Mrs. Jacqueline Peters- Richardson an Undiscovered Innovator in Education
By Danielle Sheppard
June, 2017
Who is Mrs. Jacqueline Richardson
Mrs. Jacqueline Peters-Richardson the Education Officer –Business in the Ministry of Education in Antigua and Barbuda, a part-time lecturer at the Teacher Education Department. Began her teaching career twenty-six (26) years ago. In 1992, Mrs. Richardson attended the University of Technology in Jamaica where she was able to obtain diplomas in Business Administration and Accounting. In 2006, she earned a BSc. in Business Education from Skidmore College. Her thirst for knowledge and her passion to improve education in Antigua and Barbuda, caused her to shift her focus to from just business education to Instructional Design. This led her to participate in several courses from the Commonwealth of Learning to aid in her transformation into an instructional designer.
Additionally, Mrs. Richardson is a wife and mother of three beautiful children who she cherishes very much. Mrs. Richardson is presently completing her MA in Technology and Learning Design; also, she is leading a team that is writing an Open Educational Textbook on Entrepreneurship supported by the Commonwealth of Learning. Mrs. Richardson is a bright and inspiring woman who is blazing the field of instructional design in Education Antigua and Barbuda.
Additionally, Mrs. Richardson is a wife and mother of three beautiful children who she cherishes very much. Mrs. Richardson is presently completing her MA in Technology and Learning Design; also, she is leading a team that is writing an Open Educational Textbook on Entrepreneurship supported by the Commonwealth of Learning. Mrs. Richardson is a bright and inspiring woman who is blazing the field of instructional design in Education Antigua and Barbuda.
Why is she an Innovator
Being an innovator is any field means that you are an individual who was able to either do something new, make changes to established ideas or create new ways in which things can be done. Within Antigua the distance education is only been used by Universities but not by any individual educator locally. One may say that Antigua and Barbuda is only 108 square miles, which to many is not a big island so they would ask why do you need distance education. Mrs. Richardson saw that within this educational system even though it is small, she saw the need and the gap within the educational system where individuals who want to learn but for various reasons such as sickness, disciplinary actions or not enough time in the regular school timetable are not able to receive the teaching that is needed. Therefore, this gave Mrs. Richardson the idea to use an already developed free learning platform to develop teaching materials, content, assessment and even an open source text book to help individuals achieve their educational potential.
Bates (2008) noted that distance learning which encompasses flexible learning allows individuals to be able to learn at their own pace in an online environment. Some may say that e-learning is not a new area it has been around the world for a long time. But what Mrs. Richardson as done to make her innovator in this field here in Antigua is that she is first individual on the Island who has been able to create an online learning space for learning at both the secondary and teacher education level. She has been able been able to:
Many times, within this small island we are dependent on the larger, more developed islands to come in and carry us into new areas. But this is not the case with Mrs. Richardson, her passion for education and for learning and improving the educational sphere as well as the forums of educational opportunities offered to individuals in Antigua at our local secondary level and even at our local tertiary level as cause her to take the bull by the horn so to speak and develop this area for educational offers opportunities in our little island.
Bates (2008) noted that distance learning which encompasses flexible learning allows individuals to be able to learn at their own pace in an online environment. Some may say that e-learning is not a new area it has been around the world for a long time. But what Mrs. Richardson as done to make her innovator in this field here in Antigua is that she is first individual on the Island who has been able to create an online learning space for learning at both the secondary and teacher education level. She has been able been able to:
- Create and developed her own content area following a given curriculum
- She has written and piloted an open source text book which is used in the 6th Form level for CAPE examinations
- She has created an entire course from content area to assessment areas which is used at the teacher education department to teach teachers the principles of creating and developing lessons
Many times, within this small island we are dependent on the larger, more developed islands to come in and carry us into new areas. But this is not the case with Mrs. Richardson, her passion for education and for learning and improving the educational sphere as well as the forums of educational opportunities offered to individuals in Antigua at our local secondary level and even at our local tertiary level as cause her to take the bull by the horn so to speak and develop this area for educational offers opportunities in our little island.
An Interview with Mrs. Jacqueline Peters- Richardson
In a bid to find that undiscovered innovator in Instructional design, technology and or distance education I could have gone abroad in search of an individual. However, I wanted to find someone locally, someone who works within your educational system in Antigua who is blazing the field to develop, create, improve upon ideas that would improve your educational system. In my research, I came across an amazing educator Mrs. Jacqueline Peters- Richardson. Mrs. Richardson has created and developed various teaching courses making use of the technology available to offer online courses at the secondary level and the teacher education department. In this field of offering online courses locally in Antigua Mrs. Richardson is the first to have created this avenue for fully online learning for secondary students and teacher education students. Mrs. Richardson sat down with Ms. Danielle Sheppard a student from the University of the West Indies Open Campus for an interview.
DS: Can you give me a brief history on your self?
JR: I Started teaching in 1991 reluctantly, it was not my profession of choice. In 2010 I took up my post here in the Ministry of Education with responsibility for business. I have taught business in the upper secondary school for roughly 20 years before I took up this post of education officer. So I have been in the profession for about 27 years.
DS: You are an up and coming instructional designer
JR: Yes my first love is accounting. I have always wanted to do accounting still do, but after the advancements in technology I wondered how are we going to make sure these devices are used properly in the classroom and with the teaching content. Who is going to make sure that the content is set properly according to the different learning levels and who is going to make sure that every learner has access to the information that is relevant to their needs. That made me think, and I am also fascinated by the technology and as the technology changes I am curious to see how we can work with it within education. So I switch my paths to doing doing teaching and learning in technology with the hopes that afterwards I will be able to train and guide teachers within our profession on how to use the technology. Particularly for the students who will be home ill, who is out of school for whatever reason so that they do not have to miss the content. If content is missed it will come back on us and will hurt us one way or the other within our classroom or within our society. So to ensure that wherever they are they get the content, I decided to go in this direction and hopefully pass it down step by step in branches at a time. We have all these things coming and we are not using them so I decided to focus on the technology.
DS: I see you are very passionate
JR: I am passionate about the technology and everything I know I have taught myself. I never did IT at school, never did it at the university other than learning the suites, If there is an app, tool or learning device, I see that I want to use I would teach myself how to use it. I am self motivated, everyone is not like me, I go after what I want. There is not really many things out there I want to do and I don't do it. I don't let anyone tell me that I can't do it. But that is just me, I guess it's my personality.
DS: You have started a programme in online learning or distance education, where you have developed various tools and courses where you teach at the secondary and tertiary level. Tell me about what you have done, your innovation, creation around instructional technology and distance learning?
JR: I have used canvas by instructure, it is a free and it has a lot of features that can be used within our context as teachers. So I have used that platform to create courses at the secondary level in Principles of Business and Principles of Accounts. I have 17 students who had sessions with me using this platform, we meet once a week face to face and the rest of the instruction was done using the course created online in the platform. They have just written the CXC exams so the results from that will tell me. I have just started this academic year with another group who is totally online, I do not see them face to face at all. They are doing it totally online. I also have CAPE entrepreneurship online as well using open source material. That was part of a project I got sponsorship from the Commonwealth of learning to create. I contacted the Commonwealth and got funding from them to create an open textbook online for CAPE entrepreneurship curriculum. We did unit one last academic year and we just submitted unit two.
DS: So you created an open text book that is online
JR: It is online, it was created last year and it was piloted at the Antigua State College this academic year. So now we are waiting for the results of the students to make a comparison and analysis will be done. The second Unit was submitted to the Common Wealth of Learning for their evaluation of it. The initial feed back is that they like what they see but they have to do a thorough evaluation of it. It is a content material that is used based on the curriculum and it is hosted on the Canvas platform. Based on how the Common Wealth want it that is it must be totally open source, no copy write material. The first unit is already up on canvas and the second unit will be after approval. We have started the process of setting it up on Canvas so that the students can access it.
I have also done a planning for instruction module for teachers. To show them how they can properly use lesson plans. It was developed to instruct teachers step by step what should be done to create lesson plans. So I did a module, two units called Planning for Instruction. Unit one is the purpose of the lesson plans, which explains why the lesson plan is so important and the second unit using the ASSURE model in creating and writing a lesson plan. Going through it step by step and at the end teachers are required to present a lesson using the ASSURE model. I had about seven teachers who did that. I have seen areas that they have tweaked and I saw a difference as they have a better understanding of lesson planning. I also created a course on ICT in education that is also done online. I teach technology in education at the teacher education department and the materials I created in modules. I have some other work in progress which are at various stages and they will eventually get there. I am trying to reach that use of technology at all different levels.