MOE launches digital skills project for teachers
Published:Friday | October 6, 2023 | 12:10 AMAsha Wilks/Gleaner Writer
IN AN ongoing endeavour to actualise its vision of educational transformation in Jamaica, the Ministry of Education and Youth (MoEY) on Wednesday launched a teachers’ digital skills project. For the project, the ministry has partnered with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)and the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).
The intention of the year-long programme is to aid Jamaica in developing a sustainable capacity for digital teaching and learning experiences.
Its goals are to provide Jamaican educators with these digital skills while also compiling pertinent resources that are in line with the digital competences in educational technology.
According to Dr Kasan Troupe, permanent secretary for the MoEY, the outcomes of this initiative are expected to support instructors in delivering courses in a sustainable and participatory manner that will aid in the restructuring of the educational system.
“The truth is, colleagues, the system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers and, if we don’t invest in them, we will not have the quality and the aspirations that we talk about each day for Jamaica,” she said.
Education Minister Fayval Williams stated that the project’s introduction coincided with the ministry’s efforts to improve computer laboratories and disseminate technology across the schools by placing electronic gadgets in the hands of instructors and pupils.
She continued that the skills teachers would have gained will help to bring the ministry’s vision together and “make it come alive in the classrooms”.
Williams went on to say that the training was even more important for helping educators overcome any internalised fear and be able to function in such a setting, because society’s technological landscape is very dynamic, constantly changing, and “way ahead of where we are”, she continued.
“That’s more of what education is going to be. It’s not standing in front of the class. It’s helping to direct students and guide them for them to become independent learners,” she said.
The programme consists of enrolling three cohorts of participants in a variety of foundational workshops and certification programmes that, upon successful completion, grant teachers ISTE certification valid for up to three years, and a train-the-trainer programme that enables participants to conduct the workshops’ foundational components for other teachers across the nation.
Up to 30 Jamaican educators — coaches, teachers, trainers, and leaders of professional development — make up the first group. The second group consists of up to 30 Jamaica-led teachers who can serve as model educators at their schools; and the final grouping comprises 40 educators who will be trained by Jamaican ISTE-certified educators who were coached by ISTE.
According to Carolyn Sykora, senior director at ISTE, the organisation is eager to work with Jamaica to support its teachers with knowledge and confidence in digital teaching and learning skills, and to be able to develop these skills in other educators in order to ensure that students thrive and are prepared for the future.
Highlighting the goals of the project, Sykora stated that the first was the use of the IDB’s digital competencies framework and self-assessment diagnostic for teachers to gauge their baseline in digital teaching, for ISTE to curate professional learning assets that align to the framework.
The second component of the project is to deliver professional learning around ISTE standards – a framework that guides educators, leaders and coaches in using technology to create high-impact, sustainable, scalable and equitable learning experiences.
She continued that they wished to see changes in students where they transcend from consumers of technology to creators of technology, move from being knowledge-based to competency-based, from being closed to open-ended problem-solving, and from being adult-led directorship to student agency for their own learning.