EdTech Creative Educators Challenge (EC)2

Edimpact’s (EC)2 empowers regional educators to teach creativity and creatively fusing ed-tech, school-based curriculum, 21st-century learning, teaching, and assessment.

Studies have shown that many ASEAN countries' K12 education systems lack a coherent or formalised approach to teach 21st-century competencies. 

EdTech Creative Educators Challenge (EC)2 overarching goal is to build a regional professional development network by systematically enhancing educators' capabilities and deepening their professional capital (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012). Our edtech curriculum innovation brings together school-based curriculum design fused with 21st-century learning, teaching, and assessment as a form of transdisciplinary learning approach with ICT mediated processes.

(EC)2 encompasses two segments. The first begins with teacher training through five modules and small projects to help teachers acquire strategies through differentiated learning and using various ICT tools to teach creatively and to teach creativity. Through Edimpact's transdisciplinary learning design methodology, teachers will embark on a self-directed exploration of concepts or problems, tapping on perspectives of multiple disciplines for meaning-making, making connections to new knowledge with real-life experiences, and learning a disciplined yet flexible approach with ICT tools. Segment one also involves a portfolio assessment component for educators to learn at their own pace, identify and reflect gaps in their own classrooms, and authentically apply ed-tech strategies.

The second involves project learning with team members across the different countries where they will work as a professional learning community to prototype a creative curriculum package mentored by Curriculum Mentors. Following this, the top three teams will be featured and awarded prizes including a paid study trip to attend Singapore’s National Institute of Education’s Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference in 2022 (https://conference.nie.edu.sg/2021/) for the winning team.

In the context of the countries listed, the delivery of quality STEM, learning of 21st-century skills, and assessment of digital literacy in classrooms are problematic. While different education ministries and policymakers may attempt to alleviate this, the core issue lies in the fact that most of these implementations tend to be on a superficial level, where the curriculum is taught top-down with lessons designed with programming (e.g. coding) or/and technical skills, and in silos. 

Despite the above, students still lack problem-finding and problem-solving skills, in understanding how the skills might enhance their own interests, passions or fit a certain contextual challenge or in understanding how the skills are used in the real world. Thus, by going through educators first, Edimpact’s (EC)2  targets educators themselves to lead the way, at their own comfort levels with cross-functional diverse teams across the region. This in turn develops reflective teachers. Cognisant of the regionalized growth in this area of pedagogy, and as a whole make a large-scale impact on the system so that it can enable the cultural shifts in mindsets within education systems that are compatible with the holistic development of students in navigating their self-directed use of technology and its associated skills. 

Similarly, there is an urgent imperative to build the capacity of these educators, and by undergoing and in turn modeling learning processes akin to that of their students, they will grow to master the intricacies of the digital classroom in lieu of physical classrooms in the post-pandemic world.

John was one of the researchers who researched teachers' Professional Learning Communities in Vietnam. Additionally, he has worked with teachers and policymakers and given keynotes in Cambodia (2021), Philippines (2020) and Indonesia (2018). We thus understand that the needs of the target population are usually underserved since there is no systematic way of understanding teachers’ professional learning needs, with lower budgets and resources especially in the area of creative teaching where the impetus is lacking. 

 Edimpact’s (EC)2 will empower teachers across the region, to enable the teachers themselves to take ownership in their own teaching and learning products and shift education systems towards systems that are no longer about top-down creativity programmes, compatible with students’ readiness, apt edtech tools and self-directedness.

The first step therefore, begins with understanding the learning in segment one of (EC)2, to be cognizant that technology is not used for technology’s sake, but instead to further curriculum development with technology in mind, and with students’ learning at the forefront. Next, the resources they have created for regional sharing in segment two will situate curriculum gaps and creative exploration of lesson ideas across the countries and this inspires and empowers a generation of teachers/teacher-leaders. This in turn will enable these educators to take on an activist role to shape their own communities of educators and learners in the long run, creating networks with teaching for transferrable design skills that are perpetuated further from support of school leaders and policymakers, the programme and other teachers.

Edimpact’s (EC)2 seeks to alleviate underserved learners by targeting and engaging the educators to create a generational, and regional change for education with the educators purposefully designing, enacting, and reflecting on the effects of their edtech curriculum solutions. 

Through segment 1 of (EC)2, teachers will acquire knowledge and application of a baseline of edtech strategies and skills which not only guides the design of the curriculum but also offers a formative assessment dimension to creativity. While charting and offering a diagnostic and visual way to capture an individual's growth in creative abilities over time, the baseline also assists teachers in identifying dimensions of creativity and a planning guide to developing and preparing for authentic learning or assessment. 

In segment 2, educators will identify authentic problems in their classrooms. concept-based learning to be able to identify the themes for them to creatively ideate, unpack process knowledge and skills needed to solve the problem, More importantly, they are able to bring their own experiences and cultural perspectives to address the challenge. Creativity is then 'designed' through the application of ICT tools to bring about novelty in the learning process and experience innovativeness of teaching ideas. This enables educators to inspire others and their package can be shared. The pride and competition in the creation of such work also nurture educators as curriculum leaders as they mentor or support their teachers in their countries. More importantly, (EC)2 can become self-sustainable when they are motivated to speak boldly about their experience and are forthcoming in mentoring others.

An experienced school leader and curriculum specialist, John is the Ruth Noller Research Grant Award recipient and is an ASEAN development Bank consultant for education.

Whenever it comes to EdTech, it is not about the technology itself but the purpose of why we use the ICT elements. In our contemporary world, technology may be the fastest way to exchange ideas (even in countries with lower levels of technological development), but what is the game changer is the culture of designing for an uncertain future leveraging EdTech which CEC will build. This will keep teachers in the region in sync with the growing body of knowledge both in the disciplines of their subject areas and/ or creative education (Guskey, 2000) and in technological pedagogical content knowledge (Herring, Koehler, Mishra, Rosenberg, & Teske, 2016). 

This change in culture towards EdTech is imperative in pushing educators away from groupthink and the traditional means of education and approaching education. During both segments of (EC)2, the intentional grouping across different countries and working with diverse profiles will extend the cognitive capacity of each team, particularly with the use of Emergenetics profiling instrument to extend that. In addition, with the Challenge rewards, the learning across teams is enhanced with a sense of accomplishment that has a greater influence on their own professional learning needs and to open up more perspectives to let educators ponder about what they can do, with what they have (especially free-to-use EdRech tools) to contextualise 21st-Century real-world learning possible for their students.

The extended learning and exploration of the Curriculum Innovation Challenge will adopt the Lesson Study Learning Community approach where we are clear on the design of how to heighten professional learning amongst teachers.

Since 2018, Edimpact has been working with various learning institutes, corporations and governments through our signature training programmes, and so we are cognisant of the differentiated learning needs of our clients. In particular, we have worked extensively with educators in this region coaching them on transdisciplinary learning and gaining a better understanding of their profiles, and the varying sociocultural factors to ensure effective implementation.

Similarly, we have ventured into the use of various Edtech tools and how to use them effectively for specific learning situations. Vis-a-vis our active professional training and research work, we have developed our frameworks for professional development and baseline approaches in a way that we know works from the educators’ perspective to the learners’. In addition, having designed creative learning curriculums on a macro scale, we are confident that our solution can lead to concrete changes within the different layers of education. (Please click on the above links for past work)

Unlike other EdTech solutions, we are not looking at patenting or licensing as a revenue model and charging a premium. The core technology that powers this solution lies in the (EC)2 baseline standard of EdTech solutions which are either free or paid, and can be applied directly to assist the creative learning purposes, stages, and processes of Creative Problem Solving (Thinking Skills Model). The technology used also builds on Torrance’s Incubation Model that we have adopted to support creative teachingfor teachers.  

Furthermore, the solution shifts from a linear application of ICT tools, but instead the Creativity baseline standards propose a taxonomy of Edtech strategies to incorporate affective aspects of creative facilitation in the classroom. For example, instead of merely getting students to showcase visually their ideas with Prezi or Storyboards, we propose tools such as Rojak.com to foster competitive creative brainstorming with idea support, divergent thinking heightens a sense of playfulness and risk-taking (Ekvall, 1990).

This baseline standard of EdTech solutions through (EC)2 provides a process map with ICT toolkits to guide teachers’ selection of relevant and appropriate tools to help students learn in a differentiated manner. This means, technology serves as an enabler, which facilitates the learning of creative content as well as the fostering of creative problem finding and solving skills. This adoption is then enhanced in segment 2, where the educators’ collaborative use of the baseline standards, sharing and learning collectively will ensure richer and more comprehensive learning of their applications of the baseline.

Edimpact’s (EC)2 builds on the understanding of various theories, educational research and paradigms across the industry while making it contextualized and localised to the needs of the Octava Foundation’s targeted countries. 

In Segment 1, we build on the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge framework TPCK (Koehler & Mishra, 2006), which extends Shulman’s Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK). Through the various (EC)2 modules, we co-examine the learning needs of regional educators based on their learners’ needs directly in school before delving into our baseline standards which will guide their approaches and customisation of strategies and tools to situate their teaching and students’ learning of creative content and creative problem solving skills based on their student needs and readiness. 

Furthermore, educators will learn the distinctions between teaching creatively and teaching creativity (espoused through John’s research). This professional development aspect of (EC)2 is critical because teachers often get lost in translation and are unable to customize instructional materials with much flexibility. This is thus important to demonstrate and model how teachers can acquire a deeper understanding of TPCK which is augmented by the creation of portfolios and assessments to chart their developmental work. 

During segment 2, the creation of diverse teams and use of the baseline standards allow teams to harness complex ideas which enables richer and more comprehensive learning of the teaching content focus, active monitoring of resources and strategies, and the students’ creative learning needs, particularly in authentic contexts (espoused in John’s work on Authentic Assessment of Creativity). In addition, the Challenge itself creates emphasis on the eventual curriculum product (Koestler, 1964) since our baseline is infused into the design of our PD model, allowing teachers to leverage ICT tools to engender effectiveness of expression (Martinson & Seagoe, 1967); fluidity and freedom (Skager & Schultz, 1966); socially acceptable affects (Eichenberger, 1972); infection or understandability, expression in communication, and the ‘individual’s perception of himself and his relationship to the universe which surrounds him’ (Tolstoy, in Jahn, 1975). In the longer term, as educators bring on dynamic and real-world learning needs, (EC)2 similarly, dynamically caters to this and continually addresses them relevantly. 

The measurement of our impact goals will first and foremost come from the evaluation of the number of educators who partake in (EC)2, across all the schools and types of schools in various countries and states, and the audience size of educators and relevant stakeholders in the presentation of the artefacts and final submissions to the challenge. 

Another poignant indicator, would be ascertaining the depth of learning and clarity of educators in Segment 1 in their acquisition of skills and application of the baseline to enable themselves to take on ownership of their products. Since creativity has no boundaries, we would also evaluate how participants seek out resources themselves from their own schools, countries and beyond. In segment 2, the quality and depth of their application and quality of submissions will also inform us regarding the clarity and impact of their learning thus far. 

Following the challenge, a worthy indicator is to ascertain the growth of professional development across the schools and to chart its impact in developing educators across the countries on a larger scale. 

We also envision the alumni of (EC)2 growing professionally to become curriculum leaders or teachers of teachers, so their career progression is another indicator, as well as their sharing of these transferable design skills through opportunities later presented to them. One last way is to delve into the responses and support from school leaders, policymakers and stakeholders in encouraging continuous iterations of (EC)2 and other professional development programmes following the challenge. 

Edimpact's mission from 2018 has been edifying people by designing impact.

Our impact goals in the next year and beyond is based on the growing scalability of our programmes in terms of the number of programmes, cross-programme knowledge development, and how we work with educators from different countries.

In the coming years, we hope to conduct (EC)2 on a larger scale in terms of participants and reach, or even offer (EC)2 on a country level as well as harnessing the alumni from the programme in their own respective countries to grow as coaches of educators in their own nations to offer a localised yet regional perspective on education through their experiences. 

We envision an ASEAN wide (EC)2 programme that starts within the same country before progressing into a regional level and competition. (EC)2 thus can be both a regional event and a localised PD approach that scales through curriculum artefacts developed from ground up. As we grow, while offering expertise and coaching, we continue to group diverse educators across different countries based on their interest in topics, disciplines and goals psychometrically, enabling us to go beyond nationalities. 

Another aspect we hope to grow is to grow the collaborative platform which the educators partake in segment 2 by also designing similar cross-national collaborations for students in these countries in various programmes encouraging the learning of creativity and learning creatively as evident through our Malaysia-Japan ‘Dance as a Universal Language’ student sharings. This programme has recently extended even to Nepalese teachers and students.

Technology would definitely be one key challenge because in these countries, the rate of adoption and accessibility to the internet is uneven, and the use of technology might not be pervasive in various contexts or even states within these countries. However, this does not stop us from advocating alternatives, which is why (EC)2’s baseline is important with technology not as the primary focus but instead growing the necessary to kick start the cultural change needed in the region.

For financing, a barrier exists since Edimpact’s design and delivery of (EC)2 is manpower intensive, requiring the hiring of experts and credible trainers with a passion for teacher development. Furthermore, some of Edimpact’s ongoing programmes are pro-bono or underfunded and financing is affected by COVID19. The Cambodia Future-Oriented STEM programme is a case in point since delays arose from budgets transferred to the Ministry of Health. Furthermore, our experience and research have reflected that workshops that are too short are unsupportive of educators’ learning, and to maximise educators’ learning we will need to ensure that the number of modules and their length remains ideal (at least 3 hours, 5 modules). 

Lastly, we may need financial support or means to resolve any potential issues with the educators’ commitment to the programme, and while they need not pay(which we hope to get financing for through various means), participants will need to commit to the programme and resolve any salary matters should they miss any work or curriculum hours in school.

Edimpact was founded in 2018 with the mission of edifying people and designing impact. Our assurance is that we will unbox learning by delivering applied learning through experiential approaches to bring about deep understanding of concepts and the development of insights and new perspectives. We hold the key that makes every learning experience one which brings about authentic reflection, self-actualisation and expertise to drive learning onward and leverage on award winning research to develop metacognitive awareness and purposeful personal development strategies to ensure the design of the best solutions for clients and organisations. 

Our approach encompasses onsite workshops, webinars, learning needs diagnosis, applied learning modules, development plans and personalised or team-based coaching as well as customised learning journeys. Since our inception, we have worked with various schools in Singapore, educational ministries or institutes abroad, and various corporations such as 3M, Singapore’s Ministry of Defence, Motorola and more. 

Edimpact as a training and consultancy firm has three wings in terms of work with corporations, work with various learning institutes and teachers in Singapore and work with overseas countries to uplift their education systems. Our greatest motivation is to engender real changes in education systems globally, and to edify those in greater need in order to leave a generational impact on them, and the world at large. It is in this spirit that we have conceptualised our (EC)2 solution and methodology.

The Edimpact solution team involves four full-time members of the training team, inclusive of our team lead, John Yeo, and two full-time administrative members. In addition to the full-time trainers being passionate experts in various educational fields, we also have an extensive team of highly-qualified part-time trainers in our roster.

The background of our team begins from Edimpact’s conceptualisation through John’s work in 2005 when he was heavily involved in the Ministry of Education Singapore’s Curriculum 2015 Task Force, and subsequently in Critical and Inventive Thinking Task Force. Through his research, awards, pioneering work as well as consultancy services, Edimpact grew with a stronger team of passionate educational experts cognizant of a more coherent and holistic approach to teaching digital literacy, 21st century skills and personalised learning.

Our framework and designs take on a heightened and more implementable approach to fuse the different domains in education to give and customise school’s teaching and learning needs as well as niche programmes. In the context of the targeted countries, this is imperative since it enables schools to better implement the teaching of Edtech and 21st century skills, and allow schools to revisit their curriculum approach, school-based curriculum design and enable room and space for teachers’ professional development.

Various learning institutes, teacher training institutes, government organisations or corporations in the region and beyond have worked with us in the past few years and our programmes have always been customised to their needs in order to ensure quality outcomes, inclusive of educator and learner needs. Our programmes are well-liked and implemented into both micro and macro structures of various organisations. 

Edimpact’s ‘Dance as a Universal Language’ programme which was recently initiated due to John’s interests in dancing and fitness. As a certified K-Kardio Dance instructor, the idea grew beyond him conducting public K-Kardio dance class but he wondered, how might dance as a way to inspire creative learning for K12 students. With sharing of his K-kardio dance on social media, it garnered interest with teachers from Malaysia in Feb 2021. However, in recognising the importance of teachers to buy-in on the idea and model the learning experience, Edimpact started teacher training to build teacher competencies and in turn these learning experiences, and sharing of experiences led to Japanese and Nepalese counterparts joining in the pilot for teachers training, to create collaborative learning experiences with teachers and students between various countries in Asia.

Edimpact partnered with the ASEAN Development Bank to provide consultancy for STEM development in conjunction with The Head Foundation since 2018. 

Currently, we consult for Cambodia’s Ministry of Education Youth and Sports for the Cambodia Future Oriented STEM programme, The Philippines Private Education Assistance Committee for consultancy for teachers in their school based curriculum, Ateneo University in the Philippines for transdisciplinary learning curriculum development. Edimpact also provides advisory and consultancy for lesson study learning community work with the Global Education and Training Institute in India. Within Singapore, we are engaged to work with schools on various STEM and Applied Learning Orogrammes as well as youth leadership programmes. We are presently partnered with Principals Academy Singapore to provide workshops for teachers and work with the National Institute of Education Singapore in various capacities for teacher education. 

Partnership with Octava and MIT Solve will definitely add value to our (EC)2 solution and scaling up of our educational programmes to the region and beyond. In addition to the funding from the challenge prize, we definitely will benefit from the needs assessment to ascertain how we can better accelerate our impact, and to reach out to bigger networks of partners, mentors and coaches.

We also believe that Edimpact’s mission aligns with Octava and MIT solve, which will enable us to extend our goals to edify people and design impact across the region and beyond to truly engender real changes in education systems globally, and to edify those in greater need in order to leave a generational impact on them, and the world at large. 

We hope to partner with Octava Foundation to extend the name and awareness of Edimpact’s programmes, as well as to make greater connections and network with other like-minded organisations or people. We also hope that we could, through this partnership, connect with people who can support administratively or as consultants in specific countries, or to better manage the (EC)2 programme on a larger scale as our vision entails. Lastly, we understand that the targeted countries might not be able to afford an extended (EC)2 programme and we do not wish to compromise its intent to be high quality and to create a sustainable change in the targeted countries and develop equitable and holistic education for all, which every single child deserves.