Challenges and Opportunities in the Implementation of School-Based Teacher Professional Development: A Case from Kenya

This study investigated how a school-based professional development programme, designed by the Headteacher and staff of a Kenyan primary school, and delivered by a Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) team, supported teacher learning and growth. The TESSA team observed teaching in the classroom before the implementation of the school-based teacher professional programme. This was followed by the training of the teachers in the school. The TESSA team did an evaluation of the school-based training programme through classroom observation, an interview schedule and a teacher questionnaire. The evaluations were done three months and one year, respectively, after the school-based training. The findings indicate that teachers experienced professional growth through collaborative learning with colleagues, used a greater range of approaches and learned to self-reflect on their classes with more use of active learning. Teachers made productive use of textbooks as well as accessing and using TESSA OER in teaching

Implementating TESSA teaching lower secondary science: learning from the experience and the implications for partnership working

Teacher education in Africa has been criticised for being not ‘fit for purpose’ (Verspoor, 2008, Mulkeen, 2010). The TESSA programme was established in 2005 to support teacher education at primary level, and there is evidence that the initial project has made an impact across Sub-Saharan Africa (Harley et al., 2012). This paper describes the TESSA Teaching Lower Secondary Science project, which extends the TESSA approach to secondary schools. Colleagues from five countries worked together to produce 15 units of work to support teacher education. The units are grouped around five pedagogical themes and aim to address some of the challenges faced by secondary teachers. They are based on the belief that student-centred approaches to learning produce the best results and that discussions about how to teach are more productive that discussions about what to teach. The units are now being trialled in the partner institutions and this paper describes some of the activities that have been taking place. Initial impressions are encouraging, but there is much still to be done. We conclude with a review of some of the criticisms of secondary teacher education in Africa and demonstrate how, with carefully planned interventions, the TESSA secondary science resources could begin to address some of these problems, particularly in the field of partnership working