Discussion Series: Teacher Professional Development in Crisis
3 February 2013
Teacher Professional Development in Crisis: How Can We Give Teachers in Fragile Contexts the Learning They Want and Need? is an online special forum hosted by the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE). The forum brings together international experts, practitioners, and teachers to address what we see as the overall poor quality of professional development provided to so many teachers across the globe. The forum aims to build an online community and movement around research, ideas, and strategies so that teachers everywhere get the professional development that is truly high-quality -- not simply cheap or convenient.
Photo Credit: Lilian Peters, Pakistan
The forum, which will run as a series of online discussion between February and May 2013, includes guest contributions by internationally recognized specialists in professional development (see full list and calendar below) who discuss:
- Problems and solutions in teacher professional development (TPD)
- Best practices, case studies and models of effective professional development supported by research
- Ways forward to bring high-quality professional development to teachers across the globe, with an emphasis on developing countries and low-income environments
The forum is organized and facilitated by:
- Mary Burns, Senior Technology Specialist, Education Development Center, USA
- James Lawrie, Education Advisor, War Child, Netherlands
All are welcome to participate in the
Teacher Professional Development in Crisis Forum*
Schedule |
Author/Organisation |
Issue |
|
Week 1 |
Mary Burns, Education Development Center (USA) |
TPD in crisis |
|
Week 2 |
James Lawrie, War Child (Netherlands) |
ICT |
|
Week 3 |
Kate Shevland, Orewa College (New Zealand) |
Modelling pedagogy |
|
John Morefield, Consultant (USA) |
School leadership in Cambodia |
|
|
Week 4 |
Dr. Saouma Boujaoude, American University of Beirut (Lebanon) |
CPD in Lebanon |
|
Week 5 |
Dr. B. Phalachandra, Wawasan Open University (Malaysia) |
Educational broadcasting in India |
|
Dr. Heidi Biseth, Save the Children (Norway) |
Quality education in emergencies |
|
|
Week 6 |
Dr. Atul Gawande, Journalist and surgeon Brigham and Women’s Hospital (USA) |
The importance of coaching |
|
Week 7 |
Carol Taylor, Institute of Education, University of London (UK) | Assessing effectiveness of CPD |
|
Week 8 |
Silje Sjøvaag Skeie, Norwegian Refugee Council (Norway) |
When there are no teachers… |
|
Deborah Haines, Consultant (UK) |
Teacher training, classroom realities, sustainable solutions | |
|
Week 9 |
K. Victoria Dimock, SEDL (USA) |
Implementing professional learning |
|
|
Sara Hennessy and Bjoern Hassler, University of Cambridge (UK) | Open Educational Resources in sub-Saharan Africa |
|
Week 10 |
Hannah Snowden, UNESCO (South Sudan) |
|
| Karen Edge, Institute of Education, University of London (UK) | ||
|
Week 11 |
Dr. Jenni Donohoo, Greater Essex County District School Board, Windsor, Ontario (Canada) |
Formal and informal leadership |
|
Week 12 |
Catherine Gladwell, Refugee Support Network and Jigsaw Consult (UK) |
Participation and creativity |
|
Week 13 |
Paul St. John Frisoli, Collaborative Learning Resources (USA) |
TPD in DR Congo |
|
Week 14 |
Mary Burns Education Development Center (USA) & James Lawrie, War Child (Netherlands) | From Crisis to Opportunity: Improving Professional Development in Fragile Contexts |
*Participation in the discussions requires login to the INEE website. If you are not already and INEE member, you can join for free. INEE is a global network of over 8,500 practitioners and policy makers promoting the right to quality education and safe learning environments in emergencies and post-crisis recovery.
imtiazalam77
6 February 2013, 12:42 am EDTIt is a nice initiative that will encourage development workers across the globe to comment and learn from rest of the colleagues working in different regions of the world. To me, only qualified teachers can ensure quality education at classroom level. In case the teacher is skillful, can better attract the children to the schools and the dropout rate can be easily reduced irrespective of the other facilities at school. To me a teacher who takes teaching as profession should be the top priority in terms of investment from the government side in a country, who will in return prepare better future nation.
Imtiaz Alam
Senior Manager, Partnership Development
USAID Teacher Education Project, Islamabad
Pakistan
waridi30@gmail.com
22 March 2013, 7:27 am EDTI agree, but unfortunately teachers are poorly renumerated hence they are not motivated to teaching. eventually the quality of education descreases.
shashi
15 February 2013, 4:01 am EDTI wish to conduct an online course or an open discussion. Let me know about it.
Dr. R. Shashi Kumar, Bangalore University, Bangalore.
SPawar
27 March 2013, 2:36 am EDTIn my experience, a strong alliance between teachers and their community, working with both parents and students and with support of local leaders helps to promote an increase in school enrollment. A shift in teaching methods, encouraging group work and active learning methodologies, including activities often seen only as extra-curricular, such as singing and sports, could also increase the girls’ own interest in school, also increasing their participation and parental interest.
Jack Bantu R
3 April 2013, 3:29 am EDTIt will be a pleasure for me to take part in the discussion as an education practitioner in a war torn country, Eastern DR Congo
Jack BANTU R.
SOS EDUCATION DR Congo NGO founder and Chairman
Seme Nelson
23 April 2013, 4:29 am EDTThis has been a very fruitful forum. The blog and the discussion series gave me a different insights on crisis and teacher professional development having experienced what it takes and means to a teacher crisis in South Sudan during and after the war.
Discussions on Teachers professional Developments is important since education even in acute crisis still keeps going, and how teachers manage to sacrifice and work in such circumstances is daunting.similarly the pedagogy, reference materials and even the crisis social environment needs a critical and special response. I also believe that if these discussions could reach the crisis affected education stakeholders, it can be more concrete.
I look forward to following this discussion.
Seme Nelson, Oslo-Norway