Training and teaching for inclusive development: Combining community knowledge and science content in rural Honduras

• In Event: Effective teaching in rural schools: examining local knowledge, sustainable development, and scientific agency within a multi-national curricular program

Proposal

Inclusive education for all mandates cultural inclusion and positioning of local knowledge alongside Western science knowledge. This paper illustrates a nationalized secondary school program, Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial (SAT, or Tutorial Learning System) in rural Honduras that contextualizes science teaching and learning for local relevance and long term conservation and sustainability goals. Building upon results from a quasi-experimental impact evaluation which found that students in SAT villages in Honduras had test scores that were 45% higher than children in neighboring villages that had attended traditional schools (McEwan et al., 2015), we examined the features of the SAT program that explain these learning gains.
In particular, we conjecture that one critical component of the learning gains is the nature of professional development offered to SAT tutors; this drove our research question to investigate the role of local knowledge and community relationships cultivated during professional development sessions. With a wealth of research on preparing teachers to enact place-based and culturally relevant instruction, Chinn (2006; 2010; 2015) has crafted a framework for professional development that has demonstrated meaningful outcomes for students and community members. The framework (2010) includes several components that shape our investigation, in particular: (1) culturally relevant course format that provides meaningful, effective social interactions among instructors and teachers/students; (2) development of a "community of practice"; (3) excellent models of problem-based and culturally based projects/curricula; and (4) continued support from peers and instructional team throughout the academic year. This framing, along with the concept of developing multiple epistemologies to navigate both local scientific practices and western modern science practices (Bang & Medin, 2010), shape our analyses of the professional development.
To determine the extent of SAT’s alignment with a culturally-relevant professional development framework, we collected data over several years: interviewing SAT tutors, tutor-trainers, SAT administrators, students and teachers of other educational institutions; observing and participating in tutor training sessions; and analyzing the use of texts within the training sessions. These data demonstrate the consistency and stability of the pedagogical practices cultivated in the training sessions (interviews span from 2009-2018) as well as the depth of practical skills developed in a single training session (through observations).
Qualitative analyses of these data demonstrate close adherence between the SAT professional development model and the framework for culturally-relevant professional development that Chinn and colleagues have constructed. Key findings include the timeliness and structure of trainings, pedagogical practices of sharing roles in reading, teaching, and questioning the texts, and particular attentiveness to the unique natural, material, and social contexts of tutors’ own regions, which they are prompted to use as a resource when planning the lesson (and are further specified in the curricular texts). Overall the interview data, triangulated with observations and text analyses, suggest the SAT professional development sessions likely contribute to the improved student outcomes via tutors’ effective growth in community and practice, and an emphasis on the cultural specificity of regional resources to plan and enact the science lessons. These findings serve as a model for future rural education teacher development programs.

Authors

• Elena Durán-López, UC Berkeley

• Rebecca Shareff, UC Berkeley