Harnessing ICT: Quality teacher professional development brings quality education
It is not uncommon to hear that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) used in schools under a national policy might fail unfortunately after a substantial amount of investment. However, my experience tells that the use of ICT in education can be successful through a well-designed plan to support not only the deployment of equipment but also the continual and customized teacher professional development programmes to ensure the effective use of ICT in classrooms relevant to the context.
I have been managing a first-of-its-kind mobile ICT for education project for UNESCO to support teacher professional development on ICT-pedagogy integration in rural Myanmar classrooms. My team and I have designed and delivered a series of teacher training on ICT-pedagogy integration tailor-made for Myanmar classrooms, when Internet and mobile devices were provided under the project within the context of the rapidly changing telecommunication sector in Myanmar. It is essential to develop teacher training programmes relevant to the context and the needs. Within only one and a half years, teachers, most of whom had had limited or no ICT knowledge before the training, were seen moving away from their traditional teacher-centred approaches by using presentation slides on laptops and practical exercises on tablets. They also began to adopt student-centred approaches with the use of a wide variety of ICT tools and mobile learning applications.
To achieve Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4), I agree with the Education 2030 Framework for Action, which emphasizes the importance of teachers in realizing the education goal and associated targets. It states that all learners should be taught by well-qualified, trained and motivated teachers, using appropriate pedagogical approaches and supported by appropriate ICT. Promoting and utilizing ICT-pedagogy integration to support quality teacher training is my vocation as teachers are key to quality education. Based on my experience as a teacher, a policy maker and an ICT for education project manager, it is often the case that teachers are not properly trained due to lack of resources and time. ICT, including the effective use of Internet, innovative training resources and communities of practice, can play an important role in filling this gap by making quality teacher training widely available for teachers with affordable cost. Quality training prepares quality teachers, which in turns improves quality education.
ICT can support a blended learning model and allow sharing of experience and resources among teachers. In addition to teacher professional development modules on ICT-pedagogy integration, I have been looking into more effective ways to facilitate classroom observations and provision of quality and practical feedback to teachers on ICT-integration pedagogies. A possible option to explore further is to develop artificial intelligence tools to provide real-time feedback to teachers in classroom teaching with ICT, including sharing of best practices of pedagogies and classroom management strategies in virtual classrooms. Thanks to the fast growing telecommunication sector, ICT and Internet can provide opportunities to reach more teachers and to provide them with quality and context-specific training, which can in turn improve their pedagogies and strategies to facilitate student learning.
My undergraduate study on social science and communication studies and my graduate study on sociology and international education allow me to look at education from multi-disciplinary perspectives. In my previous assignment with UNESCO regional bureau for education in Asia-Pacific, I supported the Asia-Pacific Regional Education Conference and the Asia-Pacific Regional Education Consultation for Post-2015 Agenda to gather ideas and to formulate Asia-Pacific inputs to the development of SDG4. I also coordinated country studies and sub-regional studies on pedagogical approaches for education for the future and also provided assistance to activities under the Network on Education Quality Monitoring in the Asia-Pacific (NEQMAP), including organizing regional capacity development workshops on quality education and formulating research framework on assessments of transversal skills.
I am glad to be part of the 1,000 talents from 129 countries to participate in the UNLEASH LAB 2017, which is to commence on 13 August 2017, and to meet with talents and experts in the area of ICT and education to formulate innovative, implementable and scalable solutions in improving quality education through mobile technology under SDG4.
