Professional Development at Large Scale: How to Improve a Cascade Model Training

• In Event: Teacher education and professional development

Proposal

Teacher professional development is still relevant today. Teacher professional development can be broken down into two divergent approaches, either a top-down approach or a bottom-up approach. Top-down approach are prescribed and institutional while the bottom-up approach is more locally situated and self-oriented (Dehghan, 2020). However, the in-service training of primary school teachers poses challenges for organizations wishing to train them. Among these challenges are institutional and financial constraints. The number of teachers to be trained, training time, and travel to attend these trainings are some examples. To overcome these constraints and build capacity, a top-down training model has emerged, the cascade or the waterfalls model (Hayes, 2000).

The cascade training model involves training people who will go on to train other people after them. This pyramidal model has levels from top to bottom, the last level being found in the classes (Cros et al. 2010). This model is associated with multiplier agents (Griffin, 1999; Ono & Ferreira, 2010), because trainers multiply as they are trained. Three stages mark out the process (More, 2004). The first step is to develop the training material. The aim here is to develop the content for the trainees and to develop training modules that can be used in the cascade. This is the first level of the waterfall. The second stage consists in training the pedagogical supervisors and teachers. There are several levels of training here. The developers, a group made up of experts and specialists, form a first group of educational supervisors and teachers. These will then be deployed in different places to train another level of educational supervisors and teachers. They can in turn become trainers at another level. This is what characterizes cascade training. At the third level, a monitoring system is put in place to ensure the quality of the training.
Cascade training shows interesting advantages from an administrative point of view. Indeed, as this training system reaches many teachers in a short time (Leu, 2004), it can cause rapid and massive changes (Hayes, 2000). Costs are reduced because teachers train other teachers (Ono and Ferreira, 2010). Moreover, as trainers are teachers (Hayes, 2000), this facilitates the dissemination of content. However, there is a knowledge dilution effect (Lange, 2014). Knowledge is lost during the transfer from one level to another (Fiske & Ladd, 2004). Indeed, shifts in meaning occur between what specialists have conceptualized during the development of content and the implementation of this content in the field: there is a loss of quality due to errors of regulation and control which are repeated from one level to another (Cros et al. 2010). Another limitation of this device is illustrated by the fact that the training is longer for the trainers than for the teachers (Cros et al. 2010). The teachers are therefore less trained than the trainers and find themselves very far from the experts. To avoid these limitations, Hayes (2000) identified four success criteria. The first two criteria highlight the limits of the transmission of knowledge and the challenge of supporting the development of professional skills. Indeed, according to Hayes (2000), the method of conducting training should be experiential and reflective rather than transmissive. It is about bringing the changes to life rather than presenting them in a theoretical way. Training must be open to reinterpretation; rigid adherence to prescribed work methods should not be expected. The aim here is to develop the posture of the reflective practitioner (Schön, 1983). The last two criteria question the cascade training system. According to Hayes (2000), expertise should be disseminated as widely as possible throughout the system and not remain concentrated at the top. It is about putting teachers in contact with real experts, to support them in changing their teaching practices. To better respond to the needs of the environment, a cross-section of stakeholders should be involved in the preparation of training material.
As pointed out by Author (2018), this model is not the most effective regarding teachers’ learning. In this case, how to implement a bottom-up approach in a cascade model project?

An experimentation in Côte d’Ivoire
This paper will present an experimentation conducted in Côte d'Ivoire in 2018-2021. The project aimed to support Grade-1 to Grade-3 teachers regarding teaching mathematics using a competency-based approach. The experimentation involved training teachers for the first three years of primary school (CP1, CP2 and CE1) from 375 primary schools located in six different regions in the north of the country. It was therefore necessary to train a team of national experts, 200 educational supervisors and 1,125 elementary school teachers. The project, supported by the World Bank, originally proposed to use a cascade training model. The author of the paper convinced them to experiment a different approach to better support teachers. This experimentation will be presented and discussed during the presentation.

References
Cros, F., De Ketele, J. M., Dembelé, M., Develay, M., Gauthier, R. F., Ghriss, N. et Teho, V. (2010). Étude sur les réformes curriculaires par l'approche par compétences en Afrique. Rapport commandité par le CIEP, le Ministère des affaires étrangères et européennes (France).
Dehghan, F. (2020): Teachers’ perceptions of professionalism: a topdown or a bottom-up decision-making process ?, Professional Development in Education.
Fiske, E.B. & Ladd, H.F. (2004). Elusive Equity: Education Reform in Post-apartheid South Africa. Washington: DC: Brookings Institute.
Griffin, M. (1999). Training of trainers. Journal of Staff Development, 20(3): 52-53.
Hayes, D. (2000). Cascade training and teachers’ professional development. ELT Journal, 54(2), 135-145.
Lange, S. (2014). Learner orientation through professional development of teachers? Empirical results from cascade training in Anglophone Cameroon. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 44(4), 587–612.
Leu, E. (2004). The patterns and purposes of school-based and cluster teacher professional development programs. Washington, DC: USAID.
More, D.D. (2004). The Impact of Large-Scale Training Programmes on Educational Management Development in South Africa. PhD Thesis, Published. University of Pretoria. South Africa.
Ono, Y., Ferreira, J. (2010). A case study of continuing teacher professional development through lesson study in South Africa. South African Journal of Education, 30: 59-74.

Author

• Annie Savard, McGill University