Teacher professional development aims to enhance student learning by supporting and improving teachers’ application of effective teaching and learning practices.
However, in many places around the world children do not have access to high-quality teachers. This is not the fault of the teachers themselves, but the result of system-level policies that do not appropriately recruit, prepare, support, manage, and motivate teachers. This has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic which has forced teachers to adopt new skills, knowledge, and technologies at an unprecedented rate.
The Teachers for a Changing World Spotlight was created as a response to this growing need for scalable solutions to teacher professional development. We received 435 innovation applications from 80 countries.
The contest accepted applications in 5 languages: Arabic, English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese – with an aim to encourage representation from diverse contexts, resulting in submissions from across all continents. About 76% of total submissions were English, with Spanish making up 14.5%, Arabic 5.6%, Portuguese 2.7%, and French 1.1%.
The interactive workshop hosted in February on Transforming Teacher Professional Development through Technology supported this campaign by bringing together a diverse group of over 160 education stakeholders from around the world, and featured a keynote from Cristóbal Cobo, World Bank Senior Education Specialist. During the workshop, participants were encouraged to share their experience with teacher professional development – both the challenges and potential solutions.
The project contributes to the World Bank Group’s goal of eliminating Learning Poverty and HundrED’s mission of helping every child to flourish in life.
The World Bank and HundrED believe that teachers are at the heart of education and foundational in preparing students for a world where they must collaborate with others, adapt quickly to change, and where success will hinge on attitudes and behavior as well as knowledge. We hope that the results of this Spotlight contribute to identifying and replicating scalable approaches to in-service teacher professional development, which is required in order to achieve inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030.
What happens next?
In the next phase of the process, applications will be reviewed based on impact and scalability by the World Bank Group, HundrED’s Research Team, and an Advisory Board. The deep insights gained through this Spotlight will then be shared with the world as a report to be released later this year.
Learn more about the Teachers for a Changing World Spotlight
Last Updated: Apr 28, 2021