I interacted with the teachers on 7/23/12 from 12-2 pm. During that time I was attempting to connect to scribbler on my own machine, while the teachers and Fran were working on the calibration variables for scribbler.
The teachers also mentioned that they planned to have their students blog about their experiences with the robots.
Observations:
Through conversation I noticed that the teachers sometimes have difficulty getting the attention of their students. One teacher likes to address this by teaching while standing on top of her desk. However, it was also mentioned that something new she noticed was that when she presents her material on a video, the students seem to be much more interested. For example, she can have a video of her teaching with live feed from her computer and the students seem to think this is very interesting, although she isn’t actually doing anything differently.
I also learned that science credentials are highly sought after, and that teacher compensation is linked to college credits completed. Normally a new teacher would substitute teach for a year or so before being offered a position, and networking is very important in landing a full time job.
Seniority and additional training seem to be a very important factors when it comes to deciding who to lay off during budget cuts. That is one reason teachers often spend their summers going through additional training. On average, their actual time off during summer break is usually about three weeks.