During my time in the MEITE program, I had the privilege of working with Dr. Kelly Ryoo, a renowned researcher and professor in the field of design thinking and technology design for science education, on the Iterative Design to Engage All (IDEA) Learners Institute. we created and presented professional development for educators across North Carolina with the following mission: “Using emerging PFAS research as a foundation, the IDEA Learners program will build the capacity of STEM teachers to engage ALL learners and cultivate a diverse biomedical workforce” (IDEA Learners Website). To prepare the professional development, we conducted interviews with the teachers we would be working with in the institute. This allowed us to gauge our participants’ prior knowledge on the topics to be presented, better understand their needs and the needs of their students, and tailor our sessions in a format that most appealed them. In this way we were able to empathize with our participants and curate a learner-centered professional development program that most suited them and created an ideal learning environment for innovation. As a team, we worked on many iterations of these interview questions and the professional development as a whole. These iterations continued as we received feedback from participants throughout their time in the institute.
I encourage you to explore the IDEA Learners website to learn more about this professional development program, its current progress, and the design team teachers who I worked with during the program.
Iterative Design to Engage All (IDEA) Learners Institute Website
Below you will find a link the final version of the questions that we asked during our interviews.
IDEA Teacher Interview Questions