Adapt for your context

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4.2 TPD@Scale Compendium

1 hour

In Course 2 you read the TPD@Scale Compendium (PDF document2.5 MB) . In the introduction to the Compendium you read:

To work effectively at a large scale, program designers need to consider how they manage available resources most effectively. It will not be possible to achieve the same results by merely replicating small-scale programs all over the country. For example, we know that coaching is an effective form of TPD but it is highly resource intensive and there are often insufficient numbers of skilled coaches across the whole country. The temptation might be to use structured materials instead of coaches. There are indeed situations where structured interactive learning materials can fully replace in-person interactions such as lectures or workshops but they are rarely able to provide sustained follow up or support social learning. Designers will need to plan instead how to effectively harness their most valuable resource – the teachers themselves, for peer mentoring and peer assessment, among others. 

TPD programs delivered at scale need to make appropriate provisions available across large numbers of different settings that may be highly dispersed. To do so successfully, program designers need to consider variations in teachers’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, existing working patterns and practices as well as variations in school culture, resources, and priorities. All these need to be understood and considered, from the initial design stage through to program implementation and evaluation using adaptive programming. The examples in this Compendium show how using ICTs can open up new possibilities in the design of large-scale TPD programs. Used in pedagogically sound ways, ICTs can facilitate the creation and delivery of high-quality, affordable TPD that is made available in different forms appropriate to the context and local needs. 

However, successful scaled interventions not only manage issues of magnitude and variation; they should also be sustainable and empower local communities to own and sustain the reform in an equitable manner (Coburn, 2003). Many of the TPD@Scale programs described here ran for a fixed period, but through working holistically across the system, many of them disrupted existing models of large-scale TPD and prompted system shifts in TPD design, as in the Programa de Actualización Curricular Docente (PACD) program in Ecuador. This promises well for sustainability of the TPD@Scale approach and a shift from supply-driven provision to demand-initiated learning opportunities for professionals. 


At the end of the Compendium, there is a set of questions, which we reproduce here.

Work through these questions on your own, with a colleague, or in a small group.

You can focus on one Compendium programme, if you are working through this course on your own.

If you are working through this course with colleagues, different people could look at different Compendium programmes, and then compare the programmes in a discussion.

These questions are intended to support individuals or small groups take forward ideas from the TPD@Scale Compendium into their own work.

The Compendium describes 17 TPD programmes which use ICTs to facilitate access and participation in professional learning for large numbers of teachers or for teachers working in very challenging conditions.

  1. Look back at the different examples and identify 2 or 3 programmes which offer potential for your own context.
  2. What features of these programs particularly interested you? These features might be: use of a particular tool, ways of organizing support or differentiated access to learning materials, involvement of teachers in creating materials, peer support or assessment, or an adaptive approach to implementation. 
  3. How would you need to adapt these programs to be appropriate for your context? This might involve integrating features from different programs or making adaptations to the program which seems most promising for your context.  

Note down in your Personal Blog how you would adapt (or not) these features of your selected model or models:

  1. Access and engagement with materials which encourage active experimentation in the classroom
  2. Form and frequency of peer collaboration and reflection (social learning) 
  3. Interactions with experts (mentors, tutors, facilitators, coaches) 
  4. Adaptations for different groups of teachers, e.g., teachers working in remote areas, teachers without connectivity, teachers of children from minority ethnic or language groups, teachers of displaced children, etc. 

In thinking about adaptation, we suggest you consider:

a. Teachers’ professional learning priorities
b. Teachers’ motivation and time for TPD,
c. Equity issues
d. Available financing

Note what data you need to make these adaptations to the model and how you might begin to collect this data.

Which stakeholders will you need to involve in moving forward with TPD@Scale in your context? How might you engage them with the TPD@Scale ideas and approach?
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