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Teachers College Columbia and AEWG collaboration: Development of the AE Teacher Professional Development materials

Wed, April 17, 8:00 to 9:30am, Hyatt Regency, Floor: Bay (Level 1), Bayview B

Proposal

A presentation by a team at Teachers College (TC), Columbia University, represented by Claire Stiglmeier and Allison Doyle, which developed the first draft of a training pack for AE teachers, will explain the collaborative process of developing the AEP teacher training materials, introduce the competencies for an AE teacher, and discuss how this can be adapted to meet the context-specific needs of learners and teachers.


Children around the world frequently miss out on schooling for a variety of reasons. In particular, forced migration has contributed to a widespread concern over the provision of education to displaced children and youth. For the more than 263 million children out of school worldwide (UNESCO, 2016), every year of non-attendance increases protection risks as well as the likelihood that they will not return to school. Huge gaps in schooling have both academic and social consequences for these children in that they are often robbed of the opportunities for psychosocial well-being and emotional development (Riggs & Davison, 2016).

In an attempt to meet the needs of this vulnerable population, governments and agencies may offer alternative forms of education. Accelerated Education Programmes (AEP) are a flexible form of schooling aimed at meeting the needs of over-age children and youth who have missed out on a significant amount of schooling due to poverty, marginalisation, crisis, and conflict (AEWG, 2017).

AEPs offer age-appropriate programming using teaching and learning strategies to match the cognitive maturity of learners. However, this presents unique challenges to AE teachers, whose classes typically include learners of mixed ages and abilities. As teachers in crisis contexts are often underqualified and lack relevant professional development opportunities, it is important to address this gap in teacher professional development to ensure sustainable, quality education for populations affected by crisis and conflict.

The Accelerated Education Teacher Training (AETT) pack aims to fill that gap by providing a flexible and adaptable training programme to support AE teachers working in humanitarian and development contexts. The AETT has been developed by the Accelerated Education Working Group (AEWG) and Teachers’ College, Columbia University, in collaboration and consultation with a group of experts in the field of education in emergencies. It is designed to complement the Training Pack for Primary School Teachers in Crisis Contexts (TiCC), an inter-agency, open source training pack developed to build basic teaching competencies for unqualified or under-qualified teachers often recruited to teach in emergency settings.

The AETT is a separate training that adds AE-specific content to support AE teachers as well as school leaders. Each module of the six-module course includes two core sessions as well as supplementary sessions. The materials are meant to be flexible such that agencies may choose the sessions that are the most applicable and helpful to AE teachers in their contexts.

In this panel, we aim to present the collaborative process for developing the materials, introduce the content of the pack, and discuss how it can be adapted to meet the context-specific needs of learners and teachers.

References:
Accelerated Education Working Group (2017). Synthesis report Accelerated Education Working Group: Accelerated Education Principles Field Studies.

Riggs, D. & Davison, L. (Eds). (2016). Psychosocial support and social and emotional learning for children and youth in emergency settings. New York, NY: The Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies.

UNESCO (2016). Leaving no one behind: How far on the way to universal primary and secondary education?

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