project partner – team coaching – training program.
creating a new operational culture to support innovation and learning future skills in school.
client
location
duration
process
Turku University Teacher Training School & Finnish National Agency for Education.
Turku, Finland.
2 years.
Educraftory.Lab
starting the change process by finding a seedgroup.
The Educraftory.Lab project at Turku Teacher Training School was about developing a new operational culture to the newly renovated school, where creativity and learning through experiments would flourish. Maker education with new technology worked as the framework. Our project partner was Linda Mannila.
The project started by calling out the first enthusiastic teachers. The aim was for these 4–6 teachers to team up and create a seedgroup within the organisation. We then encouraged this seedgroup to do experiments in coached “workshocks” and also on their own.
3-hour workshocks to experiment with technology.
The 3-hour workshocks organised throughout the school year were open for all teachers and teacher trainees to join in. The participants were invited to experiment with new technology such as AR, VR, drone, 3D printing and invention kits like Micro:bit and Makey Makey.
Our role was to encourage and help the participants to go after their own ideas, make first prototypes of mini-projects, and get inspired to test those with students. One of these projects was done with Lego Robots, when 6th grades were tutors to 3rd and 4th graders.
Watch the video interview with science teacher Jari Sorvari.
bigger event days to collaborate.
Part of the project plan was to have bigger events, one per semester. The aim was to have more participants and more time together to create possibilities for collaboration.
As part of the PROFFSDays event in Nov 2017 (organised by our project partner Linda Mannila) we coached an Edujam, where we challenged the participants to create their own maker projects. Later in 2018 the “Turku Norssi” school’s science teachers participated also in an Edujam, where their challenge was to find ways to build a learning path for ICT skills from lower grades to upper secondary level.
“The workshocks have been an easy way to talk about technology and think about how to use it in a concrete way in my teaching.”
Aki Järvinen
Teacher in Turku University Teacher Training School
EMTI box as part of the new learning environment.
The need for EMTI Box was identified in the beginning of this project, when we tried to find a maker classroom or makerspace inside the school. Instead, we decided to create a mobile makerlab.
We then did experiments and product testing in connection with the project. The main benefit of the EMTI Box is that as a mobile all-in-one solution it allows you to use maker technology and run different maker projects in any space you desire.
For example one cart can serve many classrooms at once as the technology is placed in easily accessible drawers.
science teachers’ continuous learning.
Another result of the project is the forming of science teachers’ team, that has members also from other schools. The core members of this teacher team found each other during the project and got inspired to continue with joint projects and teaching. The barrier between age groups and subjects have been crossed more than before.
The teachers support each other in developing the needed skills. This was the most important goal in our project: to build a foundation for a learning organisation to start growing, where its members keep learning and invite others to do brave experiments in their work.
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