This week, a lot of folks shared solutions to specific issues, but I find that this is less useful to me than strategies to help others perform their own troubleshooting without me. I’ve worked in IT before, and what I learned was that, beyond a lot of teachers not being very tech savvy, a lot of teachers are nervous to troubleshoot for themselves before seeking outside help. As a tech specialist, I often become de facto tech support for other teachers, and half the time my tech support consists of Googling the problem or messing around in menus until something interesting happens, something other teachers could have done without me. At the risk of sounding patronizing, why not model and encourage self-sufficiency the way we do with children?
Quite a few classmates mentioned training students and teachers as a “tech squad” (Beverley, Madeleine). I would love to try this idea, as having people with the skills to support others distributed around the school takes the burden off of the one “expert”. More generally, a lot of folks mentioned having students teach other students specific skills (e.g., Rachel mentioned leveling a 3D printer print bed or changing filament).
An in-classroom strategy I’ve seen is making a “help board” with specific problems that other students can see and intervene directly with. If one person has a problem, chances are someone else does. I also like the idea of class scrum-style stand-ups during projects where students share the issues they’ve been experiencing and other groups can identify solutions.
Sources
Powell, L. et al. (2021). Troubleshooting Strategies [Padlet]. https://padlet.com/lpowell28/bx815z4qyfwa08vk.
Radigan, D. (n.d.). Standups for agile teams. Atlassian. https://www.atlassian.com/agile/scrum/standups.