about our teacher trainings
A Yearlong Professional development program for in-service teachers.
Participants in Kimanya’s yearlong teacher professional development program gather three times a year (prior to each academic term) to study Preparation for Social Action (PSA) and A Discourse on Social Action (DSA) materials. Each intensive training, known as a module, lasts between 11-13 days and involves the study of 3 materials. Throughout the yearlong training, participants engage in a number of hands-on activities and experiments that allow them to engage with the community and utilize strategies of action research. In between modules, tutors observe teachers in their classrooms and act as a mentor, providing additional support.
Each module finds teachers at a different point in their professional development and therefore uses specific study materials to achieve a unique set of objectives. Motivating each module is a belief that before teachers can transform their classrooms into sites of participatory learning, they must analyze and experience firsthand such a learning environment.
module 1
From the first days of Module 1, teachers begin the process of becoming active learners. They commence their study of richly constructed capabilities-based educational modules (studying FUNDAEC’s texts Properties and Heating & Cooling). Teachers are given reflection notebooks and asked to spend time each day reflecting on what new things they learned (not just information) which can benefit them as teachers. Each morning, they share their reflections.
Through this process of study, consultation, and reflection, teachers identify many of the methods in the PSA materials which they may correlate with methods introduced to them on a theoretical basis in their prior professional development. They note, for example, how the practical activities found in most lessons deepen their understanding of new concepts. They observe, in other instances, how the use of small groups permits timid learners–be they teachers or students–to more confidently explore ideas with their peers. Similarly, they appreciate how tutors earn the trust of participants by not being quick to criticize, but instead encourage universal participation. In the end, teachers commit to replicating these methods in their classrooms, motivated by the experience they went through in the training, and by the evidence of the effectiveness of these strategies.
In this first module, teachers are also exposed to initial discussion of theory/purpose in the text Basic Concepts. They explore the idea that knowledge within a community of learning is advanced through discourse, or the contributions of numerous actors carrying out different roles within a common field (like public health, education). This helps them appreciate that it is not only “experts” or high-level individuals who contribute to the advancement of a discourse. They reflect on the idea that transformation of society is dependent on systematic (not sporadic) and sustained learning. That it should aspire to a clear vision while also being very practical, attending to local realities and needs. They begin to appreciate the fact that as they are aspiring to lofty change and progress within their schools and communities, they will be surrounded by less constructive efforts, but should not lose focus or direction by blaming others for current challenges. Instead, the text they study encourages a collective focus of energies onto finding solutions to the problems we face. Finally, teachers explore the concept of the twofold purpose: that the progress of society and individuals are inextricably linked. An individual does not grow up in isolation from their social environment, and our social environment is a product of individual contributions. Thus, efforts at bettering our communities must equally emphasize the development of both the individual and the society.
The intended outcome of the first module/intensive training is that teachers are inspired to go back to their schools and change their teaching practices and the ways they interact with their learners. Within the first academic term, tutors will observe teachers’ efforts in their classrooms to apply what they learned but will also see them struggle with how their administrators react to certain changes; how they struggle to implement ideas with large class sizes; how they struggle with pace of learning and their ability to cover the whole syllabus, etc. It is a time of excitement and growth, but also of difficulties implementing the ideas and inspiration they took away from the first training. Tutors do their best, during visits and lesson observations, to help teachers reflect on what their intentions are vs what they were able to accomplish in their lessons. The reflection notebook is the primary tool used by teachers to capture their intentions and relative successes and challenges.
module 2
When teachers enter the second intensive training, they bring with them concrete experience of attempting to implement the new methods, models, and approaches they appreciated from their first training. The goal, at this stage, is to help them go deeper in their understanding of the logic and design of the PSA materials. Here, teachers will study two new units. Transition to Agriculture is intended as a continuation of the objectives in first training, helping teachers think more about language development, integration of subjects when learning, among other things. To Describe the World, however, goes beyond this to also provide teachers an opportunity to carry out practical activities during the training that will directly assist them to explore how insights from the training can be translated to the design of purposeful and rich lessons and learning environments.
In order to accomplish this, teachers study DSA Education which helps explore in more depth the logic, design, and motivating principles behind the PSA materials. Through the combination of the study of Education, teachers’ daily reflections on their training experience, and the practical activities around designing lessons for young children in To Describe the World, teachers are helped to undergo a metacognitive analysis of their experience with the PSA materials.
In DSA Education, teachers reflect on the aim of education, appreciating that understanding the aim of something helps to motivate learners. Through discussions teachers recognize that they rarely, if ever, give attention to exploring the purpose of education with their students, peers, or parents, in order to ensure that they have clear or even shared priorities. Teachers also appreciate that they rarely even talk about the purpose of a given subject, lesson, or series of lessons with their learners, yet expect them to remain actively engaged throughout the year. Teachers also explore two common approaches used in understanding something: breaking things into smaller and smaller parts, and placing things in larger and larger contexts. Through these discussions teachers appreciate that we often over rely on breaking things down when analyzing, and forget to explore factors beyond our immediate view (such as how students’ lives outside of school can impact behavior and engagement in the classroom). Another lesson helps teachers appreciate the difference between understanding a concept vs assimilation of information, and how our most common approaches to teaching tend to rely on transmission of information and not on deeply understanding complex concepts. Lastly, teachers explore the concept of a capability, which is at the center of Fundaec’s approach to education, and begin to consider how each PSA materials they have studied to date contributed to their acquisition of skills, understanding of concepts, assimilation of relevant information, development of attitudes, qualities, and habits.
By the end of this training, teachers have had experience designing lessons for young children that utilize a diversity of activities and approaches to prioritize understanding of concepts in addition to information assimilation. They have also attempted to give consideration for other elements of capabilities development in these lessons. The concluding step is for teachers to form small groups to plan lessons relevant to their class levels and subject areas which give more attention to the development of capabilities over simply the transmission of information. In some instances, these groups endure beyond the training and form the basis of small teacher networks made up of individuals from multiple schools in the same sub-region.
During the second academic term, teachers continue to draft and refine their lessons, they try to be more thoughtful about when and why they adopt certain methods (considering whether such methods are coherent with their intended aims), and they take time to better understand the obstacles that may impede their students from understanding things in class (even going so far as to visit students in their homes). A defining objective of Module 2 is to shift teachers’ attitudes and mental models, to enable them to recognize that learning will improve as they help students understand intended objectives, as they help students reflect, and as they overcome various obstacles that impede learning. In this way, helping students understand something, so that they can apply what they learn in their personal lives and in their lives outside of school, is now the focus of their efforts and not simply depositing knowledge in the textbooks into the heads of the students.
module 3
The logic and aim of the last module is consistent with the first two. The addition here is the study of materials which help teachers more concretely visualize connections between the school and the wider society. This training also continues to reinforce elements of previous trainings with its emphasis on experiencing practical approaches to learning, experiments, active participation, the development of skills, learning about relevant concepts and information, forming of habits and qualities, etc.—in this way continuing to reinforce how a learner can develop a capability over time through well thought out methods and educational activities. The material also introduces new components such as community-based research, and consideration of community challenges and needs.
Following this module, teachers have a graduation where they present many of the insights they gained during the year to the teachers from other training sites, to school administrators, and to education officials from the national and district level. They also receive certificates for completion or participation depending on the degree of completion of the yearlong training.
Tutors continue visiting and reflecting with teachers in the third academic term.
Following the full year training, this model anticipates that teachers will take over the cycle of action, reflection, and refinement of theory and methods, to eventually advance learning through their own action-reflection process.
