Online Courses to Scale Support for Teachers in Low-Resource Environments: The Case of Morocco

• In Event: Evidence-based decision making in education
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Teachers and teacher education for equity and development

Proposal

Abstract: Teachers in developing and transforming countries are not only in need of good and synchronous education curricula and certification processes but also of ways to access quality of education. Oftentimes, those teachers who live and work in remote areas do not have the means or the opportunity to attend teacher education colleges and universities or in-service trainings that are offered in the urban centers. Technology and on-line education provide this opportunity for all teachers who want to further their education, improve their teaching skills, and strengthen their qualifications to have access to quality programs. USAID and the Moroccan Ministry of Education in collaboration with Akhaywayn University are developing a series of online courses to support teachers who otherwise will be left to their own devices with very little pre-service training or coaching. The presentation will discuss an experimental curriculum model that is being developed offering MOOCs that will complement, and sometimes replace, face to face training of teachers in Morocco.

Presentation Summary: Can teachers in poor communities benefit from the use of technology to further their professional development? Morocco is trying to do that! Use e-learning to train and coach teachers in remote areas.

In Morocco, to date, teachers receive no more than 5-6 months of pre-service training, and they do not receive any planned in-service professional development. A new reform that has recently been adopted by the Moroccan Government will improve the quality and duration of the pre-service teacher training, however, the implementation of this reform will take time. In the meantime, new teachers graduates are being posted to remote areas without any necessary support for their first years of teaching without any systematic coaching, mentoring or guidance on how to apply the new pedagogical approaches they have studied in practice and in the real classroom environment with its so many challenges.

In particular, teachers in remote areas are quite disconnected from the rest of their colleagues, and from any type of support professional network that could benefit them in improving their teaching skills. Most of the times, they are not able to attend any of the professional events that are scheduled regionally or centrally to limited budgets allocated to professional travel costs. Moroccan teachers receive only about 2 to 4 days of training on early grade reading instruction, but they face huge difficulties in applying what they have learned during this short period into their daily work, especially because the Moroccan classroom context is very diverse not only socioeconomically and culturally but linguistically. Moroccan children come to school speaking a mother tongue other than the language of instruction which is Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and many parents cannot support or reinforce their children’s learning to read efforts at home due to illiteracy or luck of resources. The limited duration of the training in early grade reading offered by the Ministry of Education does not afford the teachers the ability to apply it from theory to practice.

In order to meet the aforementioned need and under the Reading for Success National Program for Reading (NPR) of USAID/Morocco, the Ministry of Education along with USAID and Akhaywayn University have been developing a series of online courses and MOOCs to support teachers who are in need of additional professional development but have not means or opportunity to access and attend high quality teacher education programs and events and/or receive any type of mentoring and coaching.
The MOOCs’ content will be comprised of a series of modules in the following areas (areas which have been identified through a survey that was administered):
The theories of learning (general MOOC for teachers in all levels)
Early Grade Reading instruction (separate courses tailored to G1-2 and to G3-4)
Learning assessments (continuous, formative, summative) and how to use them to support learning (general MOOC for teachers in all levels)
Differentiated instructional methods
Using technology to teach reading in early grades
Using supplemental reading materials and classroom libraries

These MOOCs will be an experimental/pilot model that will complement and sometimes replace, face to face training of teachers. This scenario based on e-learning may be considered as a tool for keeping the teachers engaged in the training and to support it, continuous assessment models will be developed. A major component of this program will also be to create discussion fora and communities of practice to keep all teachers around the nation connected to new ideas, best practices and latest research and to allow them to share their experiences and challenges with their peers. Like every innovation, this one also comes with its challenges:
The program has to rely on the commitment of the contributing parties to supply and maintain the platform and to the government to ensure connectivity nationwide.
The program has to rely on the supply and maintenance of computers and digital equipment in all schools across the country.
The teacher population in Morocco is extremely heterogeneous in terms of background, qualifications, and technology skills, which makes the design of e-learning difficult to adapt to all needs (The teacher body is comprised mainly by three different groups: teachers between ages 55 and 60. These are experienced teachers used to teach the traditional way, most of them aspiring to retire and not interested in new technology to further their professional development. Teachers between 40 and 55 who may be interested in learning new skills, but are intimidated by technology. And teachers who are between 25 and 40, and love to work with technology, but have very little teaching skills. In addition, new contracted teachers (not civil servants) hired during the past 2 years, have no teaching training at all.
Lack of local/national expertise to develop well designed e-learning.
Lack of trained staff and instructors to manage and deliver the courses once designed.
The cost of e-learning design and implementation may be prohibitive for scaling up and sustainability.

Authors

• Fergoug Abdel, Morocco Ministry of Education

• Eirini Gouleta, US Agency for International Development (USAID)

• Mariam Britel-Swift, US Agency for International Development (USAID)