By Dr. Taskeen Adam
In April, EdTech Hub team members
and I attended the Comparative &
International Education Society's
2022 conference -- CIES 2022 -- in
person in Minnesota, USA. While
there was a million things going on
(simultaneously!), a few sessions
stood out as significant for the
EdTech community.
1. Socio-Emotional Learning (SEL)
assessments
In the session: 'Developing SEL
assessments ground-up: Learning from
four contextualization initiatives
in the global south', colleagues
from Zizi Afrique and RTI presented
SEL assessments adapted for
African/East African contexts. The
Zizi Afrique SEL assessments are
through the
ALiVE project. According to the presenters,
these SEL assessments should be
available for sharing in the next
few months.
Why this matters to me...and
you?
When we wrote our EdTech Hub Teacher
Professional Development (TPD)
research proposal for Tanzania, we
struggled to find SEL assessments
designed to be contextually relevant
to East Africa. These assessments
have the potential to be an
excellent resources for
researchers--including us--and we
hope to incorporate such assessments
into our research tools.
2. Data Platforms and
analysis.
In the session 'Comparative and
International Education Research
Made Easy Using Free Online Data
Platforms and Tools', colleagues
from American Institutes for
Research shared two resources:
The
National Centre for Education
Statistics IDE
is a portal through which all the
data from various international
studies is connected, viewable and
downloadable. The coolest part is
that you can analyse and explore
the data very quickly through the
portal.
Why this matters to me...and
you? This overlaps strongly with
some of the aims of
Unlocking Data
as it promotes the reuse of secondary
data. Additionally, data analysis
tools like
STATA
have a high learning curve, so this is
a quick way to do fairly rigorous
analysis.
3. TPD/Communities of
learning/Professional Learning
Communities/Coaching
It's not a surprise that there were
a variety of sessions on these
topics. Here are just some of the
resources shared from TPD research
in Senegal:
Why this matters to me...and
you? Learning from tech-supported
TPD research in other countries will
be very useful for the research the
Hub is conducting in Tanzania and
Sierra Leone on TPD. Some of the
lessons we can draw on relate to
challenges of cost-effective,
quality virtual/hybrid coaching,
effective practices in setting up
communities of learning, and the
advantages and disadvantages of
tele-coaching.
4. Decolonising Education and
EdTech
There were more than 10 sessions on
decolonising education and EdTech at
CIES 2022 -- and that alone was
refreshing to see. This was
different from other conferences in
the past where there were a handful
of fringe sessions on this topic.
Many of the keynotes were about
epistemic injustices and
geopolitical inequalities. This is
really great and this shift is in
line with EdTech Hub’s work and
recent
blog series
and webinars on Decolonising EdTech.
This is part of our attempt to think
out loud and be vulnerable about how
we want to improve both internally
and in the work we do externally.
[Watch more]
Experts from New York University,
Akanksha Foundation, International
Rescue Committee, FCDO and more joined
EdTech Hub in a discussion about
prioritizing skills relevant to
mitigating negative effects of crises
that affect and impact children's
learning outcomes. For more, watch the
video.
Innovation in Tutoring; a
learning loss fix
At this year's 2022 Teacher
Tech Summit, EdTech Hub Executive
Director Verna Lalbeharie
facilitated a session on Innovation
in Tutoring, featuring Amira
Learning and Education Endowment
Foundation. The discussions
evaluated unique tactics that have
performed well in the face of
learning disruption, with private
tutoring being one of them.
Decolonising Open Educational
Resources Author: Nariman
Moustafa
Nariman explores why the focus on
‘open’ and ‘access’ is not enough
for the EdTech revolution.
Reflect with us...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A reflection on personalised
learning via education
technology through a decolonial
lens
Author: Moizza Binat
Sarwar
This is the third in a long-form
series exploring what it means to
strive toward ‘Decolonising
EdTech’. We wanted to
think out loud with you. Join the discussion...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Using technology to improve the
equity of teacher allocation in
Sierra Leone; the challenge and
a way forward
Authors: Chris McBurnie,
Bjorn Hassler and Alejandra
Vijil
Earlier this year, the EdTech Hub
team reviewed a number of case
studies from low- and middle-income
countries to understand what factors
may shape the decision of teachers
to work — or not work — in specific
schools.
This is what we found.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When teachers are asked to
deploy other teachers, we learn
a lot about teacher
preferences Authors: Chris McBurnie,
Katie Godwin, Lydia Bernard -
Jones and Bjorn
Hassler
A small group of primary school
teachers in Makeni, Sierra Leone,
huddle around a table in the
principal’s
office debating how to
allocate teachers to a set of
schools with varying
characteristics.
Find out how this discussion
went...
Publication: Nudges to Improve Learning
and Gender Parity:
Preliminary findings on
supporting parent-child
educational engagement
during Covid-19 using
mobile phones
We evaluate a digital
intervention to improve
low-literate caregivers’
engagement with their
children’s education and
development in rural Ghana
during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Read more...
Nairobi, Kenya;- This event
brings together education
leaders and changemakers to
deliberate on ways to begin
to Reclaim, create and
construct other modes and
practices within the EdTech
Ecosystem that amplify and
give credence to indigenous
and marginalized voices.
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