Kathryn Williams

MET Statement of Intent

May 2017

I am applying for the University of British Columbia’s Master in Educational Technology course. I am
currently a year 5 (equivalent to grade 5 in BC) teacher at Withington Girls’ School in Manchester,
England and I believe that my current educational pedagogy and practice, along with my driven,
organised yet innovative personality, make me an ideal candidate for this program.

In my current classroom I have striven consistently for the past four years to meaningfully embed
technology into day-to-day education to enhance pupils’ learning experience and improve their
performance. I am fortunate that my school possesses the resources to make this possible, including
interactive whiteboards, IT suites and a pupil-to-iPad ratio of 3:1. In addition, as my current school is
an independent girls’ school, it does not directly follow the UK national curriculum. This, together
with having the pleasure of teaching pupils that are curious, very bright and extremely motivated, has
allowed me to develop teaching methods that are specifically designed to nurture the development
of the children, both academically and as global citizens, based on their individual requirements,
interests and goals.

Consequently, I have witnessed technology transform a task or project into something more hands
on, where the pupils take on greater ownership for – and gain more enjoyment from – their work,
using a variety of Apps to aid in this process, including the following examples:

- Using ‘Lino’ to allow less confident pupils to share their thoughts anonymously;
- Utilising ‘Explain Everything’ to facilitate pupils becoming the ‘teacher’ for specific lessons;
and
- Taking part in a collaborative day involving multi-age groups creating a stop animation film
using ‘Stop Motion’.

I firmly believe that, when used appropriately, the use of educational technology can elevate learning.

Looking forward, I aim to use the technology we have available to help younger pupils to be more
empathetic and engaged in worldwide issues, becoming global citizens at a younger age. Completion
of the MET program will allow me to align the curriculum to help with my professional and scholarly
goal of a transformative global classroom. A key aspect of this will be to effectively cascade my
learnings throughout the school through targeted training of colleagues.

The Senior Leadership Team at my school is supportive of the use of technology to enhance learning
and outcomes. My current workplace is launching a ‘Bring your own device’ scheme from September
2017 to the pupils aged 12-18. Following this program, a key objective of mine will be to research the
benefits and drawbacks of introducing a similar scheme to our 7-11 aged pupils and develop an age-
appropriate program for our Junior School.

Upon completion of the program I aim to continue to work as a classroom teacher in the primary
school environment. The knowledge I will gain from this program will allow me to successfully
intelligently modify the structure of specific whole-school initiatives to further embed technology into
the school curriculum, to enhance learning experiences, and to use worldwide connections to develop
global citizens.