Filling the Gap on Open/Accessible Formative Resources for and by the Region

• In Event: An 8-year perspective on the progress and challenges to increase educational attainment in the CAC region

Proposal

A 2020 study by the Brooking Institute, Realizing the Promise, identifies one of the most promising uses of technology in education to be geared towards scaling quality of instruction. As we work to obtain free, equitable and quality education for all, in line with the sustainable development goals, a challenge continues to be access to quality instructional resources especially in the LAC region. A promising yet simple solution for this challenge is to increase the access to open and accessible formative resources that can be contextualized to meet the local needs. While governments and universities with teacher training programs move at varying speeds to adapt their policies to those based on the latest evidence and science of teaching, smaller steps for progress can be obtained by individual instructors who can improve their own knowledge and capacities by integrating available high quality resources themselves once they have the awareness and knowledge of how to access these resources.

The USAID/LAC Reads Capacity Program has focused the last 8 years on building capacity in the Central American and Caribbean region. The program has worked both with a number of Ministry officials and Universities to assess and build the capacity to improve education in the region. In addition to these capacities, the program has developed a large quantity of formative open source resources available for free to be used by teacher trainers and teachers themselves. The program has also engaged with formative centers and universities directly to provide them with resources and know-how on how to improve their practice.

The panel seeks to present these efforts that have led to shifts in the practice of the participants in the classrooms through increasing access to quality instructional resources. Such efforts include 1) the didactic toolkit, EnsenaLEES, and its ten multimedia chapters on modeling how to improve teachings on early literacy, and 2) a course conducted in collaboration with the University of the West Indies on open education resources.

The first initiative, the toolkit, has been disseminated in a semi-direct approach across the region. The package has been presented in a 1 hr training to teacher training institutes focused on either initial teacher training and continuous professional development in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama. The trianings occurred in March through April 2022. The team will be conducting follow up interviews with the organizations to identify how they’ve used the materials for the hope to systemize the experience.

The second initiative was designed and implemented in collaboration with the University of the West Indies, in the first quarter of 2022 based on an initial workshop held on open educational resources (OER) in 2021. A course covered 5 key topics, 1) Awareness, knowledge and application of open/creative licenses, 2) Organization of Eastern Caribbean States Instructional Content and Engagement (ICE) framework and practical applications, 3) ability to identify, and evaluate, for use, high-quality open and accessible content, 4) using the OER hubs, and 5) remixing content for contextual use.

Author

• Ana K Gonzalez, American Institutes for Research