Module 3

3.1 Module 3 introduction

Did you find some of the reflections from participants in the Module 2 padlets and forum mentioned by Caroline interesting? Did you come across some of these yourselves when you were reading other participants’ comments? What is the most interesting comment or insight you have read or exchanged about so far with other participants (e.g. in the padlets, Facebook Group, forum, or Learning Diaries) which you consider to be useful for your reflections on self and peer assessment?

I found a lot of interesting reflections from colleagues all over Europe. It means that each of us, regardless of the country where we teach, face the same problems, not only about teaching but also about the way we learn about our teaching methods.

Reflecting about our learning is really the hardest task we have to accomplish!

3.2 The Teacher Mentor – Norway’s self-reflection tool

What do you think of having a self-reflection survey of this kind to help you track your technology-enhanced teaching competence? Is it useful? Do you have anything similar in your country? Or perhaps you are aware of different tools which have a similar aim? What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of such a tool?

I found this tool very useful, although I could do only the shorter demo version.

In Italy we do not have a similar tool, I just know (and use) the EPOSTL tool (http://archive.ecml.at/mtp2/fte/pdf/C3_Epostl_E.pdf), but it is intended to promote self reflection and assessment on other teaching topics (not directly related with ICT).

Nevertheless, thinking about our TET competence is extremely useful, not only for ourselves but also in order to "spread the word" in our teaching context.

3.3 A primary school teacher’s experience of using the Teacher Mentor

Gro Caroline mentions the importance of ICT for her work on cross-curricular projects with her pupils; do you agree and how have you used ICT to work on cross-curricular projects? She mentions that she thinks the Teacher Mentor survey can give teachers ideas and motivate them to keep working, and that similar surveys should be developed for all subject areas; what do you think? Finally, she says that she found it necessary and useful to discuss certain concepts in the survey with colleagues at school. Do you think it would be useful for you to do this with your colleagues?

In these last two years I have been working as pedagogical ICT trainer and I have had the chance to share ideas and esperiences with colleagues not only from my school but also from other educational contexts.

I think that working together on cross-curricular projects (for example, eTwinning projects) is one of the best ways of putting theory into practice.

3.4 Another teacher’s experience of using the Teacher Mentor

Anders mentions the fact that you can take the survey more than once as a big advantage of the tool as it allows you to look back on your progression and plan your next steps forward for further improvement. He also mentions that the graphics used to visually represent your survey results are helpful. Do you agree? What other advantages do you think this type of a self-reflection survey has? Anders mentions the fact that the feedback given by the survey however is a bit superficial and that more concrete examples would be useful. Do you think this is necessary also?

I think that the Teacher Mentor is useful to have a first idea of our TET practice. However, if we want to improve our TET skills, I think that we have to search for other resources and tips, as the suggestions offered by the tool are obviously quite generic (I think that they cannot be different like that)

3.5 The Greek B-Level Assessment Tool

What do you think of the assessment tool’s combination of multiple-choice questions and an open educational activity? Do you think this is a valid and reliable way of assessing a teacher’s competence? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the tool in your opinion? One weakness mentioned by Georgios is the fact that the tool is not available to anyone that would like to use it at the moment, as you have to go through the B-level training process first, and then take the survey for certification. Do you think it would be useful in the future to make it available to anybody? In this way it could act as not only a certification tool but also as a self-reflection tool for anybody interested in assessing their level of competence.

As we cannot see the tool, I cannot say wether it works properly or not. Nevertheless, I think that this way of assessing competences is very useful (although quite complex to put in practice on a wider level) because it combines automated and non-automated parts. The holistic approach is also a good idea, because it helps teachers to reflect about themselves and it does not only focus on multiple choice questions.

If it could available to every teacher it would be a great way to promote self reflection (if only all the teachers would do that...)

3.6 A teacher of 15-17 year-old students' experience of using the Greek B-Level Assessment Tool

Yianis comments that although some of the multiple-choice questions were about general educational theory concerning the effective use of ICT for pedagogical purposes, most of the questions tested teachers’ understanding of special educational software they had been trained to use and its suitability for teaching their specific subject. Do you think it would be useful to develop self-assessment tools which focus on how ICT can be pedagogically used for the teaching of specific subjects and competences? As you saw in the earlier videos, the Norwegian self-reflection tool has not been designed in this way, so this represents a different example worth exploring.

As I said before, not knowing the tool it is difficult to determine wether it is really useful or not.

What seems to me on a wider level is that it could be more useful a tool not intended to "certify" competences but a tool that helps teachers to reflect and improve their competences.

Of course, this means that teachers are all aware of the importance of such a way of learning ... and I do not think that they/we are ...