How to setup a student-student online coaching project at teacher education in Sweden.
Stefan Stenbom & Stefan Hrastinski, KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Abstract for the Next Generation Learning Conference 2012
Summary
Mathcoach (www.mattecoach.se) and Swedishcoach (www.svenskacoach.se) offers K-12 students help with their homework in Swedish for immigrants and mathematics online. The coaches are all students at teacher education. We will present how we work with the projects at four Swedish universities and inspire you to start your own netcoach project.
Abstract
In the spring of 2009, the project Mathcoach online was started in Stockholm. The project offered students at four junior high schools help with their homework in mathematics by coaches that are available in MSN Messenger. The coaches are studying to get a double degree as a teacher and Master of Science with a focus on mathematics combined with physics, chemistry or computer science.
At present we are running Mathcoach online (www.mattecoach.se) at the Royal Institute of Technology and the universities in Linköping, Karlstad and Stockholm. From four nodes we are offering matecoach service for the municipalities of Stockholm, Södertälje, Falun, Borlänge, Älvkarleby, Katrineholm, Valdemarsvik and Karlstad. Swedishcoach online (www.svenskacoach.se) started in spring 2011 and involves Stockholm muncipality and Stockholm university. Swedish coach is not a public service. Instead it’s a homework help for young immigrant that have come to Sweden without their parents. The coaches are all students who are studying to become a teacher. To become a coach you need to have passed math/swedish course and course with math/swedish didactics. We also have a common coach training program for all coaches.
The aim of the project is to make a contribution to math and Swedish for immigrants study for pupils, develop teacher students digital literacy and develop methods for netcoaching. All communication is logged, currently comprising more than 6,000 conversations. Since fall 2011 netcoach is also a research project. We study the pedagogy in student-student online coaching, how software for netcoaching should be developed and enhance the ability to process data from all conversations into feedback for both project development and to the regular education systems.
During the Next Generation Learning Conference we will show how student-student online coaching works in practice. We will also present how we have done so far to setup projects and organize them. We hope to inspire the audience to start their own student-student online coaching project together with us.
