PRE2017 3 Groep8

Important Links

• Planning
• Google Drive folder (read only)
• Coaching Questions Group 8

Information about ideation

Problem Statement and objectives

The Netherlands is currently dealing with a shortage of teachers in both primary and secondary education. In secondary education, the shortages are most prevalent in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) field. The shortage of teachers is likely to persevere due to a decrease in the popularity of pursuing a teaching career caused by the low salaries and high workload of the job (Kan & van Eekelen, 2017).

The Netherlands is not the only country dealing with teacher shortages, the United Kingdom and the United states are coping with the same issues. In the United Kingdom there is an increase in the number of teachers leaving the profession for non-retirement reasons, as well as an increase in the number of secondary school pupils that is expected to last until 2025 (Syal, 2018). In the United States drastic strategies, including hiring teachers with no formal training, are being employed to try to fill the gaps caused by the teacher shortages (Papay, Bacher-Hicks, Page & Marinell, 2018).

In order to decrease the workload of teachers, and maybe even decrease the need for teachers, we will review the possibilities of applying flow theory in education. Apart from reviewing the possibilities, we will also model an assistant that can aid in improving the rate at which students learn new material. The assistant that we will model will focus on teaching elementary school and high school mathematics.

The objectives of this project are:

• To gain insight into the current state of robotics in education.
• To gain insight into the possibilities of robotics in education in the coming 10 years.
• To evaluate the ethical aspects of the use of robotics in education.
• To develop a teaching assistant/learning system that can apply the knowledge acquired concerning teaching methods in a learning system for 1st- to 3rd-grade students.
• To make effective use of the seven principles of good practice in education in the learning system.

Who are the users?

The robotics technology which we will research focuses on improving the quality of education, as such the primary users who will interact with such a system are elementary and highschool students. The personalised learning assistant which we propose will gather data regarding the performance of students in order to personalise their curriculum. Considering this system will be a new facet of education, it will have to be integrated in the existing logistics of schools. For instance, teachers should be able to review the performance of students.

What are the user requirements?

For the students it is important that the level of questions is at the correct level for them. If the questions are too easy they will get bored and if the questions are too difficult they will get demotivated.

For the teachers it is important to have insights into the results of their students so that they can judge the progress of their students.

Both for teachers and students it is important that the user interface of the assistant is clear. For students it needs to be clear what they are expected to do, and feedback needs to be provided when they submit a wrong answer. For teachers it should be easy to judge the progress of their students.

The most important requirement for the management of a school is that the assistant can be integrated into the current style of education that is provided at the school. This means that the assistant should be highly adaptive so that it can be adjusted to the specific needs of the specific schools it is implemented in.

Approach, milestones and deliverables

The group will be divided in parts. One part will focus on creating the report and making suggestions and recommendations for implementation in the learning system. The other part will focus on building the learning system.

The team will first create a minimal usable product, which implements all requirements of the user. After this milestone is reached, the system will be tested and suggestions for improvement will be made. These will be implemented in the second (final) phase, which forms our second milestone.

The team sets out to create three deliverables:

• A report detailing our findings on the application of flow theory in education, and recommendations for applying this knowledge in new services and devices.
• A working prototype; a personal assistant or learning system which enables personalised learning.
• A presentation in which the aforementioned report is discussed and the prototype is presented.

Who does what?

In general group 8 works in a shared google drive folder (see important links). Our planning is specified in a seperate file in the google drive folder. This planning document specifies for each task who is responsible and the required timeframe in which the tasks need to be completed. The are also some reoccurring tasks that are assigned to a group member. Please note that this wiki will be updated weekly to reflect the final state of the google drive folder 18 hours before the weekly meeting.

• E-mail (responsible for e-mail contact with lecturers): Wouter
• Wiki updater (responsible for updating the wiki on time): Mitchell
• Secretary (responsible for taking notes of feedback sessions): Nikki

References

1. Kan, A.R. & Eekelen, I. van (2017, November 29). Lerarentekort urgenter dan ooit [Shortage of teachers more urgent than ever]. NRC. Retrieved from https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2017/11/30/lerarentekort-urgenter-dan-ooit-a1583070
2. Papay, J.P., Bacher-Hicks, A., Page, L.C., Marinell, W.H. (2018, January 9) America’s teacher shortage can’t be solved by hiring more unqualified teachers. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/01/09/americas-teacher-shortage-cant-be-solved-by-hiring-more-unqualified-teachers/?utm_term=.7ec98bd8787e
3. Syal, R. (2018, January 30). Teacher shortage leaves English schools in crisis, watchdog says. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jan/31/teacher-shortage-leaves-english-schools-in-crisis-watchdog-says