them. "I think children are extremely technologically savvy, and Lego robotics are going to increase in popularity, so I wanted to be involved in this to gain a greater understanding myself," she said.

Video

MSTE Faculty

Thank you.