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This chapter is about teacher professional development in Tanzania. The authors have examined the current status of teacher professional development in Tanzania, focusing on predominant perspectives on the concept and provision modalities. In addition, the authors have identified challenges facing teacher professional development in Tanzania, most of which seem to be systemic. The challenges include lack of explicit policy and guidelines for teacher professional development, limited...

In order to fully realise the potential of online and blended learning (OBL), teacher professional development (TPD) strategies on how to teach in an online or blended learning environment are needed. While many studies examine the effects of TPD strategies, fewer studies target the specific important components of these strategies. This study addresses that gap by conducting a systematic review of qualitative data consisting of 15 articles on TPD that targets OBL. Using a meta-aggregative...

This paper examines the influences of professional development activities on important teacher-level factors that are important for the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education for primary school teachers in Mongolia. The study utilizes the survey data collected in 2012 (n = 826) and 2016 (n = 1161) to identify the changes in factors that are important to the use of ICT in education. The study result shows that six teacher level factors that are important for the...

The mass displacement of people across the world, currently estimated at 65 million, creates a massive demand for new forms of education for children, young people and adults. However, this cannot be addressed without attending to what this means for teachers and other professionals involved in education and training. Clearly, there is a need for large-scale teacher professional development (TPD). Digital technology has the potential to meet this demand, but challenges are presented by the...

We examine second-year impacts of a 1-year pre-primary teacher training and coaching program, delivered with and without parental-awareness meetings, evaluated with a school-level randomized trial. Outcomes included teachers’ professional well-being and classroom practices. Most gains observed during the program year faded out. However, there were small sustained impacts on the implementation of training activities. Counteracting effects of the parental-awareness meetings were evident, with...

International teacher-educator learning supports a more complex vision of teacher professionalism for both developed and developing countries. The aim of this paper is the analysis of Pakistani teacher-educator professional learning after attending an international blended course, considering the impact of online and face-to-face participation and the main competencies involved in their professional learning. The blended learning course attended by the Pakistani Teacher-educators is part of...

Since 1997, the government of Tanzania has made several attempts at introducing technology into education. However, despite these efforts technology has not become integrated into educational practice. A main reason is that teachers do not embrace the use of technology in their teaching. This study was initiated to design, implement and evaluate a professional development arrangement aimed at promoting teachers’ use of technology in their teaching practice. The study started with a ‘proof of...

Teacher educators in Nigeria receive limited professional development, particularly regarding the instruction of early grade reading skills. As part of the USAID-funded Northern Education Initiative Plus project, Florida State University faculty provided intensive teacher educator professional development to staff at four Teacher Education Institutions in northern Nigeria. Positive impacts on teacher educator knowledge, skills, and attitudes were observed related to content and pedagogical...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how rural teachers provided a PLC by leveraging virtual technologies to connect educators of like subject disciplines from several schools, foreign and domestic.Design/methodology/approachA phenomenological case study-based approach was leveraged to investigate established vPLCs at schools (Creswell, 2013; Stake, 2010). Qualitative data were collected from multiple sources to obtain rural teacher perceptions on the impact vPLCs had on their...

Teacher empowerment is a central issue in relation to the efforts to improve the quality of education. However, teacher empowerment will remain an abstract idea if its implementation is not supported by an appropriate strategy. The demands for a quality education will be unreciprocated if teachers do not have the opportunity to empower themselves. This research aims to investigate the teacher empowerment strategy in Indonesia, which has been conducted by employing a community-based teacher...

Continuing teacher professional development for all teachers across the entire school system poses a challenge in many contexts, especially in developing countries. Teachers from schools located in remote rural areas usually have fewer professional development opportunities due to the lack of accessibility either to their schools or to professional development resources. On-site school-based professional development is a viable option if innovative design is adapted to generate microlearning...

The colleges of education in Ghana have been involved in a continuous professional development for over four years with support of Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T-TEL). The main purpose of this research was to assess the perceived impact of the continuous professional programme on physics teaching at the colleges of education. Descriptive cross sectional survey was used for the study. An online survey was conducted which was completed by 85 physics tutors. The survey data were...

In this paper we describe our early, qualitative work on “teacher talk moves” such as revoicing, situated within the urban classrooms of highly skilled teachers, including their role in the work of managing multiple constraints while maintaining productive inclusivity. We then describe our attempts to discern the impact of these talk tools on student achievement in multiple classrooms, using both post-hoc controls and in vivo studies. We move on to the challenges present in disseminating...

We assessed the impacts of a teacher professional development program for public and private kindergartens in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. We examined impacts on teacher professional well-being, classroom quality, and children’s readiness during one school year. This cluster-randomized trial included 240 schools (teachers N ¼ 444; children N ¼ 3,345, Mage ¼ 5.2) randomly assigned to one of three conditions: teacher training (TT), teacher training plus parental-awareness meetings...

This chapter begins by situating discussion of approaches to teacher development (TD) in the context of the grand societal challenge of Education for All (UNESCO 2014), as written into the earlier Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and now Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4:‘to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all.’ This goal cannot be met without addressing the stark and urgent need for greater numbers of teachers who are adequately equipped with the knowledge and...

The concept of a collaborative based reflective practice approach is grounded within the theoretical argument that critical reflection can be fostered through the presence of the "knowledgeable other" (Vygotsky, 1978). The present study was a pilot initiative in utilizing EDMODO (a closed educational learning management system) as a platform to explore reflection in a communal approach within a group of pre-service ESL teachers and their teacher educator mentor during a teaching practice...

This study examines the practice of adaptation and translation (localisation) of Open Educational Resources (OER). It employs a sociocultural perspective to focus on the experiences of practitioners (localisers) who undertook the localisation of a suite of 125 OER created as part of a teacher professional development programme in India. This localisation process generated eight unique versions of the OER in five languages. Drawing on project reports, practitioner interviews and analysis of...

The mass displacement of people across the world, currently estimated at 65 million, creates a massive demand for new forms of education for children, young people and adults. However, this cannot be addressed without attending to what this means for teachers and other professionals involved in education and training. Clearly, there is a need for large-scale teacher professional development (TPD). Digital technology has the potential to meet this demand, but challenges are presented by the...

Integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in teaching and learning in schools has been hindered by many barriers, including lack of in-service teacher training, teacher beliefs and lack of infrastructure. In the effort to solve the challenge of teacher training in Tanzania, few in-service teachers, based on different parameters, are selected to participate in the face to face ICT training at the specified training centre. Scaling of such teacher training initiatives has...