FIFTH REGULAR MEETING OF THEOEA/Ser.W/XIII.6.5

INTER-AMERICAN COMMITTEE ON EDUCATIONCIDI/CIE/inf.1/10

November 9-10, 2010October 22, 2010

Guayaquil, Ecuador Original: Spanish

report on the “Education for Democratic Citizenship in the Caribbean: A Distance Course for Educators” project

Executive Summary

Project Overview

The “Education for Democratic Citizenship in the Caribbean: A Distance Course for Educators” project is a three-year pilot project funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and administered by the Organization of American States (OAS). The project aims to (i) provide teachers with the tools to help them integrate democratic values and practices into their classroom teaching; and (ii) inform the development of education policy in the Caribbean in the area of democratic citizenship education.

The distance course comprises two segments: the first is an online segment in which teachers explore core democratic concepts and related teaching strategies. The second segment is a follow-on practicum in which teachers apply the concepts from the online segment to plan and teach portions of their curriculum or work with groups of teachers from their school to explore the use of democratic values and practices in classroom teaching. Teacher-participants who successfully completed the online and practicum segments received a UWI Open Campus Certificate of Completion.

The OAS in partnership with The University of the West Indies Open Campus (UWI Open Campus) developed the distance course with feedback from an Advisory Committee comprising policymakers, researchers and practitioners. Six pilot countries served as strategic partners in the project and contributed modest counterpart resources (human, in-kind and financial). The participating countries included Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago.

This project was developed in 3 main phases: (1) The Needs Assessment phase (concluded in August 2007); (2) The Development phase (concluded in December 2008); and (3) The Implementation phase (concluded in June 2010). The Needs Assessment phase drew heavily on feedback from Caribbean stakeholders, including policy makers, practitioners and researchers across the region. The Development phase was guided by a University of the West Indies Open Campus (UWI Open Campus) team of experts charged with developing the course curriculum and content. The Implementation phase involved offering the course via UWI Open Campus’ Moodle platform to teacher-participants from participating countries.

A significant feature of the EDCC project is the comprehensive and integrated monitoring and evaluation exercise. This exercise seeks to explore the changes in knowledge, attitudes and behaviors of teacher-participants and their student-learners resulting from the online course and will identify, among other things, the key areas of the course that require amendment or improvement.

Another significant feature of the project is a video documentary exercise that aims to document and highlight the experiences of teacher-participants and the outcomes of the EDCC project and to inform educational policy in the Caribbean region. Two versions of the documentary will be prepared: a shorter version (7 minutes long) to be used as part of formal presentations and a longer version (30 minutes long) for use by media in the region.

Outcomes, Achievements and Advances

The main impact and achievements of the project are as follows:

  • A total of 262 teachers participated in the project and 108 of these teachers from two cohorts successfully completed the online and practicum phases of the course. A list of the factors contributing to attrition of teacher-participants is listed under the “Challenges and Lessons Learned” below and discussed more fully in the report.
  • Ministries of Education from six countries participated in the project. The participating countries include Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago.
  • Anecdotal reports highlight the benefits of the EDCC course to teacher-participants in the six participating countries. One participant described the experience as follows: “This course has opened up the window to my understanding as it relates to democracy…” Another participant stated, “This course should be extended to all teachers of students within the Caribbean basin. It should be at least a prerequisite for induction into the teaching profession.”
  • The project has facilitated the development of a regional community of practice. Teacher-participants within and across countries share their experiences, solicit feedback and collectively explore classroom issues and challenges on the discussion boards, chat rooms and via a social networking site created for participants.
  • The impact of the project was felt beyond the classrooms and schools of teacher-participants as teacher-participants engaged their student-learners in service learning activities in the wider community.
  • Student-learners of teacher-participants benefitted from the EDCC course as they experienced positive changes in their classroom environment. Students reported a break from traditional didactic approaches to teaching and being given more voice and afforded greater levels of participation in the learning process. For example, one student reported “I notice in the class that there is more democracy, we are able to speak more ….. Also too it’s a break away from the regular classes of just [taking] notes.” Another student noted “We learned how to work together and how to work with each other without any confusion and any fights …..”
  • There have been widespread calls by teachers, teacher-educators and policy makers for this initiative to be sustained. The Ministry of Education of Grenada has expressed keen interest in utilizing the course to train teachers in a citizenship education program that would form part of its Social and Life Skills program. Further, the Ministry of Education of Trinidad and Tobago is desirous of utilizing the course as a tool for teacher professional development.
  • UWI Open Campus and the Eastern Caribbean Joint Board of Teacher Education have expressed interest in working to incorporate this course into their teacher training and teacher professional development programming. UWI Open Campus has submitted a proposal for incorporating this course into a certificate program for trained and untrained primary school teachers titled “Alternative Teaching Strategies for 21st Century Classrooms.”

Significant Challenges and Lessons Learned

The benefits outlined above were evident despite some significant challenges. Some of these challenges and the lessons learned from them are listed below. A more comprehensive treatment of the lessons learned and challenges experienced in the project are included in the discussion of each of the project phases within the report:

  • There was a relatively high rate of attrition among teacher-participants resulting from one or more of the following factors: (i) feeling of isolation by teachers from being in online environment; (ii) lack of incentives for teacher-participants i.e. the perception that a Certificate of Completion was insufficient return for the effort expended; (iii) difficulty in managing the requirements of the course (time and effort) alongside their job and domestic commitments; and (iv) technical difficulties related to course-site issues and at other times to band-width issues within participants’ country.
  • Lack of skill in the use of technology in some countries posed a challenge to efforts to recruit and engage teacher-participants. For example, on two separate occasions the course website was incorrectly transcribed into a newspaper advertisement issuing a call for participants. Additionally, a number of the email addresses for teacher-participants supplied by Ministries of Education to the OAS and UWI Open Campus were invalid. In many instances these errors were due to incorrect transcription of addresses by Ministry of Education personnel. These invalid email addresses led to a reduced number of participants logging onto the course website and caused some teachers to miss the opportunity to participate in the course.
  • Teacher-participants experienced challenges with the use of technology relating to course-site navigation and access (e.g. inability to upload or access information on the site) or relating to bandwidth and connectivity issues. This technology issue impacted the quality of experience of some participants. In order to address this issue UWI Open Campus re-doubled efforts to be more responsive to teacher-participants experiencing difficulties.

Conclusions and Recommendations:

Based on the feedback from stakeholders and the outcomes and lessons learned in this project, the report makes the following conclusions and recommendations:

  • Adapt the EDCC course to incorporate the feedback from stakeholders, including reduced volume of readings, more streamlined unit activities and discussions, to make the course more manageable for its allotted time frame.
  • Explore options for sustainability of the EDCC course, including continued offering (of the adapted course) to a wider audience of teachers across the region, incorporation into the menu of courses offered by colleges of education, teacher training programs and teacher professional development programs.
  • Deeper research is needed to determine the persistence of these democratic values and practices over time and to understand more meaningfully their impact on classroom climate and student-learners’ experiences.
  • Find ways to promote the potential for democratic citizenship education to enhance the classroom practice of teachers in all subject areas and dispel the notion that democratic citizenship education relates solely or primarily to social studies.
  • Greater support for teachers to help them incorporate the values and principles into their teaching practice.
  • Continue to make the networking site related to the EDCC course available to teacher-participants as a means of building a regional community of practice and providing opportunities for collaboration among teacher-participants within and across countries.
  • Provide opportunities that will allow more teachers across the region to participate in the course and to gain an understanding of democratic principles and their application to the practice of teaching and learning.
  • Provide opportunities for collaboration among Ministries of Education, teachers’ colleges, universities and other relevant stakeholders in the region to implement an adequate system of incentives for teachers who successfully complete the EDCC course.
  • Engage teachers to write about and share, within and across schools, their successful practices in the area of democratic citizenship education in order to develop a portfolio of promising practices that can serve as a resource for teachers across the region. In this way, schools can serve as communities of learning for teachers.
  • Create new and greater opportunities for the impact of democratic citizenship education to be extended beyond the classroom to informal spaces e.g. clubs and after-school activities and to the wider communities e.g. through service learning projects and/or engagement of the business community and/or legislature.

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