Lisa Taner

Postgraduate Research Student

Institute of Educational Technology

The Open University

Lesley Boyd, The Open University

Bea de los Arcos www.flickr.com/photos/celtatis/15651016535/

Jointly funded 1+3 studentship

openTEL

The Open Technology Enhanced Learning (openTEL) is a priority research area, bringing together researchers from across the Open University to focus on research in TEL.

http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/opentel/

SRA-IDIIThe Open University’s Strategic Research Area in

International Development and Inclusive Innovation

IDII groundbreaking research sets out to:

• Tackle global inequity

• Reshape market processes to ensure innovation involves and serves the needs of all

• Work in partnership with poor and marginalised people to realise a fairer and more sustainable world.

http://www.open.ac.uk/ikd/

Bit about me

Akwaaba!

Inspiration for this research

Scaling the PhD wall

Don’t panic! You deserve to be here.

We aren’t looking for THIS, but..

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lego_Color_Bricks.jpg

Context

Primary education in Sub-Saharan Africa faces a critical shortage of teachers estimated at 25 million (UNESCO, 2015).

Teacher’s professional development varied with a diversity of approaches.

Many in-service teachers have received little or no training historically.

MDGs had some success in growing primary enrolment but there is variation in completion rates.

In addition to millions missing out on school, many attending are being failed by a system that fails to meet their needs and lacking the literacy and numeracy skills to raise themselves out of poverty.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sustainable_Development_Goals.jpg

SDG (4.c) by 2030 to: substantially increase the supply of qualified teachers, including through international cooperation for teacher training in developing countries to ensure inclusive and quality education for all.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/713/22825341484_2f48edd012_b.jpg

Integrated approach: education is key to the others

Why Ghana?

Teacher training in Ghana: context

National policies

Institutional structures/ practices

Teacher educators

Trainee teachers

In service teachers

Pupils

Literature Review

Teacher EducationContextual documents:

local, national, global

OER/P,

Educational TechnologyDevelopment

Research questions

What does the literature say?• Lewin and Stuart (2003) explored initial teacher education in five

countries including Ghana where they found the academic level of many entrants to be weak, with many insecure in core subjects. In addition, there were issues with the training teachers received: ‘sometimes the colleges appear to be training students for schools as tutors think they ought to be, rather than for schools as they are’.

• Others have commented that existing teacher training provision does not position trainee teachers as autonomous, decision-making individuals (Akyeampong et al, 2013).

• Learners need education to be inclusive, relevant and democratic (Tikly and Barrett, 2011) as teacher education in lower income countries has often focused on numbers and not quality.

Overcoming barriers

Resistance

Reaching teachers

The potential of OER

• school based forms of open and distance learning using new communication technologies are the only viable way forward (Moon, 2009).

• ‘true power of comparative research around the impact and use of open educational resources is only just being realised’ (Farrow et al, 2015)

• OER for teacher professional development are one way in which this urgent skills gap can be filled (Moon, 2007 and Power, 2013).

• Open and distance learning and interventions can enhance and significantly contribute to teacher professional development and in service training (Shohela & Banks, 2010, TESSA, TESS-India, EIA.)

• Current methods inadequate, inefficient, expensive and is not closing the gap on getting children into school. (Moon et al, 2013)

Mobile telephone access is leapfrogging fixed land-line phone ownership

Growth of mobile tech and internet in SSA

Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lac-bac/6347652875

Research questionsTo what extent are primary teachers in Ghana making use of OER for their professional development?What resources do teachers draw upon to develop their teaching practice? What conditions encourage/support teachers to use OER?

• How can OERs be better developed or designed to be of practical use to primary classroom teachers?

• How do teachers use OERs within and for multilingual learning environments?

Qualitative MethodsShadowing and observationsSemi structured in- depth interviewsMaterials review

Participant generated photographs (right words?)

Participant generated photographs, (Milligan, 2016)

http://maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com/Young-Lady-Phone-Female-African-Woman-Black-1889405

OER teacher education programmes

English in Action Bangladesh http://www.eiabd.com/eia/TESSA http://www.tessafrica.netTESS India http://www.tess-india.edu.inThe Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) project http://roer4d.orgOER Africa http://www.oerafrica.org/

Conceptual framework and rationale

Qualitative, ethnographic research approach

Participatory research as it has ‘an affinity with equity, social justice and a ‘transformative paradigm’ (Cohen et al, 2011).

Are teachers more likely to adapt and share OER in informal ways or aspart of small communities of practice than in solitary situations?

Is informal adaptation and sharing more prevalent than is recorded inthe literature (‘dark reuse’)?

Questions, thoughts and advice welcomed.

lisa.taner@open.ac.uk@global_teacher

Unless otherwise acknowledged, all images Lisa Taner.