The Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (GPE KIX) has selected eight new projects from its recent call for proposals for applied research projects to generate and mobilize evidence to contextualize and scale the impact of promising or proven innovative approaches to strengthen teacher professional development, agency, and well-being, in GPE partner countries.
Teachers, and the quality of their teaching output, are critical in determining student learning. High-quality teachers can create learning environments that encourage critical thinking and lifelong learning. Yet not all students have access to qualified teachers. This is a priority for policymakers in GPE partner countries, as outlined in a recent scoping study. Addressing issues related to teaching and teachers through a systems approach requires better alignment between teacher education and development, curriculum, and the availability of sufficient teaching and learning resources. To be successful, approaches to supporting teachers must be tailored to the unique contexts in which they are implemented.
Recognizing the many dimensions of the field and considering the priorities and needs of GPE partner countries, the selected projects focus on supporting teachers’ capacities, motivation and agency, including strengthening their role in achieving gender equality and inclusion within and through education. They each address one or both of the following subthemes:
- Improving the quality and scope of teacher education and development
- Supporting teacher agency and well-being
The research will explore effective strategies to adapt, scale, and implement promising or proven innovations in effective, equitable, and sustainable ways. It will also aim to identify what factors enable, incentivize, or impede the scaling of these innovations.
More information on each of these exciting new projects can be found below, with additional updates on their activities to follow:
- Strengthening Teacher Professional Development for Multilingual Foundational Learning at Scale
- Pre-service teacher training: Defining the impact of inclusive approaches to enhance teaching quality
- Mathematics instructional practice improvement project Kenya
- Delivering responsive and inclusive initial teacher education through Design Thinking
- Scaling refugee teacher inclusion models for enhanced agency and well-being
- Strengthening teacher professional development and mentorship in Tanzania, Kenya and South Sudan
- Optimizing teacher professional development at scale: Design-based implementation research for enhanced impact and sustainability
- Empowering early childhood teachers to foster high quality learning using a scalable technology-driven professional development initiative