seminar
Innovation Around the World: Year 1 Evaluation Results from the Microsoft Innovative Schools Program
Event related reference resources:http://www.cite.hku.hk/events/doc/2009/linda_shear.pdf
Description:
In 2007 Microsoft launched the worldwide Innovative Schools program. The goal of this program is to “share the lessons learned from Microsoft® School of the Future initiatives and other Partners in Learning programs and set up locally appropriate Innovative School models in 12 locations around the world”. Hong Kong is one of the locations.
The schools and countries in this program have very different educational contexts and different starting points, but they all share the goal of transforming teaching and learning to prepare students for the 21st century. The evaluation of this program is a collaboration between a global evaluator (SRI International) and eleven national evaluators such as CITE, The University of Hong Kong. This distributed evaluation features innovative methods such as the analysis of the assignments teachers give and the work students do in response as a way of analyzing instruction across diverse educational settings. This presentation will describe the Innovative Schools Program, the methods used in the evaluation of students’ 21st century skills and school innovation, and results from the first year of the initiative.
About the speaker(s):
Linda Shear is a Senior Learning Consultant in the Center for Technology and Learning at SRI International, a non-profit research institute in California, USA. She directs the global evaluations of Microsoft’s Innovative Schools and Partners in Learning Programs, and works with many other companies and foundations as an evaluator and consultant, helping them to understand and maximize the effectiveness of their technology-related educational programs. Ms. Shear holds a Masters in Education from the University of California at Berkeley.