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.

This presentation features the instructional design of a blended learning online course on formative assessment developed at the request of the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd), under the USAID/Philippines All Children Reading task order. In 2020, DepEd, through the National Educators Academy of the Philippines (NEAP), issued a policy aimed at strengthening the quality of TPD. The policy calls for several transformations, including the use of a wider range of learning modalities, such as job-based learning and teacher communities of practice; the adoption of a wider range of delivery platforms, such as online and blended learning; and the immediate application of TPD lessons in classrooms. The adoption of the policy has been slow and there are few exemplars of approved courses that meet these requirements. The challenge was to design a learning experience for teachers that not only exemplified these requirements but was also flexible enough to adapt to the myriad school contexts in the Philippines and was ready to be taken to scale by regional DepEd offices―without donor support―before the closeout of USAID funding for this activity.

This presentation was delivered during CIES 2024 conference. It describes a pilot remedial reading program that was conducted as part of the Tusome program. The program was focused on improving the foundational English literacy skills of struggling grade 3 learners. Treatment 1 took place in 97 public schools across 12 counties and Treatment 2 took place in 96 learning centers across 20 counties, overseen by 23 youth bunges (youth-led organizations). Teachers in the program were trained and mentored by a combination of senior teachers, Sub-County Quality Assurance and Standards Officers (SCQASOs) and Tusome staff. Sixty control schools were also included as part of the pilot study.

Presentation at CIES in March 2024.

This presentation delivered at the CIES 2024 conference in Miami describes the bilingual reforms in Senegal and how they are supported through local language specialists (via the local organization ARED) and community engagement. For successful bilingualism, there are a number of challenges to be met in several areas. Reforming the curriculum to address the scope and sequence of national languages in the curriculum, with gradual introduction to French as a second language requires considerable shift in the status quo. Naturally, new textbooks and teaching materials need to be developed, but which languages? At present, 6 languages are taken into account in the reform promoted by the government, but there is a need we need to think more broadly about the gradual introduction of other languages, and their readiness to be used in formal instruction. Under the current reform program, RELIT—Renforcement de la Lecture Initiale pour Tous—is led by the government in collaboration with implementing partners supported by USAID. A detailed program of language mapping and community consultations has helped to lay the groundwork for community acceptance of national language instruction and identifying which language will be used in each school based on the majority language in the community. Preparing communities for such a significant change also involves community consultations and a large social and behavior change communications campaign. While these broad changes are critical to the larger ecosystem of school reform, ultimately teachers need to implement the reforms, and therefore a significant task is upskilling teachers in using these national languages for instruction. Some teachers also need to improve their skills in speaking and reading these languages, which have largely been oral languages until recently. Policy and curricular reforms therefore need to take into consideration teacher recruitment, teacher preparation and placement in schools. Such issues of curriculum, societal attitudes, and teacher training are relatively easily anticipated. However, there are a host of smaller details that only implementation of such a significant program can reveal. Should the curriculum include teaching cursive writing in national languages, which has always been the norm in French, even though no cursive forms yet exist for certain letters of the languages? For instruction in both national languages and French, should materials be developed in separate volumes, or do both languages appear side-by-side in textbooks and learning materials? What messages resonate with communities, who may resist national language instruction? And how best to bring teachers on board with such a monumental change? This presentation will discuss the processes and findings of multiple action research activities in the context of the RELIT program.

This presentation delivered at the CIES 2024 conference in Miami describes the bilingual reforms in Senegal and how they are supported through local language specialists (via the local organization ARED) and community engagement

Presentation for CIES 2024 panel: Disrupting the Status Quo of Continuous Teacher Professional Development: Alternative Models for Improved Learning Outcomes. This presentation describes the Senegal RELIT programme's teacher professional development process.

A key component of educational change is that it is often overlooks is that it is fundamentally an emotional process for teachers (Rogers, 2003). When change in instructional practice is expected of teachers, their response is usually varied; mostly determined by their environment (e.g., school, social network, etc.) and personality characteristics (Kahneman, 2011). An education system provides different inputs during this educational change with the hope that teachers can implement new instructional practices effectively. This input might include ongoing teacher support and accountability mechanisms. To better understand how teachers respond to educational change, we conducted research in coordination with Early Grade Reading programs in Tanzania and Nepal. The study used an explanatory mixed-methods approach to explore the variability of teacher response to education change, and how the education system mechanisms influenced this change. A key component of the research framework was an alignment of behavioral science and systems thinking, presenting a novel lens to uncover perspectives not usually researched. It was concluded that some teachers were able to apply a rational approach to change aligned with Guskey’s model of teacher change (1986), while other teachers implemented the new early grade reading curriculum while retaining key aspects of their prior default pedagogical approach. The accountability and support system focused on teacher compliance for curriculum delivery, the most observable and correctable aspect of classroom instruction. For teachers in schools with low student achievement and gain, Finally, most teachers were unaware of the actual performance levels of their students, believing that most or all of their students would meet systems expectations of reading proficiency by the end of grade two. Leveraging theoretical perspectives from Fullan (2015), Rogers (2003), and Kahneman (2011), this study concludes with recommendations of the most promising avenue of research regarding how to address educational systems change.

USAID funded “Okuu Keremet!” is a project (5 years, $19M) designed to help improve learning outcomes in reading and math among 300,000 students in grades 1-4 in 1,686 target schools in the Kyrgyz Republic. As part of its efforts to improve learner performance, the project supported development of two user-friendly applications in four languages (Kyrgyz, Russian, Uzbek and Tajik). These apps are SabakApp (classroom observation), and BaalooApp (formative assessment), each described below. These apps represent cutting-edge and innovative solutions to challenges that teachers in the Kyrgyz Republic face in classrooms and will play a critical role when it comes to providing teachers with real-time feedback on their teaching strategies as well as instant access to knowledge, best practices, and advice that teachers currently do not have. Regular use of these applications will allow primary school teachers to implement tailored and effective teaching strategies in reading and math that will result in stronger early grade students’ performance. SabakApp is a coaching application tool developed for use by national trainers (coaches), district level coaches, and school-based instructional support teams (IST) to support teachers to improve student outcomes. This app enables these stakeholders to conduct classroom observation, use data to provide focused feedback to teachers, and engage in dialogue with decision makers on how to plan additional coaching support. This app includes the classroom observations forms that are synced with the reading and math curriculum being taught and based on the observation provides immediate feedback to teachers of their strengths and weaknesses. This data then feeds into a dashboard that ranks schools by performance, and thus provides information to the system on which schools to target. To date, more than 13,500 teachers were provided with focused mentoring support at school and district levels by the school and district leaders and national trainers. Early reviews of data collected indicate that the quality of teacher instruction has increased in less than one year. BaalooApp is a formative assessment application developed for use by primary school teachers to identify strengths and weaknesses in student performance, and to support teachers to decide the best approach to remedy the challenges identified – via individual, group or whole-class instruction; to provide individual descriptive and actionable feedback to students; and regularly reflect and adapt their own instruction with the aim to improve student learning outcomes. At present, BaalooApp is being used in 1,686 target schools. According to teachers’ perceptions: “BaalooApp gives both the overall picture on students’ results and the dynamics of each student and helps the teacher to identify both strong and struggling students and gives recommendations on how to work with both each groups” (Primary school teachers, School #5, Jalal-Abad city).

The USAID-FCDO Jordan Early Grades Reading & Mathematics Initiative (RAMP) started in 2015 with the goal to improve Kg-Gr.3 students reading and mathematics skills through improving curriculum system coherency, teacher professional development and coaching, increasing parental involvement, and improving standards, evaluation, monitoring, and accountability systems. The presentation is about how RAMP built a resilient MOE early grades system that could mitigate the learning loss caused after the school closure as a measure of the spread of COVID-19. It was notable the early grades school system was more resilient than the upper levels, administrators and teachers were more ready to cope with a new context where children reading and mathematics skills were varying widely: the MOE was able to rapidly implement a national survey (EGRA/EGMA) to measure learning losses and design a remedial program; teachers were able to use diagnostic assessment tools and identified individual students actual learning needs; teachers were familiar with differentiated instruction and remedial strategies for vulnerable children; and a system was already in place to regularly coach teachers in under-served schools/areas.