Lisa Taner's presentation of her #MRes research at the 6th GO-GN Seminar in Cape Town, March 5th-6th, 2017.

1. Lisa Taner
Postgraduate Research Student
Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University
Lesley Boyd, The Open University
Bea de los Arcos www.flickr.com/photos/celtatis/15651016535/

2. Jointly funded 1+3 studentship
openTEL
The Open Technology Enhanced Learning (openTEL) is a priority research
area, bringing together researchers from across the Open University to
focus on research in TEL.
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/opentel/

3. SRA-IDII
The Open University’s Strategic Research Area in
International Development and Inclusive Innovation
IDII groundbreaking research sets out to:
• Tackle global inequity
• Reshape market processes to ensure innovation involves and serves the needs of all
• Work in partnership with poor and marginalised people to realise a fairer and more
sustainable world.
http://www.open.ac.uk/ikd/

4. Bit about me

5. Akwaaba!

6. Inspiration for this research

7. Scaling the PhD wall

8. Don’t panic!
You deserve to be here.
We aren’t looking for THIS, but..
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lego_Color_Bricks.jpg

10. Context
Primary education in Sub-Saharan Africa faces a critical shortage of teachers
estimated at 25 million (UNESCO, 2015).
Teacher’s professional development varied with a diversity of approaches.
Many in-service teachers have received little or no training historically.
MDGs had some success in growing primary enrolment but there is variation in
completion rates.
In addition to millions missing out on school, many attending are being failed by a
system that fails to meet their needs and lacking the literacy and numeracy skills to
raise themselves out of poverty.

11. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sustainable_Development_Goals.jpg

12. SDG (4.c) by 2030 to: substantially increase the
supply of qualified teachers, including through
international cooperation for teacher training in
developing countries to ensure inclusive and
quality education for all.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/713/22825341484_2f48edd012_b.jpg

13. Integrated approach: education is key to the others

14. Why Ghana?

15. Teacher training in Ghana: context

16. National policies
Institutional structures/ practices
Teacher educators
Trainee teachers
In service teachers
Pupils

17. Literature Review
Teacher Education
Contextual documents:
local, national, global
OER/P,
Educational Technology
Development
Research questions

18. What does the literature say?
• Lewin and Stuart (2003) explored initial teacher education in five
countries including Ghana where they found the academic level of
many entrants to be weak, with many insecure in core subjects. In
addition, there were issues with the training teachers received:
‘sometimes the colleges appear to be training students for schools as
tutors think they ought to be, rather than for schools as they are’.
• Others have commented that existing teacher training provision does
not position trainee teachers as autonomous, decision-making
individuals (Akyeampong et al, 2013).
• Learners need education to be inclusive, relevant and democratic
(Tikly and Barrett, 2011) as teacher education in lower income
countries has often focused on numbers and not quality.

20. Overcoming barriers

21. Resistance

22. Reaching teachers

23. The potential of OER
• school based forms of open and distance learning using new
communication technologies are the only viable way forward (Moon,
2009).
• ‘true power of comparative research around the impact and use of open
educational resources is only just being realised’ (Farrow et al, 2015)
• OER for teacher professional development are one way in which this urgent
skills gap can be filled (Moon, 2007 and Power, 2013).
• Open and distance learning and interventions can enhance and
significantly contribute to teacher professional development and in service
training (Shohela & Banks, 2010, TESSA, TESS-India, EIA.)
• Current methods inadequate, inefficient, expensive and is not closing the
gap on getting children into school. (Moon et al, 2013)

24. Mobile telephone access is
leapfrogging fixed land-line
phone ownership
Growth of mobile tech and
internet in SSA
Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lac-bac/6347652875

25. Research questions
To what extent are primary teachers
in Ghana making use of OER for their
professional development?
What resources do teachers draw
upon to develop their teaching
practice?
What conditions encourage/support
teachers to use OER?

26. • How can OERs be better developed or designed to be of
practical use to primary classroom teachers?
• How do teachers use OERs within and for multilingual
learning environments?

28. Qualitative Methods
Shadowing and observations
Semi structured in- depth interviews
Materials review

29. Participant generated photographs (right words?)
Participant
generated
photographs,
(Milligan, 2016)
http://maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com/Young-Lady-Phone-Female-African-Woman-Black-1889405

30. OER teacher education programmes
English in Action Bangladesh http://www.eiabd.com/eia/
TESSA http://www.tessafrica.net
TESS India http://www.tess-india.edu.in
The Research on Open Educational Resources for Development
(ROER4D) project http://roer4d.org
OER Africa http://www.oerafrica.org/

31. Conceptual framework and
rationale
Qualitative, ethnographic research
approach
Participatory research as it has
‘an affinity with equity, social
justice and a ‘transformative
paradigm’ (Cohen et al, 2011).

32. Are teachers more likely to adapt and share OER in informal ways or as
part of small communities of practice than in solitary situations?
Is informal adaptation and sharing more prevalent than is recorded in
the literature (‘dark reuse’)?

34. Questions, thoughts and advice
welcomed.

35. lisa.taner@open.ac.uk
@global_teacher
Unless otherwise acknowledged, all images Lisa Taner.