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A New Vision for Higher Ed in Thailand

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Innovative Teaching Scholars Program Helps Thai Professors Unlock the Power of Student-Centric Learning

by LaRissa Lawrie, University Innovation Fellow
Wichita State University ’19; University of Missouri, PhD student

Thai professors are reimagining university education. They are on a mission to empower their students to be creative and purposeful leaders in an innovation-based economy. National technological and education strategies, like Thailand 4.0, are creating industrial and digital transformations in Thailand. 

The Innovative Teaching Scholars (ITS) program helps educators explore new ways of teaching in order to equip students with 21st century skills for the economy of the future. The first cohort of ITS scholars received training in pedagogy from Stanford University from September 2020 through June 2021. The inaugural class of 50 professors have generated activities that are already giving their students new opportunities like practicing deep listening and improving their problem finding skills.

The ITS program is run by the Stanford Center for Professional Development (SCPD) and the University Innovation Fellows (UIF) program of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). The Stanford Thailand Research Consortium (STRC) supports the program at no cost to participating Scholars or their universities. The UIF team designed and created the ITS program based on the Teaching and Learning Studio workshop series.  

The scholars point to “the future” as part of an activity exploring ambiguity

A member of the teaching team, Leticia Britos Cavagnaro Ph.D., who co-directs the University Innovation Fellows Program, emphasized that the ITS program is learner-focused. “The program is designed around helping the cohort of scholars develop and grow as a ‘Community of Practice’ around teaching and learning,” said Cavagnaro. “Participants do deep dives into six pedagogical levers and explore how each lever can be activated to create new learning experiences or modify existing ones. The goal is for participants to become a reference and resource for other educators.“

There were two stages of the program. The first stage of the program was a fully interactive, “minds-on” experience. Scholars attend 9 weeks of virtual training, workshops, and activities. They had access to dedicated coaching in small groups and completed self-paced pedagogical experiments to improve their own courses. Stage one culminated in an open house where participants shared their projects with other educators, as well as university and industry leaders. Some examples of projects include spaces for creative teaching and learning, real-world challenges to engage students, and faculty professional development opportunities. 

The second stage focused on building a community of practice through deepening their connections with one another and their expertise as innovative educators. During the second stage, scholars met as a cohort and in small peer groups with the dedicated support of a coach from Stanford. Scholars shared goals for their teaching and community. They also worked with fellow colleagues to overcome challenges in their teaching practice. Examples of this community of practice can be seen in scholars’ articles on Medium.  

Timeline of the program activities (click to view larger)

A unique aspect of the ITS program is the research component. In tandem with the teaching team, the program also has a research team that measures and analyses whether the program is meeting its goals. Preliminary analyses show that the program has had a positive impact. The majority of the ITS scholars felt that the program met or exceeded their expectations. Many noted that their views of teaching became much more focused on learners. 

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many courses were moved online. The ITS program provided scholars with coaching through the transitions from in-person to remote teaching and strategies for creating successful remote learning experiences. One idea being “ambidextrous teaching,” the ability to teach a high-quality engaging class both in-person and online.

ITS scholar, Warinya Chemnasiri Ph.D., the Program Director in Integrated Innovation at the Chulalongkorn School of Integrated Innovation, is focused on giving her students hands-on opportunities even with online teaching. Chemnasiri developed a module on Nearpod that walked her students through the experimental process of creating an alternative meat from insects. The students all remotely followed the Nearpod module synchronously in their own homes while Chemnasiri was available to answer any questions. “I tried to find a way to let students experience and learn hands-on, even when they are at home and not in class,” said Chemnasiri. 

Scholar Warinya Chemnasiri shared her food-based class as a news article during an ITS program activity

“When I joined the program at the beginning my expectation was for there to be some workshops and I’ll learn a few things. I didn’t know we were really going to dig deep; I didn’t know that there would be tools, concepts, the dashboard – it’s really interactive,” Chemnasiri said. “I saw and heard a lot about the new way of teaching but when I got to experience it for myself, it’s really incredible.” 

The program helped scholars investigate the “why” behind their course to prepare them to continue teaching regardless of the structure. Scholars also focused on developing curricula and content around their “North Star” or aspirational objective for their learners. 

Another scholar, Warapark Maitreephun Ph.D. focused on active over passive learning as a method and the socioeconomic implications. He helps run the Prince of Songkla University’s Principal Preparation program where teachers train to become administrators (principals) in primary schools mainly in rural areas of Thailand. 

Students build and launch paper airplanes during a class with scholar Warapark Maitreephun.

Maitreephun implemented a project based on the Emoto Peace project that seeks to actively teach educators about positive communication. “If I teach a principal to use a new piece of technology and then that principal promotes that technology to teachers then it reduces the gap between students from rural areas and city areas,” Maitreephun said. “That’s why I’m interested in the ‘how’ I teach and improving the way I teach prospective school leaders.” 

“What I teach will impact the school, school leaders, the students and their worlds,” Maitreephun said. “I want to pass the opportunity of the ITS program on to my students and their students and on.”

LaRissa Lawrie is a freelance journalist and writer. She’s currently getting her Ph.D. in Journalism at the Missouri School of Journalism. LaRissa is a Spring 2016 University Innovation Fellow and a 2019 Venture for America Fellow. Follow her on Twitter: @lawriecreative.

Understanding Student Perspectives

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The pilot of the Shadow a Student Higher Ed Challenge will take place April 20-27, 2017.

Credit Patrick Beaudouin

In the University Innovation Fellows program, empathy is a big part of our daily practice. One of our core values is the emphasis on learning and understanding the experiences, challenges and joys of others so we can solve our world’s problems. Gaining empathy is essential for us as we work with Fellows and faculty colleagues to create change in higher education.

Last year, we learned about the Shadow a Student Challenge, run by School Retool, another d.school program. We were inspired by this broad-reaching exercise in empathy that asked K-12 teachers, principals and administrators to shadow a student at their school for one day. The challenge is simple but impactful.

As educators, it’s important to continuously connect with the students at our schools. This is how we can adapt our classes, culture and spaces to better fit their needs. There’s no better way to practice empathy than by putting ourselves literally in the shoes of our students. More than 2,500 educators have done just that over the last two years as part of the K-12 challenge (check out their insights on Twitter at #shadowastudent).

We wondered, with all this enthusiasm for the K-12 challenge, what this challenge would look like in higher education. What would college and university leaders learn from spending a day in the life of a student at their institution?

Well, we’re going to find out together. We’re excited to announce the Shadow a Student Higher Ed Challenge, a small higher education pilot of the K-12 challenge in collaboration with the School Retool program. In true d.school form, we’re testing out this idea to see what works, what doesn’t, and what our shadowers learn from their experiences.

For this pilot, we’re working with teams of administrators, faculty and staff from several institutions: Boise State University, Clemson University, Stanford University, Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología in Peru, University of Maryland, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

From April 20 (National High Five Day!) through April 27, we’re challenging leaders at these schools to pick a day, shadow one of their students for the day, and share their insights on Twitter at #shadowacollegestudent. We invite you to follow along, ask questions and share what this community is learning.

Read more about the challenge at universityinnovationfellows.org/shadow-student-higher-ed-challenge.

Why Student Voice Means More Than Choice

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Image Credit: asylsun / Shutterstock

Originally posted on edsurge.com, April 7, 2016

Back in high school, I always dreamt about the freedom that college life would bring. I would make my own decisions, 24/7. Sure enough, when I got to college, I was free—free to choose my major, how I spent my time and how I wanted to live my life.

It was as thrilling as I had imagined, yet I felt suppressed. I ran into the same problem from high school: I still didn’t have any say in the choices made about my education. These decisions about my learning happened without me.

Giving students more “choice” doesn’t guarantee a stronger student “voice.” This second piece is about having more authentic choice—choice about the things that matter.

Student voice is about having more authentic choice—choice about the things that matter.

Students like me have the illusion of voice and choice. We have “student leadership” that is really just a popularity contest. We run “student governments” that really just plan parties. We share our “student feedback” on sites like RateMyProfessor.com that really just indicate how easy it was to get the grade.

We’ve gone from high school, where we couldn’t even choose when we went to the bathroom, to college, where we’re expected to decide everything for ourselves, all the time. In some ways, the overabundance of choices exhausts our willpower, sapping our energy away from matters of greater significance.

Choice is everywhere, but we’re still disenfranchised when it comes to what matters most about our education and our lives. Here are a few examples:

  • The emphasis placed on grades creates an academic bubble: we’re judged by how we choose to live in that bubble, not by the decisions we make in the real-world.
  • We don’t have a say in what happens in the classroom: the professor has full control.
  • We don’t have any input in curricular matters: we’re told the graduation requirements are what they are.

This isn’t always the case, and it doesn’t have to be the norm. I’ve found pockets of hope and inspiration through several student-driven programs I have participated in that offer authentic agency around the things that matter.

  • Across the street from UVA’s famous Rotunda lies a student-run experiential education organization called HackCville. HackCville runs semester-long programs that include a student-designed curriculum, a personal alumni mentor in a field of your interest, hands-on projects and more. One program to emerge from HackCville is Rethink, an experiential “class” taught by and for students—check out the syllabus here.
  • Co-create UVA is an initiative that promotes student-faculty partnerships in teaching and learning. Co-create UVA offers paid consulting for trained students to use their experience as students to advise faculty on how to improve their teaching. For example, Co-create UVA hosted a student-faculty luncheon at UVA’s New Faculty Orientation, in which new faculty members directly conversed with UVA students about their experience at UVA to better understand the student perspective.
  • Student-initiated innovation classes and workshops are popping up across the country through the national network of University Innovation Fellows. Student leaders in this program have developed “pop-up classes” to test out new ways of teaching entrepreneurship and innovation. University Innovation Fellows at James Madison University have hosted pop-up classes on glass blowing, 3D printing, welding and more.

These examples place students at the center of their own learning and at the helm of their own life. That’s what I see as the future of higher education.

KeatonWadzinksiKeaton Wadzinski (@Kwadzki) is a third year at the University of Virginia studying Youth and Social Innovation with a minor in Social Entrepreneurship.

He became University Innovation Fellow in the fall of 2015.

Change Agents Activated

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Students take the lead in the evolution of higher education at the University Innovation Fellows 2015 Annual Meetup. Originally posted via Epicenter. 

by Laurie Moore

At 8:00 pm on Saturday, February 21, the second day of the University Innovation Fellows 2015 Annual Meetup was drawing to a close. Nearly 160 Fellows from across the U.S. had just participated in a 12-hour day of activities at Stanford University, including a one-hour movement workshop, a self-guided tour of campus to discover innovation spaces, and a four-hour, five-session circuit of experiential activities.

They should have been tired.

Instead, they sang karaoke together. They danced. They played basketball outside in the warm (to the East Coasters) evening air. They made s’mores around a fire pit and told their favorite stories from the day. They took selfies and gathered in small groups to learn more about one another and their schools. When the buses came at 9:30 pm to take the students back to their hotels, they demanded one final karaoke song, and then another.

It was hard to believe that these University Innovation Fellows met for the first time as a community only 48 hours earlier.

The University Innovation Fellows program, run by Epicenter, offers training and support for students to become change agents at their schools. Through the training and ongoing support, Fellows learn to navigate their campus landscapes and create offerings that hone peers’ entrepreneurial mindsets and instill creative confidence.

Fellows on the last day of the Annual Meetup at Stanford's d.school.

Fellows on the last day of the Annual Meetup at Stanford’s d.school.

While many Fellows had met online during their intense 6-week video-conference-based training, the Annual Meetup allowed them to connect in person for the first time. Together, they had the opportunity to share experiences and insights from their schools, collaborate on new strategies for change in education, understand their role in this national movement, and learn from leaders in higher education and industry.

The Fellows at the 2015 Meetup were from two cohorts trained in Fall 2014 and Spring 2015. Also in attendance were 12 of the Fellows’ faculty sponsors, who who were invited to attend and participate alongside students as partners in achieving institutional change.

The Meetup was organized by the University Innovation Fellows program staff at Epicenter: Leticia Britos Cavagnaro, Humera Fasihuddin, Katie Dzugan and Laurie Moore. Eight Fellows assisted with the design and facilitation of the event and hosted several sessions: Atin Mittra, Meenu Singh and Valerie Sherry from the University of Maryland, College Park; Greg Wilson from the University of Georgia; Ryan Phillips from the University of Oklahoma; Bre Przestrzelski from Clemson University; Ben Riddle from Furman University; and new Fellow Bradley Dice from William Jewell College.

AletaSession2015

Rhythm of a Movement

 

 

 

 

 

The event spanned three days. The first day at Google was hosted by Frederik Pferdt, head of Innovation and Creativity Programs at Google. Activities included an inside look into Google X with Amanda Kelly, a design challenge in teams, a panel discussion with representatives from People Development at Google, a spaces tour, and a talk on Google for Entrepreneurs with Daniel Navarro.

The second and third days of the Meetup took place at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). Sessions on Saturday included a leadership through movement session with Stanford Dance and Performance Arts instructor Aleta Hayes, an exploration of Stanford innovation spaces, a talk with Olga Dotter from Citrix on the intersection of lean startup and design thinking, a circuit of five experiential activities, and a workshop to help students create and facilitate similar activities at their schools.

Sunday activities included a panel with educators and students on new models of education, examples of campus initiatives from current Fellows, and a workshop on how students can accelerate change in higher education. Several special guests stopped by the meetup, including Stanford alumnus and violinist Kai Kight and author and entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki.

Surprise guest: Kai Kight

Surprise guest: Kai Kight

At the end of the event, Fellows shared their insights from the event in the form of sticky note “bumper stickers” which they placed on a life-size, hand-painted University Innovation Fellows Volkswagen van. Examples included “Never give up,” “Think, Do, Fail, Learn,” “Innovation or Bust,” and “Be the change.”

After the three-day event ended, Fellows returned to their campuses. Their charge: to be the change they want to see in higher education.

Fellows Bus after creating bumper stickers.

Fellows Bus after creating bumper stickers.

More 2015 Annual Meetup materials and articles:

Talking With America’s Future: Removing Barriers, by Shawn Drury http://bluenationreview.com/talking-americas-future-removing-barriers/

Event photo gallery: https://www.flickr.com/photos/epicenterusa/sets/72157650907065066/

Meet the changemakers: map of student attendees at the University Innovation Fellows Annual Meetup 2015: http://prezi.com/ahoz-sfvstdd/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share