Many teachers in low-fee private schools in Ghana and around the developing world rely on rote learning - a way of teaching that requires pupils to memorize facts instead of learning by applying critical thinking skills. The problem persists as these teachers rarely have formal training and school proprietors lack the capacity to provide continuous professional development. There is also a resistance from teachers to teach another way than how they learned while in school.
Realizing that the teacher is central to teaching and learning in the classroom, the IDP Foundation, Inc. (IDPF) wanted to do something to improve the self-image of these teachers and promote children’s creativity. Common to all IDPF programs, it was important for this to serve as a global model, replicable, scalable and impactful. IDPF funded a partnership with Sesame Workshop, the global non-profit behind Sesame Street, loved and lauded globally for their child-centered play interventions. Together, they created the Techniques for Effective Teaching (TFET) Program, a comprehensive, 14 module teacher training program with topics such as Positive Discipline and Classroom Management and Learning through Play. Each module is delivered through an interactive, in-person training comprised of a 10-minute teacher training video and a workbook that guides discussions, practice tasks, and reflections. Featuring fun and playful interactions between the beloved Sesame Workshop Muppets Zobi and Kami, with Matilda Asante in the role of their favorite teacher, the videos offer a vibrant demonstration of the new and engaging ways that teachers can work with children and facilitate learning.
The TFET program adopts a cascade training approach in which the curriculum is initially taught to a group of “master trainers,” who then take what they have learned to teach other educators in their schools. IDPF and Sesame Workshop worked closely with the Ministry of Education in Ghana and the Ghana Education Service throughout the development and implementation of the program.
The TFET program has been a success, reaching 128 low-fee private schools so far through this cascading approach, with plans to expand. Teachers are reporting that the program’s training delivery and modules are extremely informative and that their classroom practices have improved. In an independent post-training evaluation, teachers described the techniques they had learned as “highly-useful’, “relevant”, and “easy to implement.” An external evaluation is currently underway to further explore how the TFET program is helping teachers to adopt pupil-centered pedagogical skills and improve pupils’ learning outcomes. The study findings will be available in 2020.
