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Changes in teaching and learning:
what counts, who to,and how is it counted?
13th International Conference on Education and Development
Learning for Sustainable Futures
15-17 September, 2015University of Oxford, UK
Tom Power, Senior Lecturer, the Open University [email protected]
Rama Mathew, Professor of Education, University of Delhi: [email protected]
Ashraf Siddique, RME Officer, English in Action: [email protected]
Outline• Introduction
• Approach to School Based Teacher Development
• Research framework and findings to date
• Further methodological development ~ Human Capital & Human Capabilities
• Creating spaces for teachers voice
Introduction• Teacher Education / Educational
Technology in Low-Middle Income Countries
• Evidential issues in literature reporting changes in teaching practice and student learning outcome (see Power & McCormick, 2014)
• What counts, to who? (Human Capabilities vs. Capital - Tikly & Barret, 2011)
• Wrestling with capital vs capabilities approaches: Case Study: EIA, Large scale TE programme for ELT’s in Bangladesh
EIA approach to SBTD at scale… practice expertise via (offline)
mlearning + local peer support
Pilot
mobilematerials mobile
materials
Upscale
local peer support
Research Framework:Large scale studies
• Providing quantitative evidence of changes in:
Teacher & Student Perceptions (Questionnaire and focus groups)
Classroom Practices (Timed observations)
English Proficiency (Diagnostic interviews)
• Supplemented by qualitative studies to provide greater insight / explanation
• Driven by evidence needs of Programme, donor and GoB… designed a priori by programme team, pre-intervention
Research Framework:Small scale exploratory
studiesUnder-privileged (UCEP) School leavers: perceptions and experiences:
• use English language, after completing school
• role of English in improving employability or earnings
• How English skills are viewed by others in workplace
• expected significance for future career / earnings
New Elements: perceptions and experiences of:
• using new programme materials and technologies
• more ‘school-based’ teacher development programme
• emphasis on peer-facilitation
• focus on social inclusion in teaching materials
Further development required?
These studies are “…rare … in evidencing in exhaustive detail teacher and student activities… [and learning outcomes] on such a massive scale…” (external appraisal, 2015)
But… want to better understand participants perspectives and insights… the contexts, motivations and mechanisms that enable people to achieve changes they have reason to value… and why they value them… in their words… but grounded, evidenced…
Can large-scale teacher education programmes make space for more participatory / action research experiences?
Human Capital or Capabilities?
• Human capital perspective:
Quality assessed in terms of enrolments and retention, student outcomes, cost-benefits; a priori determined by external agencies, possibly with poor understanding of contexts or processes
• Human capabilities / rights perspective:
Values participants’ (teacher and students) perspectives & voice; supports them to identify learnings they have reason to value; enabling professionalism and agency; legitimises teacher knowledge and helps to theorise from practice
How do we hear teachers’ voices?
• Provide opportunities for teachers to – confront held beliefs, existing
practices through a research approach to their work (e.g. Japanese Lesson Study, similar initiatives in Malaysia, Australia, Singapore and China)
– ‘tell their story in their own words’ to capture how things unfold - insider perspective
– Share their learning with other professionals resulting in communities of practice
Discussion
• Experiences of tensions between human capital and human capacity discourses?
• Increasing awareness of importance of context?
• Research Methods for increasing participants voice?
