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Recent educational policy in India has repositioned elementary school teachers as active, reflective practitioners, not just ‘deliverers’ of syllabus material. This article examines innovations in teacher support in Rajasthan's government schools through the ‘Quality Education Program.’ Drawing on qualitative research of collaborative learning processes, the paper discusses two support strategies used by the program: professional dialogic interactions and modeling of pedagogic strategies, which paralleled introductory or developmental phases within a ‘collaborative apprenticeship model’ of teacher professional development. In doing so, the paper outlines the potential of situated, collaborative approaches for Indian in-service teacher education and education development reform, more broadly.

Within a very few years, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has turned out to be an effective educational technology which promotes some dramatic changes in teaching and learning processes. Technologies allow students to work more productively than in the past, but the teacher’s role in technology rich classrooms is more demanding than ever (Keengwe, Onchwari et al. 2008). ICT has the potential to transform the nature of education (improving teachers’ design work, enhancing the roles of students and teachers in the learning process and helping to create a collaborative learning environment, etc). Although ICT has the potential to improve the educational system to a great extent, developing countries are far from reaping these benefits because of certain barriers. The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of international articles relating to barriers encountered when introducing ICT into classrooms. This review will help identify the factors that influence teachers’ decisions whether or not to implement ICT in teaching-learning situations. Connections will be made with existing literature to explore possible barriers for introducing ICT into education in Bangladesh. Further, this paper also offers a number of recommendations to reduce these barriers and maximize the beneficial use of ICT on education.

This paper reviews the themes emerging from Bangladeshi teachers’ experiences of taking part in the initial research and the development stage of a professional development programme they were involved with. The Secondary Teaching and Learning Programme is an information and communications technologies‐enhanced supported open distance learning programme of professional development in English‐language teaching. This paper presents evidence arising from semi‐structured interviews carried out with teachers from a pre‐pilot study for the English in Action project. The teachers participating in this study reflect upon six months’ experience of using professional development materials (course material of audio podcasts enhanced with text and images; videos of classroom practice; audio of classroom language) and classroom resources (audio recordings of text‐book reading passages, songs, poems and stories), all accessed via portable digital media players (iPods).

This article tries to respond to a basic question: ‘can in-service teachers of public sectors in Pakistan be reformed?’The authors ’ response to this question is: ‘yes, public teachers can be reformed, if contextual possibilities are exploited efficiently’. Although a straightforward and simplistic response to the question, this was felt necessary to counter an unfavourable bias against public sector teachers in Pakistan without recognizing the challenges that they face, and without recognizing the potential of many of the public teachers who continuously strive to change these negative perceptions. This article recognizes the potential of public teachers and shares a relatively successful example of improving competencies among public teachers to support the response – the Cluster-Based Mentoring Programme (CBMP). Important features of the programmes are described along with discussion on its effective-ness and sustainability.

This research explores the deployment of model lessons through digital video as part of an in-service effort to engage teachers in government and private rural Indian schools and non-formal educational settings. Our mixed method design combined tests of skills in English and math with participant observation and videotaping of English and math instruction for 100 children in 3 rural schools and 1 non-formal setting over eight months. In this paper we present analyses of test score data and interactional patterns, followed by a qualitative examination of how one teacher appropriated pedagogical and subject matter knowledge from the model video lessons. Specifically, the data show gains in test scores of subject matter knowledge; children in classes that were part of the intervention scored almost 400% higher in English and almost 300% higher in math than did children in a comparison school. There were changes as well in classroom interactional patterns, suggesting that teachers became more student-centered in their approaches. The qualitative data illustrate how one teacher used and learned from the model lessons over time—for example, acquiring pedagogical strategies for interacting with the children and learning to connect classroom topics to the children’s local social worlds. Most generally, the data demonstrate how a network of teachers, schools, computer professionals, and teacher educators can reconfigure flows of information, tools, people, and texts, creating a band of geospatial opportunity within which the educational and social spaces of inhabitants of remote villages can be improved, allowing them hopeful entry to some of the advantages of a digital information age.

This research explores the deployment of model lessons through digital video as part of an in-service effort to engage teachers in government and private rural Indian schools and non-formal educational settings. Our mixed method design combined tests of skills in English and math with participant observation and videotaping of English and math instruction for 100 children in 3 rural schools and 1 non-formal setting over eight months. In this paper we present analyses of test score data and interactional patterns, followed by a qualitative examination of how one teacher appropriated pedagogical and subject matter knowledge from the model video lessons. Specifically, the data show gains in test scores of subject matter knowledge; children in classes that were part of the intervention scored almost 400% higher in English and almost 300% higher in math than did children in a comparison school. There were changes as well in classroom interactional patterns, suggesting that teachers became more student-centered in their approaches. The qualitative data illustrate how one teacher used and learned from the model lessons over time—for example, acquiring pedagogical strategies for interacting with the children and learning to connect classroom topics to the children’s local social worlds. Most generally, the data demonstrate how a network of teachers, schools, computer professionals, and teacher educators can reconfigure flows of information, tools, people, and texts, creating a band of geospatial opportunity within which the educational and social spaces of inhabitants of remote villages can be improved, allowing them hopeful entry to some of the advantages of a digital information age.

Reform in teaching and learning forms one of the basic dimensions of educational reform. This study explores the impact of the reform process on teacher thinking and classroom practice in the multi-donor supported District Primary Education Project in Karnataka, India. Using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, a variety of aspects dealing with teaching and learning are examined in order to understand the extent to which changes are taking place in the classroom. The study analyses the impact of four cultural constructs, which frame teaching and learning in India: holism as a shared worldview that encourages openness to regulation; the hierarchical structure as a regulative social framework; knowledge as discovered and attested collectively; and the ‘sense of duty’ that defines the role of the teacher (and student). The conclusion of the study is that while there are observable changes in the classroom in the use of instructional aids and activities during instruction, the essential characteristics of traditional practice, namely rote and repetition has not changed. Both teachers’ openness and resistance to reform are portrayed as embedded in the cultural construction of teaching and learning.

Discusses India's Special Orientation Programme for Primary School Teachers (SOPT), a new technology used to train large numbers of teachers so that the losses in transmission inherent in the "cascade model" are avoided. Responses from teachers and trainers show there is considerable potential for the exploitation of this technology. Contains 20 references. (VWC)