Can technology spark teacher change? An analysis of blended, school-based foundational learning TPD models in Rwanda

• In Event: Safeguarding the human element in technology-supported teacher professional development

Proposal

Rwanda has been at the forefront of adopting digital tools for education, including several large-scale foundational learning activities that leverage mobile technology, online platforms, and digital content. The low-income East African country continues to invest intensively in online and hybrid teacher professional development initiatives, with many specifically targeting improvements in literacy and numeracy instruction. The latest national learning assessment in Rwanda points to a staggering return on this investment the number of proficient readers in third grade rising from 54% to 87% in just 3 years. The presentation will analyse the evidence and learning from national learning assessments and impact evaluations from large-scale teacher professional development programmes in Rwanda to tease out the ways in which technology-supported school-based teacher professional development may have contributed to this inspiring progress.

Teacher change models propose that teachers typically move through a change cycle in responding to an innovation. In this process, their focus shifts from its procedural aspect to its interpersonal aspect, eventually developing more psychological comfort and bringing it into their own instructional practice. The presentation will examine the extent to which online, face-to-face and blended approaches to communities of practice have created varying opportunities for teachers to engage in collaborative learning, peer mentoring and perhaps most importantly, created a safe space to progress through the professional change cycle. It will present and analysis of critical design and delivery considerations that yielded the most transformative changes in teaching practice. An explicit focus will look at differences in remote and rural teaching populations with lower technological skills and infrastructure and the strategies for ensuring rural teachers’ experiences remain at the heart of any technology-supported TPD design.

Feeding the evidence analysis forward into a solution, the presentation will review the characteristics of effective foundational learning school-based teacher professional development programme, further examining which skills and competencies are best supported through technology and where to prioritise human interactions and social connections to bring about the most meaningful change in teachers attitudes and practices.. The presentation will conclude with a proposed framework for a teacher change driven approach to hybrid early grade reading teacher professional development model.

Author

• Sofia Cozzolino, Cambridge Education