In October - December 2023, the Taalim-Forum public foundation piloted a new training course "E-oku: Digital Tools for Teachers" among school teachers in the Naryn region of Kyrgyzstan and students of pedagogical specialties at Naryn State University (NSU). There are 143 general education schools in the mountainous Naryn oblast with over 52 thousand students. The course was developed based on a study of teachers' needs. The course content helps teachers meet the qualification requirements developed by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Kyrgyz Republic and UNESCO recommendations.
The training was facilitated online with the participation of 80 teachers and continued in an in-person workshop with 40 teachers from among those who most successfully mastered online course materials. Training for 40 students of the pedagogical faculties of NSU took place in a hybrid format. Methodologists from 5 district education departments and instructors from the Professional Development Center at NSU took part in piloting the course.
The participants of the training highly appreciated the practical significance of the acquired knowledge and skills. As a result of the course, teachers mastered the skills of developing interactive lessons, practiced the skills of searching for useful educational resources on the Internet, compiling and conducting online tests, quizzes, and surveys, visualizing lessons using PowerPoint, and learned to work with Google tools.
Teachers highly appreciated the opportunity to learn together and share knowledge with colleagues at the training, as well as the methodological recommendations on teaching in a digital environment. Most of the participants expressed their willingness to share new knowledge with colleagues, as well as to use new tools when preparing for lessons and developing tests.
Experienced trainers developed the training course and course developers for teachers as part of the implementation of the Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (GPE KIX) project "Distance Learning for Improving Quality and Access to Education in Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, and Tajikistan".
After piloting, the course was supplemented to meet teachers' requests and transferred to the Professional Development Center of Naryn State University and the Republican Institute for Advanced Training and Retraining of Teachers to be scaled up to train teachers in the use of digital tools in teaching around Kyrgyzstan.
