Technology use for teacher education and professional development: Insights from a systematic review

• In Event: Emerging trends in the use of technology for teacher professional development in low- and middle-income countries.

Proposal

Teaching quality is clearly pivotal in raising learning outcomes, yet teacher education and professional development – collectively, ‘TPD’ – is often limited and ineffective. With a pandemic stimulating rapid, widespread shifts towards distance education, evaluating the evidence for how EdTech might support teachers is even more critical. This presentation reports the outcomes of a systematic literature review asking: How can EdTech support effective, scalable, sustained development of teachers in LMICs, including improving subject knowledge and/or classroom pedagogy?

Our theoretical framework is based on contemporary models of quality, continuous teacher development. Evidence includes work by Anamuah-Mensah, et al. (2012); Twining, et al. (2013); Darling-Hammond, et al. (2017); McAleavy, et al. (2018); Piper et al. (2016); Power, et al. (2019); Schweisfurth (2015). These models reimagine unidirectional TPD, promoting pedagogical approaches such as: peer support; reflective inquiry; experiential learning; practical application; coaching; modelling; self-critique using video.

Our framework additionally considers micro-, meso- and macro- level (teacher, institutional, district/national) factors influencing TPD design, implementation, effectiveness and scaling, with interactions between levels coordinated for system coherence (Lindvall & Ryve, 2019). Culturally appropriate EdTech use adapts to the supporting and constraining factors operating, including infrastructural constraints in specific LMIC settings (especially internet and electricity).
Our search strategy combined LMICs, teacher learning and technology devices/resources. Inclusion criteria included empirical investigations (2008-2020) with pre- and in-service teachers of students aged 3-18. Academic and grey literature from four major databases was supplemented by expert referrals and backward-forward searching. Screening followed PRISMA methodology. The 170 ultimately included studies spanned 40/136 LMICs and largely comprised journal articles. These underwent quality assessment, data extraction, thematic categorisation, and in-depth qualitative synthesis.

This is the first comprehensive review of research on EdTech use in TPD across LMICs. It identifies the strengths, linkages, and gaps in the field, including limited attention to marginalised groups of teachers or learners. Promising, locally-contextualised forms of technology-mediated TPD included virtual coaching, social messaging, subject-specific software/applications, video-stimulated reflection, and blended teacher learning – accounting for local variation in technology access or proficiency. The role of expert peers is paramount – yet often glossed over in technology-mediated PD – and the interpersonal dimension of teacher learning must be maintained. In one 3-year study in South Africa, (costlier) in-person coaching led to 2.5 times more student progress in English than virtual coaching, ultimately proving more cost-effective (Cilliers, et al., 2020). Overall, benefits for teachers were variable, and evidence for sustainability, cost-effectiveness or tangible impacts on classroom practice and student outcomes, especially from LICs, was thin. The findings reinforce the ever-present need for researchers to critically evaluate optimistic assumptions about technology’s added value. The changing educational paradigm renders such scrutiny, unlearning and rigorous research more pressing.

We offer practical recommendations that can provide policymakers, educators, academics, sponsors and implementing partners with a stronger foundation for programming decisions regarding effective, sustainable, scalable and inclusive TPD in their regions, to strengthen education systems and ultimately impact learner outcomes. The review identifies future avenues requiring exploration.

Authors

• Sara Hennessy, University of Cambridge

• Sophia D'Angelo

• Saalim Koomar, EdTech Hub

• Asma Zubairi, EdTech Hub

• Adam Kreimeia, EdTech Hub