Effective implementation of teacher support: Cross-context evidence and multidisciplinary synthesis on how to support teaching to improve learning

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

To improve children’s learning in the Global South, evidence shows that teachers need better support in their classrooms and schools—such as high-quality, relevant training; well-designed and context-appropriate materials; and networks for continuous professional development. However, teacher support in many education systems falls short of this ideal. These shortcomings are particularly acute in resource-constrained contexts, where many teachers did not themselves benefit from enriching schooling experiences, and where business-as-usual attempts to improve classroom teaching via teacher training are often ineffective (GEEAP, 2023; Popova et al., 2022).

This panel, comprising practitioners and scholars from the What Works Hub for Global Education, brings together three papers that seek to move beyond conventional approaches to supporting teachers and conventional research on such supports.

Two of the papers explore evidence on approaches to supporting teachers that have been both innovative and impactful, examining the nitty gritty of context-appropriate program design and implementation. Crucially, both papers focus on programs that are being implemented in public schools in partnership with policymakers. Because these programs are based on models that have been successfully implemented in other contexts, both the program implementers and the papers pay careful attention to context-appropriate adaptations to ensure effectiveness in practice. Paper 1 examines the work of Central Square Foundation in implementing a structured pedagogy approach for foundational literacy and numeracy in 11 states in India, combining a suite of instructional support materials and professional development to streamline teachers’ work both cognitively and practically. This paper offers a research-in-practice perspective from the monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning of an organization collaborating with government partners across multiple geographies within India. Paper 2 focuses on the implementation of a targeted instruction program in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, looking beyond the design of the teacher support program itself toward the political economy of building and maintaining support for the program among diverse stakeholders and competing priorities. This paper draws on a detailed stakeholder mapping alongside iterative reflections from the researchers who were designing and implementing a large-scale randomized control trial pilot.

Next, Paper 3 synthesizes research from a several academic disciplines on a range of effective (and ineffective) teacher supports to identify common principles for designing, implementing, and embedding teacher supports that genuinely help children to learn, especially in resource-constrained contexts. This paper complements the empirical insights of the other two papers with cross-context lessons about the mechanisms underlying effective approaches under different context-dependent enabling conditions. Rounding out the panel are two sets of discussant remarks—from an academic with longstanding experience in both research and international policy advisory roles on teacher education and education policy, and a senior representative from implementer organization Youth Impact’s large-scale Teaching at the Right Level program in Botswana—followed by a Q&A session.

These papers are united by a fundamentally empowering goal: to improve teaching practice such that children gain strong foundations for thriving in education and beyond. This refusal to be satisfied with the current pattern of schooling that does not lead to learning thus contributes to the CIES 2024 theme of “The power of protest”. Such a rejection of the status quo is also radical in that many mass education systems were developed as tools for socialization, political order, and state building (Paglayan, 2022)—rather than as sites for empowering children to be active agents in their individual and collective lives. While foundational competencies such as literacy and numeracy are not sufficient conditions for civic action, social lives, and economic contributions, they are necessary components of such empowerment (see, e.g., Allen, 2014, on verbal empowerment as part of participatory readiness).

Sub Unit

• Educational Improvement SIG

Organizer

• Yue-yi Hwa, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

Chair

• Michelle Kaffenberger, What Works Hub for Global Education, Georgetown University

Individual Presentations

• Evidence from India: Supporting teachers to maximize learning outcomes through structured pedagogy programs - Anustup Nayak, Central Square Foundation

• The political economy of implementation in the Pakistan public education ecosystem: A five-step approach to embedding a foundational learning program - Tahir Andrabi, Pomona College; Maleeha Hameed, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University

• Supporting teachers to improve children’s learning by improving teaching practice: A cross-context, cross-disciplinary synthesis - Yue-yi Hwa, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

Discussant

• Tendekai Mukoyi, Youth Impact