The World Bank and HundrED have just released a Spotlight Report highlighting the top 10 education innovations supporting in-service teacher professional development – our exciting new platform LeadNow made the list!

In the process, we were asked to share our advice for policymakers intent on leveraging technology for teacher professional development.  Here’s what we said…

Think holistically about the solution you need

Policymakers (and indeed other actors) need to think holistically about the challenge of embedding technology in teacher professional development.  The focus can’t only be on provision of devices, or establishing connectivity, or even building an app.  We must work with school leaders and teachers to uncover the barriers, and despite the potential complexity, design solutions in a way that address these barriers.  For school leaders and teachers, we have discovered that its important think about digital literacy, about educator confidence with using tech, about their autonomy to act on what they’ve learned, and accountability and support at a school level for expected shifts in practice.   No app, training platform or intervention can succeed in isolation from a deep understanding of the teachers it aims to support.

Learn from what works inperson

Think about what makes inperson professional development work, and strategise as to how to replicate the same elements virtually!  Human connection, and building relationships of trust are critical.  Training content delivery, without opportunity for modelling and practice, has little impact.  Coaching needs to be informed by real-time classroom practice.  How can we translate these important lessons to tech-enabled teacher professional development?

Listen to school leaders and teachers

Genuinely listen – understand the realities of their day to day, believe their barriers, and acknowledge current gaps in development and support.  This listening doesn’t stop once we’ve designed the training and its implementation, but at every step of implementation we need to be listening to the data to gain insight into what progress is being made, and where the gaps are.

Collaborate

Collaboration amongst stakeholders is critical for a coherent, comprehensive system of teacher development and support.  As governments establish strong national frameworks for school leader and teacher competencies, and resources to accompany these, development organisations and nonprofits must be aligned, and taking a collaborative approach.  With great collaboration, there is a wonderful opportunity to build resources (with stakeholders) that equip school and classroom to meet the expectations of these national competency frameworks.

Always competency based

Any interventions for teachers should be competency based, driven and evaluated.  At Dignitas, we always start with the question, “What competencies and mindsets do teachers need to offer quality support to learners in this circumstance?”  Our coaching support is designed to nudge new leadership and classroom practice based on competency frameworks that support quality teaching and learning. With this approach, we can ensure sustained shifts in classroom practice that maximise impact for learners, and ensure teachers are equipped for a changing world.

We applied these lessons in our development of LeadNow, and we are excited about the potential impact for our school partners and beyond!