Using tablet-based video resources to improve teachers’ literacy instruction in Malian schools

• In Event: Mobile-mediated literacy: Tablet-based literacy support for classrooms and communities in Zambia and Mali

Proposal

In order to introduce innovation and change the classroom practice of teachers effectively and sustainably, two elements are essential: 1) guiding teachers, step by step, through the implementation of new educational strategies, allowing them to go beyond their traditional ways of teaching, and 2) providing teachers with relevant and effective models of educational practices, in reference to which they can strengthen their professional skills and evaluate themselves. However, in many contexts, the resources needed to provide ongoing guidance and practical references that teachers need are not available: teacher supervisors and coaches are too few in number to cover all schools with regularity, and indigenous examples of applied best practice do not exist. Without support and references for their own efforts to implement new methods, even the most motivated and creative teachers may lapse back into more comfortable and well-trodden paths.

As part of an experiment conducted in Mali through an All Children Reading: Grand Challenge grant funded by USAID, AusAID and World Vision, the Actors Network for Renewal of Education (RARE, a local Malian organization) implements a model of viable and cost-effective technology to improve teacher competencies in the teaching of reading and writing. The innovation uses mobile technology to enhance the training that teachers receive during face to face training sessions with videos of best practices being applied in Malian classrooms. Teachers are provided with a library of instructional practice examples on Android tablets running the Stepping Stone application, and are able to use these videos as daily support for their classroom practice. Functioning as virtual coaches, the videos provide guided professional development resources and references against which to gauge their own instructional transformation. This innovation has allowed teachers in CAPs in Bougouni, Yanfolila, and Koumantou to systematically integrate the techniques of the Balanced Literacy Approach and modify their classroom practice.

This presentation will discuss the benefits of this approach, and present results of evaluations of the tablet-enhanced intervention as compared to face to face teacher support. In the 36 schools of the ACR project, students from 26 schools were found to have achieved an average decoding rate of 72% after one year. Of these 26 schools, 15 are schools where teachers use the Stepping Stone video on tablets. Students in these 15 schools at the end of their first year of schooling achieved a decoding rate of 83%, attributable to the addition of the tablets as professional development resources.

Author

• Moussadian Coulibaly, Actors Network for Renewal of Education (RARE), Mali