When COVID-19 led to school closure, teachers were expected to move swiftly online. Lacking necessary competencies to teach online, they were overwhelmed and lacked the motivation to start. The Journey encouraged, guided & equipped them with needed skills to utilize low-digital ICTs to reach and interact with marginalized children with pedagogically-sound, learner-led, fun teaching strategies.
36 volunteer teachers underwent 3 steps 'TRIPLE M: Motivating-Mentoring-Mining'.
1) To eliminate concerns and misconceptions, teachers were provided with success stories, invited figures & applicable tips and tricks
2) There were 8 mentors in charge to observe, guide and support those teachers. The mentoring process provided on-time, work-based constructive feedback.
3) Mining, meant focusing on the instructional practices that need deep-change. Mentors re-shaped teachers perspectives of their role directing it to a much student-led, collaborative and constructive direction through a focus on the ‘Questioning-cycle technique.
Teachers learnt how to guide students in a scaffolded gradual process that starts with producing a question, building knowledge through information collection and a profound reflection on, the collected data, the outcomes but more importantly the whole learning experience. This approach is highly flexible and can be implemented in diverse learning settings.
Implemented twice in 2020: Aug. 40 /Facilitator & Nov. /30 teachers.
Re-launch in summer 2021.
All engaged volunteer teachers completed the program and indicated a positive impact on their professional practices at school.
-95% of engaged (200 students) completed the program.
-The majority of parents expressed satisfaction with their children’s joy to learn, sense of responsibility, and self-confidence when it comes to inquiry-based learning.
-All teachers were able to utilize low-resource ICT(WhatsApp) instilling a constructive/active learning environment.
SCALING: Encouraged by the highly-flexible framework, the large pool of partners, and the impact-success indicators, scaling up is planned by expanding to two low-resource/high refugee-density countries, e.g. Jordan, Lebanon.
Select, according to set criteria, volunteer teachers and train them using the ‘Triple M Model’. Allocate a batch of 5 teachers to an experienced mentor with long pedagogical experience. Provide teachers with intensive 2wk online training, and step-by-step guidelines before starting the engagement with students. Make sure mentors are supporting the teachers, i.e. using developed M&E tools.
