Category: Teachers
Teacher professional development in Africa – A decolonial synthesis of the research evidence
What does professional development provision look like for teachers in African schools? What patterns exist across the region in terms of the focus and forms of provision? Who is able to access professional development opportunities, and who is being left out? What are teachers’ experiences and outcomes from provision?
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Implementation research for sustainability: encouraging holistic thinking
There is welcome interest in the issue of ‘implementation’ in the context of international educational development, as exemplified by Maria Brindlmayer. She and the Building Evidence in Education (BE2) team challenge the notion of a rigid theory of change, suggesting that ongoing research during the implementation of an intervention .....
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“Good Buys” bought and shelved – Reviving unused structured teacher guides in Afghanistan
According to UNICEF, 13% of Grade 2/3 students in Afghanistan possess foundational reading skills. While studies have examined the various factors impacting the acquisition of this gateway skill among students, the teaching process has been identified to be a significant factor among them.
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What does an ‘effective’ teacher look like? Factors associated with different teacher ‘outcomes’ in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, India
This research used mixed methods analysis to examine factors associated with ‘teacher effectiveness’ in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, a context in which the role of the teacher is challenging, contradictory and rapidly changing.
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Thinking again about agency for inclusion: Analysing leadership data through local and global perspectives
How can leaders be supported to initiate small local changes in schools and classrooms in ways that provide agency and have the potential for scaling? What happens with a bottom-up approach to change and how far does the status quo move in communities?
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Assessment: the forgotten component in large scale teacher professional development?
Much attention has been given to the assessment of learning at school and university. Reflecting this increased focus on this area, Teacher Professional Development (TPD) programmes include considerable support to teachers to improve how they use assessment , but how much thought is given to the design and evaluation of…
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Teachers in the spotlight for education transformation: Hope for learning and care during emergencies
Teachers are the largest workforce in Pakistan, as they are in many countries of the world. According to the latest Economic Survey of Pakistan 2022-23, there are 1.82 million teachers across all sub-sectors of education, a conservative estimate of under-documented data. There have been significant shifts in this profession, elevated…
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Three ways in which school closures impacted Rwandan secondary school teachers
This blog summarises highlights from our latest research synthesis (also translated into Kinyarwanda) focusing on Rwandan secondary school teacher attitudes, training and retention, as well as student learning outcomes, when schools reopened after the COVID-19 closures. The publication also shares implications for policy and future research based on the findings.
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The context behind the context: A revealing approach to appreciating leadership
Everything exists in a context. Fish swim in water, humans live in families, and planets endlessly circulate in each other’s gravitational fields. When it comes to leadership, leaders are located in their local context – societies that embody and enact cultural understandings.
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It’s high time to rethink existing approaches to educational accountability
A headteacher in England, took her own life after her school was rated “inadequate” in the latest round of inspection conducted by the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills—better known as its acronym Ofsted. Before this shocking tragedy, many surveys already noted an alarming number of teachers…
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Instructional leadership – what it is and why it matters
Joseph is the new headteacher of a rural primary school in Central Zambia. He faces many challenges. The school has recently been connected to the mains water supply but has no electricity. In his first few weeks, he was visited by Martha, the District Education Standards Officer, who highlighted the…
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Bringing teachers’ voices into the discussion about teaching and learning in Rwanda
An important part of any research project should be engaging research participants so that both researchers and research participants have the chance to learn and reflect together on the findings. Engaging research participants in the findings they have contributed to can also help to identify rich evidence-based solutions. However, this…
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