Teaching and Instructional Design Background
I have extensive professional experience in the areas of teaching and instructional design and development. I hold a valid Level VII Teaching Certificate with the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and I have been employed in the education sector since 2001. I am currently a sitting member of the Executive of the International Association for Mobile Learning (IAmLearn). I have served as the Leader, Online Learning with the Fraser Health Authority in Surrey, BC, Canada, as an Instructional Development Consultant with the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Burnaby, BC, and as an Adjunct Professor of Educational Technology with the Centre for Distance Education at Athabasca University (AU), Diploma in Educational Technology program at Cape Breton University, the Curriculum and Instructional Design program with Continuing Education at Mount Royal University (MRU), the Extended Education department at the University of Manitoba, and the Master of Education program at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT). Prior to that, I worked as an Instructional Developer with the Advanced Learning Technologies Center at College of the North Atlantic-Qatar (CNA-Q) in Doha, Qatar. In that capacity, I worked with subject matter experts from throughout the college to design and develop blended learning strategies and materials using CNA-Q’s Desire2Learn (D2L) learning management system. I have also served on a number of college committees, including the SEED Funding Adjudication Committee, and the Mobile Learning Subcommittee of the CNA-Q Strategic Planning Committee. Prior to my appointment with the Advanced Learning Technologies Center, I served as an instructor with the School of Information Technology at CNA-Q (September 2005 – October 2013). During my time with College of the North Atlantic-Qatar, I have served as the International Computer Driver’s License (ICDL) Center Coordinator, a position which enabled me to provide professional development training on educational information and communications technologies (ICTs) to over 200 CNA-Q faculty and staff. I have also frequently been involved with providing contract training professional development for Qatari teachers in partnership with The Supreme Education Council of Education for Information and Communications Technology, State of Qatar (ictQATAR). I personally designed and delivered a professional development train-the-trainer course on Interactive Whiteboard pedagogy for teachers and administrators from Qatari K12 schools. I have also been involved in program development for ictQATAR’s Digital Inclusion for Women project, including the development and delivery of that program’s train-the-trainer workshop course. I have also worked as an English Language Arts and Technology teacher, and a Learning Resources Coordinator, in the K12 sector in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
My current teaching interests focus on the theoretical and practical foundations of effective integration of technology into teaching and learning practice, including:
My current teaching interests focus on the theoretical and practical foundations of effective integration of technology into teaching and learning practice, including:
- Issues, trends, and barriers to educational technology integration
- Leadership and educational technology
- Learning theories and educational technology
- Instructional design models and frameworks for educational technology integration
- Promotion of lifelong learning
- Educational technology and accessibility issues
- Mobile technology integration in teaching and learning
Teaching Philosophy
My personal teaching philosophy can be summarized along three primary strands: leadership, learning design, and accessibility.
I believe that, as teachers, we should be leaders in our classrooms (whether they be physical, virtual, or blended). We should not serve as dictators of the learning process. Rather, we should lead our students as fellow learners ourselves. We should lead by example, demonstrating our love of learning, and our continual quest to be lifelong learners. And we should follow the principles of Leader-Member Exchange theory (LMX) when interacting with our students. We are leaders of a learning team with our students, and we should show them that we value them as participatory team members. LMX tells us that our team members are more likely to identify themselves as part of a larger community – and to strive to contribute to that community over and above minimal required standards – if we show them that we value them as members of our trusted inner circles (Power, 2013b). LMX also tells us that our team members are more likely to collaborate with each other – increased “co-worker exchange” – if they feel a strong LMX connection with their team leaders.
My philosophy on learning design can be summed up in the work that I have been doing with the Collaborative Situated Active Mobile (CSAM) learning design framework (Power, 2013a, 2015; Power, Cristol & Gimbert, 2014). I believe in facilitating learners not just by providing them with the right tools, but by enabling them to determine their own learning needs and what tools would be most effective in their individual contexts. The CSAM learning design framework reflects this philosophy, as the framework itself is not focused on any specific technology. Rather, it is focused on the contexts in which learners use learning technologies to facilitate collaboration, immersion in personally meaningful learning contexts, and engagement in active learning processes. While the CSAM learning design framework is a tool to help educators and instructional designers to focus on effective instructional design, it is also a tool to help shift learning design towards more learner-centric, heutagogical approaches.
I believe that, as teachers, we should be leaders in our classrooms (whether they be physical, virtual, or blended). We should not serve as dictators of the learning process. Rather, we should lead our students as fellow learners ourselves. We should lead by example, demonstrating our love of learning, and our continual quest to be lifelong learners. And we should follow the principles of Leader-Member Exchange theory (LMX) when interacting with our students. We are leaders of a learning team with our students, and we should show them that we value them as participatory team members. LMX tells us that our team members are more likely to identify themselves as part of a larger community – and to strive to contribute to that community over and above minimal required standards – if we show them that we value them as members of our trusted inner circles (Power, 2013b). LMX also tells us that our team members are more likely to collaborate with each other – increased “co-worker exchange” – if they feel a strong LMX connection with their team leaders.
My philosophy on learning design can be summed up in the work that I have been doing with the Collaborative Situated Active Mobile (CSAM) learning design framework (Power, 2013a, 2015; Power, Cristol & Gimbert, 2014). I believe in facilitating learners not just by providing them with the right tools, but by enabling them to determine their own learning needs and what tools would be most effective in their individual contexts. The CSAM learning design framework reflects this philosophy, as the framework itself is not focused on any specific technology. Rather, it is focused on the contexts in which learners use learning technologies to facilitate collaboration, immersion in personally meaningful learning contexts, and engagement in active learning processes. While the CSAM learning design framework is a tool to help educators and instructional designers to focus on effective instructional design, it is also a tool to help shift learning design towards more learner-centric, heutagogical approaches.
The CSAM Framework
As teachers, I believe that we should strive to make learning as accessible as possible. That does not mean making the learning process less challenging for students. But, it does mean making it easier to access learning opportunities and resources. The aspect of situated learning espoused by CSAM is one factor in increasing accessibility, because students are more likely to feel a personal connection to a learning experience if it is contextualized and personally relevant (Power, 2013a, 2015; Power et al., 2014). Another factor in increasing the accessibility of learning opportunities is leveraging appropriate technologies to mediate the learning experience. The right mix of technologies can permit potential learners, who might otherwise be excluded due to the limitations of time and geography, to join in on a learning opportunity. Our decisions about technology integration should be grounded both in the needs of our target students, and in the actual enhancement of students’ abilities to meet specified learning objectives. Of course, with the integration of technologies comes responsibilities for the teacher to make sure some potential learners are not inadvertently excluded. That means that we, as teachers, should constantly strive to ensure our learning materials meet accessibility standards such as those specified by the W3 Consortium (W3C, 2015).
| Statement of Teaching Philosophy (Robert Power, EdD).pdf |