Defying assumptions: Cascade teacher education models that work.

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

To improve the quality of instruction and learning, a challenge that many ministries of education must confront is the need to provide Teacher Professional Development (TPD) at scale. However, due to resource constraints, conducting training at scale often entails a cascade model which has weaknesses in the quality of knowledge transfer and training delivery. This is especially the case when the training objective is to introduce and strengthen teaching strategies that are student-centered and promote students’ critical, independent thinking and creative skills, all of which are essential to creating a citizenry empowered to engage in acts of protest, for example. Moreover, these teaching strategies can be challenging to master and require changes in teachers’ behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes, which can be achieved most commonly through continued practice and reflection.

This panel will explore cascade models that work and that, with some adaptations, can better support teachers, and ultimately learners, in Central Asia and Latin America.

The Ministry of Pre-school and School Education (MoPSE) in Uzbekistan has transformed its in-service TPD system of school teachers and principals from a periodic cascade trainings-based model to a continuous professional development model whereby teachers can participate in TPD as needed through a national Learning Management System (LMS), 14 regional teacher training institutions, private centers, and/or universities. However, even with the continuous TPD available to teachers, the content of in-service TPD can still be overly theoretical and trainer-centric. There is also insufficient time dedicated to practice which is needed to effectively develop student-centered instruction skills. Moreover, MoPSE teachers remain confronted with a lack of in-service supportive supervision and on-the-job methodical support. The USAID-funded Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program (UEEP) is supporting MoPSE to improve student learning outcomes through the enhancement of it curriculum products in Uzbek Language Arts (ULA) and Mathematics and the development of a Continuous Teacher Professional Development (CTPD) approach that builds upon existing ministry systems and processes. To mitigate the possible dilution effects of a cascade model, UEEP undergirded the training approach with a continuous quality assurance ‘feedforward’ loop. UEEP and MoPSE trained over 8,000 teachers every month for 6 months and demonstrated the effectiveness of the approach as well as positive learning outcomes.

In Tajikistan, the traditional cascade model also left teachers without a source of continued guidance and support and given the need for the national training at scale, the USAID/Tajikistan Learn Together Activity (LTA) opted to flip the cascade. LTA and the Republican In-Service Teacher Training Institute introduced a bottom-up approach to decentralize TPD by strategically leveraging the recently adopted Community-Based Methodological Units (CBMUs). Not only did this approach acknowledge and respond to the need for local trainers and mentors, but also enabled teachers to gain deep understanding of and practice effective teaching techniques.

The government of the Dominican Republic invested in one of their leading universities, Instituto Superior de Formación Docente Salomé Ureña (ISFODOSU), who partnered with the One World Network of Schools (OWNOS) to help improve literacy among 1st graders. Balancing the need for both breadth and depth, OWNOS and ISFODOSU designed a two-pronged cascade strategy: they selected six high performing school leaders whom they could coach and support to help create models, while also training 450 school leaders around the country in core instructional leadership strategies. Early results are promising: the learnings from the pilot schools have been powerful, and the practices of the broader trainings are being implemented by principals. These cascading literacy strategies promise to be transformative for the country’s education system.

This panel brings together researchers and practitioners documenting how the challenges of cascade training at scale can be mitigated through continuous quality assurance ‘feed forward’ loops, starting from the bottom up, and balancing breadth and depth. Panelists will present study findings and discuss recommendations for teacher cascade training approaches that work.

Sub Unit

• Teacher Education and the Teaching Profession SIG

Organizer

• Sonia Arias, Chemonics International

Chair

• Carmen Strigel, RTI International

Individual Presentations

• Dosage and feed-forward information loops: Maximizing the effectiveness of cascade teacher education in Uzbekistan - Sonia Arias, Chemonics International; Temurbek Rakhmatov; Furkat Sharipov, University of East Anglia; Ozodjon Haydarov, Creative Associates International Inc.

• Flip the cascade: A bottom-up approach to teacher education in Tajikistan - Fayziddin Niyozov, Chemonics International Inc

• Balancing breadth and depth: Cascading that works. - Brian Sims, One World Network of Schools

Discussant

• Chelsea Peters