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Session Submission Summary

Learnings from Implementing, Monitoring, and Evaluating Technology-Supported Remote Teacher Professional Development

Thu, April 21, 6:00 to 7:30am CDT (6:00 to 7:30am CDT), Pajamas Sessions, VR 108

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

The challenges to safe and ongoing school education due to the protracted COVID-19 pandemic have come hand in hand with a demand for remote, technology-supported teacher professional development (TPD). Despite many difficulties in implementing such programs over the past 1.5 years, governments, particularly those in the global South, are hoping to retain certain remote learning opportunities as part of their mainstream teacher professional development programs (BEC 2021). This creates unprecedented opportunity—and responsibility—to more thoroughly understand the reach and effectiveness of remote and technology-supported teacher professional development.

This panel will focus on how we can more effectively draw on the unique assets of technology to build the capacity of teachers throughout their professional journey, informed by the wave of pivots to technology-supported TPD since early 2020. The chair will introduce the session with a brief background on how education technology has been traditionally evaluated, highlighting gaps specific to technology for teachers’ professional development. This will be followed by four presentations. The first presentation will share a new framework developed to systematically plan for and measure technology assisted remote TPD and share experiences testing and refining the framework in multiple countries. The panel’s second presentation, building on this same framework, will examine findings from a mixed methods study in Malawi, following up with head teachers and subject heads one year after they participated in a home-based remote training that used interactive voice response technology (IVR). The third presentation will highlight the development, use, benefits, and challenges of training and supporting teachers using self-learning modules during the COVID-19 pandemic in Tanzania. This presentation will share data from field interviews and knowledge questionnaires with teachers. The final presentation will discuss learnings from a hybrid TPD approach in Senegal with a balance of face-to-face training opportunities and self-directed learning modules that incorporated various technologies.

A discussant will then guide discussion about how researchers and practitioners can draw on the lessons and products of COVID-19 to more effectively use and measure technology that supports teachers’ professional development.

Sub Unit

Chair

Individual Presentations