Proposing a framework for ICT-mediated TPD

• In Event: Innovations on teacher professional development from the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) initiative - Research learnings from country experiences

Proposal

The reach and quality of education are negatively impacted by undertrained teachers hence strengthening systems of teacher preparation and professional development at scale is fundamental to improving education system performance and meeting the targets of Sustainable Development Goal 4. Reforming teacher professional development (TPD) systems can be costly and lengthy, however digital technologies (ICTs) have the potential to aid efficiency and cost-effectiveness whilst also aiding improvements in TPD quality and equity (Wolfenden 2022).

Scaling the TPD@Scale approach in three GPE countries (Honduras, Ghana and Uzbekistan) was a global 28-month KIX funded project. The project sought to extend our understanding of how TPD systems can be strengthened through the use of ICTs. Researchers collaborated with key stakeholders in each public education system to study how different groups of teachers (experience, level of digital literacy, locality, type of school/ contract) and other education actors contributed to, and experienced, new and adapted models of ICT-mediated TPD.

By unpacking the mechanisms for designing and implementing ICT-mediated TPD and listening to the experiences of teachers across the three country contexts, we identified two interlinked key findings. Firstly, ICTs can be deployed to enhance quality and efficiency in TPD. However substantial equity issues were highlighted with the models designed and tested. Addressing these issues requires TPD models to be flexible and accommodate variations: a variation may be offered from the centre as with the availability of online and offline modalities (Honduras), with the hybrid modalities at district level as seen in Ghana, or at the school level through a Community of Practice. However frequently stakeholders were reluctant to move away from the idea of one normative TPD model—they were concerned that opening spaces for adaptation would potentially lead to lower quality.

Secondly, the process of reforming TPD needs to be approached holistically with in-depth consideration of the education ecosystem - its goals, history, norms, social representations of teachers, available infrastructure (including digital technologies) and so on—in which TPD is situated. Too frequently contemporary initiatives for improving TPD focus on the structure and design of the TPD programme itself (Popova et al 2022). This is important but uniform adoption of these characteristics does not necessarily lead to equity in access and participation in TPD for all teachers.

From this work we identified six evidence based issues or ‘pillars’ that play a critical role in improving the effectiveness of quality teacher education in an efficient and equitable manner: policies; digital technologies; learning design; supporting capacities; partnerships; and communications.
These interconnected pillars each function at different levels of the system: for individual teachers and school leaders within their institutions; district, department or municipal level; and national or sub-national level.

This presentation will explore the dimensions of each pillar, illustrating them with examples from our field studies and discussing how they support education decision makers to identify where to focus efforts and resources to achieve systemic shifts in the efficiency, quality and equity of TPD.

Author

• Freda Wolfenden, The Open University, UK