Bridging the Digital and Knowledge Gap in Rural Communities through Mobile Learning
In this digital era, characterized by the rapid development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), illiterate people are at greater risk than ever. Those with less education will find it increasingly difficult to participate in developing knowledge-based societies, thus increasing social division and the digital and knowledge divide (Reimers, 2000). Without an innovative intervention to […]
Tackling School Dropouts and Talent Shortage with Blended Learning
Bringing technology into the classroom can mean many different things: expanding teacher access to students in remote areas via video links, training teachers to use online resources to upgrade their lesson plans, or providing students with their own low-cost computers. ICTs can also open new horizons for small multi-grade rural schools, help reverse teacher absenteeism, […]
How For-Profit Businesses Will Reshape Education
Looking out to 2025, the following are likely: 1) For-profit education businesses will disrupt and drive change and innovation in the educational system at all levels. 2) At least part of the 2025 educational system will be in the hands of for-profit businesses. 3) Public systems will change and reform and they will still dominate. 4) Issues, challenges, contention, […]
Are We Giving Teachers Enough Room to Innovate?
By Nandita Vij Tandan (WISE Team) With the beginning of the school year fast approaching, the global online community is abuzz, predicting trends for the new academic year. This summer, the hot topic of conversation is teachers. Recently, global think-tanks, independent experts and leading international organizations have published a plethora of fresh content. In-depth research and surveys delve into the everyday lives […]
Train Teachers for Skills
Let teachers be learners too. Let them be supported in their teaching and learning journey. Teaching is a skill, so why not teach it as a skill, writes Meeta Sengupta. Ms Sengupta is a Moderator at the 2014 WISE Summit in Doha. Every conversation about improving education comes to a stalemate when someone brings up the problem of teachers. […]
Assessing Students’ Thinking With Questions
This article examines how teachers can use questioning as an instructional tool to facilitate richer inquiry and for assessing students’ thinking. Education systems all around the world are in search for evidence to identify gaps to help us move forward and essentially to show progress. But the heart of it is, what are we measuring? […]
Nine Skills That Will Help Make Our Children Future-Ready
Leading futurist John B. Mahaffie looks at the personal and learning skills that will make our children successful in the future. Please bring to mind a child of today, a boy or girl who is eight, nine, or 10 years old. Cast their life forward 20 years. It will be the year 2034. That child will be […]
What We Can Learn About Teacher Motivation From TALIS
In this article, Janet Looney analyses the factors associated with higher levels of teacher motivation and job satisfaction. What motivates teachers? This question is central to much education policy. Teachers who are motivated are more likely to stay in the profession, to participate in professional learning and to innovate. Yet teachers themselves are seldom asked about what motivates them. […]
A Little Less Evaluation, A Little More Feedback, Please…
According to Alejandro Ganimian, performance evaluations would be more effective if they focused less on “grading” teachers and more on providing teachers with constructive feedback. Over the past decade, rigorous research has shown that teachers are the most important school-based determinant of student achievement. In fact, “effective teachers” (i.e., those whose students consistently make gains in standardized tests) can not only […]
Should All Students Learn How to Code? Pros and Cons
“Coding”, it is said by some, is the “new literacy”. The ability to write and understand computer code, such folks argue, is increasingly fundamental to understanding how to navigate one’s way through, to say nothing of succeeding, in a modern society where more and more of our lives are enabled and/or constrained by the actions […]