STEM Specialist Hannah Lakin and researcher Kate Kastelein will be virtually presenting lessons learned from their work on ACRES, which facilitates STEM facilitation professional development for out-of-school educators nationwide. Specifically, their presentation will focus on how to incorporate different artifacts of practice into the process of providing feedback for educators that is inclusive and useful. Let’s unpack that some more.
What’s an artifact?
An artifact in this context is something a teacher provides to show how they teach. An artifact could include videos, audio recordings, or documents like lesson plans. Artifacts are used to enable someone to evaluate a teacher’s teaching without needing to directly experience it. The different types of artifacts, however, can introduce challenges in providing feedback.
Overcoming Challenges
In their presentation, Hannah and Kate outline how to provide feedback on artifacts considering the challenges and opportunities inherent in each type. They also give an overview of various methods of engaging with participants in virtual settings, which adds another layer of complexity on top of evaluating artifacts.
Feedback Resource Booklet
As a companion to their presentation, Kate and Hannah are sharing a resource booklet that enables teachers to easily find ways to provide feedback on common artifact types. This guide includes both a quick reference chart as well as explainers on different types of video and audio artifacts, lesson plans, and activity brainstorms. View the guide here.
This blog post outlines some key points from an upcoming presentation hosted by the Association for Science Teacher Education taking place virtually on September 25, 2024, from 1-2:30 p.m. Eastern. If you’re a mentor to other educators or in a supervisory role in an afterschool program, and would like to join us, please sign up to register here: https://forms.gle/PjCkNQ6BbC1DxUJK7
