Supporting professional development through MOOCs: the Teacher Education in Sub - Saharan Africa (TESSA) experience

EasyChair Preprint 1530

Abstract

Policy aspirations for education across sub-Saharan Africa are asking for teachers to change their practice, from transmitters of knowledge to facilitators of learning. This means that teacher educators need to change as well. At present, teacher preparation courses are highly theoretical and many teacher educators have very limited school teaching experience themselves. TESSA OER can support teacher educators in developing the sort of practical knowledge that they need, yet many see them as resources for teachers rather than themselves. Also, curricula and examination systems restrict the incorporation of OER into teacher preparation programmes. The TESSA MOOC - Making teacher education relevant for 21st Century Africa - was designed to support teacher educators in changing their practice and better supporting teachers in the new curricula being developed across the continent. It focused on active teaching, incorporating ICT into classroom learning and the use of TESSA, and other OER. It ran three times, and nearly 7000 participants, mainly from Africa, registered. The completion rate for the first two presentations was 37% overall, and over 50% for sponsored TESSA participants (compared with a norm for MOOCs of 12-15%). For many people it was their first experience of online learning. They studied on phones, in environments where electricity and connectivity were erratic, and supported each other in local communities. This paper reports on data from the pre- and post- course surveys, in order to understand who took part, how they studied, what they learnt and how it has impacted on their practice. The presentation will provide participants with the opportunity to discuss some of the activities and to consider how the learning design – which modelled the pedagogy being promoted - supported the success. It will be of interest to anyone who is considering the use of MOOCs to support professional development.

Keyphrases: ICT use, MOOC, OER, TESSA, teacher education

@booklet{EasyChair:1530,
  author    = {Kris Stutchbury and Sandra Amos and Liz Chamberlain},
  title     = {Supporting professional development through MOOCs: the Teacher Education in Sub - Saharan Africa (TESSA) experience},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 1530},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2019}}