TEAL+ Experience

Educational technology has enormous potential. But if you simply re-create a traditional classroom environment with iPad in the classroom, you and your students are missing out.

In this JNUC session, educators and Jamfs worked together to explain what they’ve learned in their work through the Matter Innovation Hubs across the globe. Educators need a purposeful and deliberate approach to integrating educational technology to support a shift toward student-centered instructional practices and transformational use of ed tech.

Presenting this session were:

• Emily McRoberts-Froese, Education Leadership Executive, Jamf
• Kelly Watkins Conrad, Senior Program Engineer, Jamf
• Valeria Tschida, Program Manager, Community Education Initiatives, Jamf
• Dave “Salty” Saltmarsh, Senior Director, Community Education Initiatives, Jamf

What is TEAL?

TEAL+ is an acronym for Technology Enabled Active Learning, with the + emphasizing personal learning combined with Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM).

Originally developed at MIT, TEAL+ programming provides a simplified practical approach to implementing the use of educational technology in a student-centered environment to support 21st-century skills and educational transformation.

Why was TEAL+ developed?

While some technical educational processes focus on technology, studies have shown that students best learn in an active-learning model classroom with individualized instruction. Classrooms around the world need:

• A shift from teacher-centered to student-centered models
• An enduring model that encourages critical thinking, problem solving and creative approaches to education
• An approach that prepares students for the 21st century and the fourth industrial revolution

How do you implement TEAL+?

Jamf MATTER Innovation Hubs seek to implement this approach in areas that are underserved with resources in mobile classrooms. These hubs have their own internet connections and electricity, technology, and training for teachers and facilitators. Rather than focusing on technical training, this model focuses on readiness: for students, and also for local communities to continue this type of education.

Presenters discussed:

• The criteria for TEAL+ programming
• The types of ed tech that Jamf uses for this programming such as drones, Sphero Bolt and others
• How students use the technology: sketching, creating, testing, coding

How TEAL is different

TEAL focuses on not only educating the students, but also on transforming educators and educational approaches. It’s student-centered active learning with personalized content and encouragement to ask questions, seek their own answers and engage in collaboration — all while going at their own pace.

Jamf technology that enables TEAL+ practices

Teachers and IT administrators can implement many of these approaches using

• Apple School Manager
• Apple Classroom
• Jamf Teacher
• Jamf Student
• Apple TV
• Jamf School

And they can enhance their knowledge of how all of this works together with Jamf Educator, a platform for educators to get hands-on, practical knowledge about Jamf educational technology.

TEAL+ isn’t an all-in-one program.

It’s a starter kit for organizations to begin rethinking their educational approaches and offering readiness for future career opportunity programs. It’s a broader implementation of several educational and evaluation models for a simple, straightforward way to get educational transformation started.

Schools and teachers must put their own spin on this approach, their own passion, and their own way of applying this way of preparing the students of the future.