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‘My Work Got Lost in the Computer’: Establishing a Teacher Professional Learning Community Through Digital Skills Training
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Abstract
Improving learning outcomes for students is central to most education initiatives in developing countries. In South
Africa, many national education policies related to teacher education are designed to improve the quality of
teaching as well as create an en
vironment that enables peer and lifelong learning among teachers. The
Department
of Higher Education’s
Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development
(ISPFTD)
i
, for instance, provides for the establishment of Professional Lea
rning Communities. This is closely
aligned with the concept of communities of practice in the ‘Teacher Futures’ programme
ii
, an initiative supported
by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL). COL’s ‘Teacher Futures’ is inspired by United Nations SDG 4 and
suppo
rts institutions and governments to develop teacher professional development programmes that assure
quality teaching and encourage collaborative learning among teachers. The national Department of Basic
Education
(DBE)
and COL are implementing this program
me in the Eastern Cape in partnership with the
University of Fort Hare and ten high schools within the same district. The main objective is to develop and offer
a two
-
tier training programme in digital learning for teacher educators and education leaders o
n one hand, and
school teachers on the other. Programme activities
so far
have included entry
-
level digital learning for
approximately 100 teachers as well as the initiation of online and on
-
site communities of practice.
Teachers have
been able to embark
on a more pedagogically focused course around using digital resources in teaching.
The
paper discusses the challenges in establishing communities of practice to supp
ort in
-
school teacher learning. These
challenges include
unstable, yet prohibitively expen
sive, connectivity, coupled with low levels of acc
ess and
technophobia
. This paper intends to document these early South African experiences of what has worked and
what
has not
, in
the Eastern Cape
Province that
might prove valuable for programmes in other countries. // Paper ID 193
Subject
Country
South Africa
Region
Africa
DOI
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Date
2019-09
Author
ORCID
Corporate Author
Editor
Publisher
Commonwealth of Learning (COL)