The theme of CIES asks our society of academics and practitioners to confront the ways in which education is a space of debate and contestation, and how stakeholders both internal and external to education systems seek to effect change (or maintain the status quo). The behavioral science perspective is not new to international education. It has often been presented from different research perspectives, including teacher mental models of teacher beliefs (Saberwal et. al., 2018), and the social aspects of educational change (Fullan, 2015). However, recent interest has shifted focus on the understanding of education systems change using a behavioral science lens (Ajani 2022). This perspective is important as education systems programming is frequently designed without a true understanding of how individuals will respond to change (Jeevan and Hwa, 2022). The presentations present studies which examine teachers, caregivers, and instructional practice and change within an education system. What new insights do we have and how might they influence policy and implementation for education systems change? This deck includes the following presentations and authors: From access to learning to nudging: Why behavioral science might be the next new best thing in education improvement programs (Amber Gove, RTI International), More of this and less of that: How a behavioral science lens suggests alternative approaches to education program design & implementation (Simon King, Creative Associates), Peer-to-Peer Learning: The Power of Social Networks in Adoption of New Pedagogies (Elizabeth Marsden, RTI International), and Supporting Caregivers of Young Children in South Africa to Engage in Play (Carolina Better, Ideas42).

We are indeed dealing with a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment. The Philippines suffers natural and man-made vulnerabilities such as typhoons that occur throughout the year, earthquakes, and more recently, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. These challenges necessitated the establishment of the Education Futures Program. While the Philippines Basic Education Continuity Plan in response to the pandemic, DepEd recognized at that time the urgent need to “future proof” education. Nationwide education in futures thinking and foresight planning was needed to address the future learning needs of all children and building education resilience in times of crisis. This presentation provides an overview of the "Co-creating Learning Spaces for Improved Early Language Literacy and Numeracy in the Philippines" activity, under the USAID funded All Children Reading (ACR) - Philippines. Following a brief introduction to futures thinking and foresight planning, this presentation describes how school-level teams in the Philippines developed prototypes of learning spaces for the future that addressed anticipated needs of learners. We present the prototyping process centered on human centered design thinking, the way that school teams collected feedback on their innovations from teachers in the region, parents, and learners themselves, and a snapshot of the prototypes developed, and the benefit of the prototyping process to school teams and the relative success they had in realizing their future learning spaces innovations after two years.

The Numeracy at Scale study was designed to identify and examine aspects of successful numeracy programs, to provide policy makers and development practitioners with evidence-based strategies for improving numeracy instruction and learning outcomes across contexts. To this end, the study team identified and analyzed six programs across five countries that had rigorous evidence of impact on numeracy learning outcomes and which were operating at scale or which showed the potential for scale in an entire region or country. In each country, the study teams carried out a mixed-methods study including quantitative observations and interviews conducted in 80 to 130 schools per country; as well as qualitative observations and interviews in ten schools per country. The Numeracy at Scale study investigated two research questions addressed in this presentation: 1) What classroom ingredients (such as teaching practices and classroom environment) lead to learning in programs that are effective at scale? 2) What methods of training and support lead to teachers adopting effective classroom practices? The programs involved in this study are based in India, Jordan, El Salvador, Madagascar and South Africa. Two of the programs are government-led. The six Numeracy at Scale programs represent a variety of designs, from providing instruction to at-risk girls via interactive software to a national-scale numeracy initiative integrated into all public primary schools. Despite their differences, these programs share a large number of common elements. This presentation will provide an overview of the common pedagogical strategies found across these successful numeracy programs, such as use of multiple representations, discussion about mathematical concepts, and targeted support for students, as well as the approaches these programs used to support the development of these practices among teachers. Drawing from qualitative data, the paper will then discuss details of how these common elements were executed differently under different program models. Both the common, key elements and “differences in the details” that are found across these programs can generate helpful guidelines and ideas for how practitioners and governments can strengthen their own numeracy professional development approaches, across different operating contexts and program designs.

The USDA-funded “McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program (FFE)” implemented by Mercy Corps (MC) in partnership with Research Triangle Institute (RTI) and the Borlaug Institute (BI) is a five-year project that is aimed at improving the literacy of school-age children and increasing the use of health, nutrition, and dietary practices among 100,000 students in primary grades 1-4 of 416 target schools and 100 public libraries in the Kyrgyz Republic. In May 2022, the USDA McGovern-Dole program conducted an Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) in target 50 schools. According to this assessment, about 30% of surveyed schools never hold extracurricular literacy activities with parents. Sixteen percent of interviewed students reported that they never read with someone at home. To address this critical issue, the USDA McGovern-Dole program is working with public libraries that are the centers for the development of literate modern citizens. The program builds their capacity and help them host events and activities that promote student literacy and a culture of family reading. Additionally, the program supports public libraries by providing them reading materials, books developed by local authors and illustrators, and methodological guidelines. The books are age- and reading level-appropriate. The methodological guidelines include community engagement strategies such as collaborating with parents, teachers, and community organizations to raise awareness about the importance of reading. The guidelines also cover organizing reading events, summer reading camps, book fairs, and literary festivals to celebrate reading and literacy. The project delivered about 80,000 Kyrgyz and Russian books to 100 target public libraries. Public Libraries are centers for the development of literate modern citizens. And to strengthen the capacity of the schools and public librarians, the program conducted summer camps in 64 target schools and 100 public libraries. More than 1,700 early grade students participated in the reading summer camps.

Too often, teachers are subject to top-down policies, procedures, and pedagogies that either bear little resemblance to their day-to-day experience or are so numerous as to be overwhelming in the face of their other responsibilities. When this occurs, teachers often resist these top-down approaches, instead opting to figure things out on their own, or creating their own hybrid approaches that are acceptable according to local social norms. For example, King and his colleagues (2022) found that while teachers adopted effective reading program content, they often retained their previous, less effective pedagogies; teachers utilized a heuristic short-cut requiring lower mental effort to implement the program while upholding social norms in the school. When teachers fail to adopt new and effective instructional reforms, learners don’t access the benefits of the improved instruction and the impact on learning outcomes is minimized. This situation may explain findings from Nepal, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya, where 80% of the impact from early grade reading (EGR) interventions is explained by just 13% to 34% of schools, depending on the country context (King et al., 2022). What can be done to increase the uptake of interventions in LMICs? Research on educational change and the diffusion of innovation suggest peer-to-peer learning can be a powerful way to enhance the diffusion of information and provide the support teachers need to adopt new methodologies – and can be more effective than top-down approaches for changing behavior (Fullan, 2015; Daly et al., 2010). Through peer-to-peer interactions, individuals develop social capital, the resources through which information and trust are exchanged and can be called upon to support the successful adoption of innovation and new methodologies. We will present findings from a study (October 2022-September 2023) conducted in collaboration with USAID/Tanzania Jifunze Uelewe Project that seeks to better understand the ways in which teacher peer-to-peer transmission of information, ideas, and support in Tanzania harness that power of social capital to more efficiently diffuse effective pedagogies and support their application in the classroom. Utilizing social network analysis (SNA) combined with key informant interviews, we studied how teacher-influencers and the density of teacher social networks and formal school structures for teacher communication and collaboration (e.g., communities of practice) promote or impede adoption. In this presentation we will seek to accomplish the following objectives: Present findings on the role that teacher social networks and formal school structures for communication and collaboration can play in supporting or impeding uptake of education interventions. Provide a framework for practitioners to enhance teacher peer interactions within and across schools to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of education change innovations. By better understanding the mechanisms of teacher peer interactions and learning in LMICs – such as teacher social networks and formal structures for teacher communication and collaboration - the international education community will be in a better position to leverage these assets to advance the diffusion and support of education innovations in LMICs.

The presentation summarizes findings from the Rapid Education Risk Analysis for Lebanon

As economies in the global-South mature and calls for decolonizing international assistance become louder, it becomes increasingly important to reimagine the design, planning and implementation of international assistance. This paper will explore the evolution of the relationship between an international funding agency and partner Ministry over a decade of program implementation. USAID has implemented three consecutive education projects in Tanzania since 2011 that focus on improving the quality of teaching to enhance learning outcomes, starting with the USAID Tanzania 21st Century activity. Over time, these programs have shifted the nature of implementation and engagement with Government with the goal of institutionalizing program activities within the administrative structure of the Tanzanian education system. This paper discusses the strategies used under the two most recent activities (Tusome Pamoja and Jifunze Uelewe) and the associated outcomes, providing options for future collaborative engagement. Education service delivery for basic education in Tanzania is a shared responsibility on the mainland, with Ministry of Education and Sports (MoEST) providing policy direction and quality assurance and the President’s Office – Regional Administration and Local Governance (PO-RALG) managing curriculum delivery through the schools. USAID has supported the provision of teaching and learning materials, teacher professional development, sub-national management and community engagement. In this paper we discuss the evolution of four strategies for collaboration: (i) alignment with Government policies; (ii) collaborative work planning; (iii) exploiting opportunities; (iv) consistent communication strategies. Projects, by nature, are perceived as short-term interventions independent of broader system administration. They are frequently perceived as an additional administrative burden but bringing the advantage of substitutive financing. This presentation discusses how Tusome Pamoja addressed these perceptions and expectations, by recognizing the need to demonstrate the alignment between Government initiatives and activity support. We further discuss how consistent and flexible communication led to significant achievement of Government approval of new national guidelines for school quality assurance, parent engagement, and teacher continuous professional development. We will highlight how the most recent activity (Jifunze Uelewe) made significant adjustments to its annual work planning process to address the mismatch between the work planning and budget cycles of the governments of US and Tanzania. We also discuss how clarity and coherence of communication internally between project management and USAID ensured a unified and consistent messaging strategy, with USAID communicating at the political level while project staff engaging at the technical level. This ensured that when important shifts in service delivery implementation were elevated from technical to political approval, the context and concept was already well understood. The presentation will conclude by highlighting that the path to successful collaboration rests upon several critical factors. These include a deep understanding of the political context, the relative power of personalities and positions with the extant institutional structures, consistent communication and an understanding of vested interests. Flexibility and coordination between funder and implementer is key to success.

On mainland Tanzania, most resource allocation decisions are centralized. The President’s Office - Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG) recruits and assigns teachers, supplies teaching and learning materials and funds capital construction projects. Local Governments are provided limited funds for training support or redeployment of teachers among schools. Their main resource, therefore, is to provide management attention and support to schools. With an average of 140 schools in a District and a staff of 5 individuals, only a few schools can be supported. In 2016, The Ministry of Education and Sports developed a School Quality Assurance Framework to guide local administrators on key areas of focus and guidance for school support. The framework focuses on six areas: school inputs, teacher practice, student learning outcomes, school environment, school leadership and community engagement. To facilitate the monitoring of these areas, USAID Tusome Pamoja project piloted a data collection tool that allowed measurement of progress through indicators. Of particular interest was the use of a group administered learning assessment that established benchmarks for success for grade 2 learners across six sub-tasks for reading, writing and mathematics. Due to limited resources, this assessment was only applied to a sample of schools in each district. Districts could assess their overall performance against these indicators and as a result developed somewhat generic district level support plans.. This presentation will explore how initial challenges of vague district plans were overcome through the critical data collection process leading to the establishment of benchmarks for success. o Under a subsequent activity, USAID Jifunze Uelewe, software was developed that allowed districts to capture group administered learning data for every grade 2 student and to aggregate this information at the school level. Districts were then able to rank order all schools in the district by scores on learning sub-tasks and then select the lowest performing schools for additional management attention. At the same time, districts were able to pair high-performing and low performing schools. The result of the access to school specific data was to allow districts to direct their attention to the development of plans at the school level to address low learning performance, and the ability to track progress of these schools over time. Schools enter data on Government provided tablets and the data can be synched when headteachers have access to Government provided wifi. Decentralized administrators have long been seen as critical for translating national policy into local action. However, they are frequently hampered by a combination of distracted management attention and unclear targets or benchmarks for key inputs, which encourages a laissez-faire status quo. In Tanzania, local governments in four regions have been able to contextualize data to meet their needs and use simple technology to prioritize their attention and decision-making. Our presentation showcases the significance of data driven decision making and continuous improvement of the system. We further highlight the important of simple and meaningful change and fostering proactive decision making at the local level.

It was only over a decade ago that data on dismal learning outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) shook the international education field out of its complacency with rising enrollment rates. The organizations and researchers that led this protest catalyzed a global shift toward prioritizing effective learning as the ultimate goal of education. However, acts of protest or disruption occur in a single point in time, whereas the transformations they advocate for are the labor of many years. Such is the case of the call to action to address the learning crisis. In the past decade, donor agencies like USAID have partnered with ministries of education in LMICs to design and implement programs at scale based on evidence of what works to improve foundational skills. A recent retrospective on the past ten years of USAID early grade reading programming (EnCompass LLC & MCI [2021]. Ten Years of USAID Early Grade Reading Programming: A Retrospective) estimates that USAID programs have improved reading outcomes for more than 7 million children and acknowledges tangible progress in the agency and its partners’ understanding of effective early reading instruction. The study also found that despite significant accomplishments, even the best-designed programs were hindered in their effectiveness by factors related to education systems’ low capacity to implement best practices at scale. Similarly, the Learning at Scale study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is examining some of the most effective large-scale early learning programs of the last ten years to understand the elements of their success. Learning at Scale researchers point out that improving learning at scale is hard because it usually requires working through the complex realities of government systems. Therefore, while the first chapter of the “learning crusade” yielded important lessons on what works to improve learning, there is still a lot to be learned about how to apply this knowledge to build effective government systems that ensure learning for all children. Case in point are government systems for continuous teacher professional development (TPD). It is well-known that better teaching is one of the fundamental interventions for improved learning outcomes. There is also a growing evidence base on the characteristics of effective TPD programs, as curated through initiatives like Learning at Scale and The Science of Teaching, also funded by the Gates Foundation. Among these characteristics are trainings that emphasize practice over theory and coaching programs based on structured coaching tools and frequent interaction with teachers. Another teacher support element that can be important to program success is school-based teacher communities-of-practice, which enable peer-to-peer feedback and opportunities to reflect on the ongoing application of instructional approaches. Both Learning at Scale and the retrospective study on USAID early reading programming observe a trend toward shorter but more frequent teacher training events that take place at the local level, in contrast to the massive national trainings of the past. The use of online content for teacher training is also on the rise, though preliminary findings from Learning at Scale suggest that an initial face-to-face training event continues to be essential. However, being able to identify the ingredients of effective teacher support does not automatically equate with an understanding of how to build a continuous TPD system that incorporates them. Neither does it mean that a TPD system built entirely on evidence-based best practices is guaranteed to succeed in improving learning outcomes. As more LMICs advance toward instituting standards and structured career ladders for the teaching profession, and toward developing mechanisms to increase the equity and efficiency of teacher training and support, it becomes increasingly important to identify effective models for implementing continuous TPD at scale. the panel will feature a USAID program in Jordan that exemplifies the desired result: a national-scale, comprehensive TPD model that is aligned with a broader policy on the teacher career path and is linked to a robust assessment data system that reinforces accountability for learning. It is the only program with solid evidence of positive changes in teaching practices that led to significant improvements in student outcomes.

In Tanzania, learning outcomes in early grades have remained stubbornly below expectations. Over a decade ago, the Tanzanian Institute for Education recognized that the curriculum for foundational learning needed to change. Textbooks were updated to reflect a more phonics-based strategy and the existing teacher workforce needed to be re-skilled. The Ministry of Education developed a framework for Continuous Professional Development for Practicing Teachers which focused on close-to-school delivery of new professional content. Unfortunately, the framework was not fully implemented, and instead large-scale face-to-face trainings remained the norm. Two USAID early learning programs at scale in Tanzania (one implemented from 2016 to 2021 and one that is currently ongoing) have focused on implementing the Ministry’s teacher professional development (TPD) framework to overcome three significant challenges: (i) ensuring that content did not get diluted by face-to-face cascade training; (ii) providing an incentive for teachers to apply content; (iii) ensuring that content could be adapted to context. Change is disruptive; old habits die hard – more so when there are financial incentives to retain the status quo. Moving from large scale ineffective face-to-face programs to a more holistic localized approach to TPD was met with protest and it has taken time to overcome the resistance from teachers. The first program adopted cluster-based delivery of training, with 4-5 schools in a cluster and local administrators or head teachers delivering the abbreviated training. Teachers no longer received per diems for attending centralized training. The cluster-based training was extended down to school-based communities of learning. These sessions provided an opportunity for teachers to share how they implemented new strategies in their classrooms – they provided contextualization to the content. However, not all schools or clusters had teachers who were able to adapt the content. The program introduced the idea of coaching, initially by Ward Education Officers (WEO) and then by head teachers, exemplary teachers, and eventually, peers. This allowed more experienced and knowledgeable colleagues to observe a teacher and provide feedback through a constructive dialogue. Because coaching is unfamiliar to the administrative structure in Tanzania it had to be included in the job descriptions of administrators and included in staff annual performance assessments. Despite initial resistance, this process has provided a clear incentive for teachers to apply the content that is administered in the training. Finally, to ensure training is not diluted in the translation through cascades, the follow-on USAID program introduced virtual delivery of key messages. To accommodate teachers with feature phone capabilities only, teachers access content through interactive voice instruction, calling a toll-free number and selecting to listen to a 2 minute “lesson”. With WEO support, over 90% of teachers complete a 5-lesson course. The course is aligned to content discussed at the Community of Learning and is reinforced through classroom observations. Using data collected at the beginning and end of each school year for the past two years, we show how this holistic approach to delivering professional development content has led to improved teaching practice and this in-turn has contributed to improved learning outcomes.