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HundrED Community Leads Dr. Sarah Aiono (CEO of Longworth Education and innovator behind the P-BLOT) and Damilola Okonkwo (Founder and head of KEY Academy) explained how they built an authentic, cross-cultural partnership to strengthen classroom practice, integrating play- and project-based learning through contextualized professional development. Watch the discussion in the video above, or read on to find our big takeaways from the conversation.
"Real change travels fastest through relationships"
Why this matters
Powerful practices, including play- and project-based learning methodologies, often get dismissed, misunderstood, or misapplied when they aren't appropriately contextualised. To do this right, educators need community, confidence, and concrete tools, not just ideas that they can run with. Cross border partnerships can democratise access to quality PD, often without requiring travel or big budgets.
How to build partnerships that matter
1. Start with connections, not content
Build trust first. Share your contexts, your ways of thinking, and your lived realities. When thinking about how to translate an innovation from one context to another, "fly-in" training will never be able to accomplish what truly localised understandings can provide.
2. Contextualise every tool
Adapt frameworks (like P-BLOT!) to local curricula, languages, and norms. Rather than copy-pasting, take the opportunity to revisit your tools and co-design interventions that are made to measure. Techniques like play- and project-based teaching can be hard to grasp when they are new. By helping parents, teachers, students and administrators see how it all fits together, it can be easier to garner the support required to implement new innovations. Learning is a continuous process, and techniques can be placed on that continuum.
3. Work for the long-term
Set up structures that make it easy to maintain contact: weekly or biweekly calls, rubrics, and workbooks all make it easier to keep yourselves on track, without having to invent something new from the ground up each time. The fastest way to change practices is through side-by-side coaching, using real lessons and content. One-off workshops are a great place to start, but to have durable effects, educators and learners need longer-term supports.
4. Look for the early wins
Partnerships that matter have splashy effects as well as more subtle ones. Keep an eye out for changes in practitioner confidence, changes in how learners interact with one another, and what kinds of new networks develop, both within your communities and across them.
The HundrED Community is passionate about growing international partnerships. Join us for our upcoming Community Conversations by becoming an ambassador or following the conversation on LinkedIn.
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