RTT/Goals

Goals

Understand the landscape of RTT programs and the variety of reasons they are used.

• I want to know the variety of different groups that are benefiting by turning people from other backgrounds quickly into teachers.
• I would like to interview people from a variety of types of programs, and ideally the best programs of every type. The more I know about what exists, the more options I have.
• I want to know why people choose to enter these programs and what they expect to get out of them.

Gain a deep understanding of the core components of a small number of good RTT programs.

• I would like to compare the core parts of a few programs. A meaningful analysis requires an understanding of the materials and student experience of the program.
• I would like to outline a process for building a new program by repackaging the most relevant parts of a variety of programs. In order to do this, I will need to understand how the strengths of different programs complement each other and which context they best apply to.

Form a process to critically analyze RTT programs

• In order to effectively compare the programs, I need criteria to evaluate the aspects of each program. Some criteria exist in literature, but others will need to be created to reflect the target audience of the program (primarily Olin students).

Help other Olin students, this year and beyond, learn the critical skills of teaching that will better prepare them to be effective teachers in jobs and volunteer positions.

• Many Olin students are interested in volunteering as teachers, especially with the student-led Engineering Discovery program on campus. However, most of these students are not well equipped, beyond natural ability, to effectively manage a tough class or prepare a detailed lesson plan. I want to change this.
• Olin students are being educated in a unique environment, and as a group, hold non-traditional views on how schools should operate. If Oliners can succeed early as volunteer teachers, I believe that they are more likely to stay in education, a field in desperate need of change makers.

Help other organizations create an RTT program quickly and easily to help produce a greater number of effective young teachers coming from a variety of fields.

• While Olin students could benefit education, so could young people from a wide variety of backgrounds, not just a traditional teacher education experience. If more materials are available as a starting point for organizations creating programs like this, it will only make it easier to bring more backgrounds and energy into classrooms.
• In order to help other organizations, I will need to openly share my plans and deliverables online. I am excited to try using a wiki to keep a large project organized, public, and open to continuous feedback. Ideally, the people I engage in feedback will be able to also benefit from the output.
• I do not intend to compromise my intended output for Olin students by generalizing it to all possible audiences. Instead, I want to provide clear indications that certain content is tailored to Oliners so that other people know where to fill in more generalized content or differentiate it for their own target audience in the future.

Learn how to engage a community of collaborators around a project I am passionate about by using internet technologies.

• To achieve the prior goal, I will need help. Everything from expert critique to link-finding to the generation of new open materials for the course can be contributed from other people. I will need to go out of my way to look for good collaborators and give them meaningful tasks they can complete to help the project.
• To make the project maximally useful and get the most done, I will need to look for other organizations who can directly benefit from my project. The people who need this most are the ones who are most likely to help in the development of the project.