PATHWAY FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF TEACHERS SKILLS TO MAINSTREAM OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IN INSTRUCTIONAL PROCESSES

Abstract

In 2016, the Commonwealth of Learning sponsored a nation-wide advocacy and sensitization campaign to encourage pedagogic supervisors from the Ministries of Basic and Secondary Education to mainstream Open Educational Resources (OERs) in the teaching and learning process. In 2019, a study was conducted to assess the pedagogic supervisors’ perception and barriers in mainstreaming OERs in instructional processes. The findings revealed that they lack: computer skills to search for OERs; skills to adapt different OERs; and skills to interpret the different OERs licenses as the major barriers. To address these needs, the following research question was formulated: How can pedagogic supervisors’ skills be updated to mainstream OERs in Instructional processes? To respond to the research question, single group pre-training and post-training quasi-experimental design was employed. N = 58 Pedagogic Supervisors drawn from the Regional Delegations of Basic and Secondary Education for the Centre were targeted for the experimental study with n = 52 effectively taking part. A 5-point Likert scale instrument was used to collect pre-training and post-training data analysed for mean and standard deviation. Ttest was used to compare the mean scores and the results indicated a difference of -0.88 between the 2 means with a standard deviation of 0.52. The 95% confidence interval for the difference ranged from -1.37 to -0.40 with p = 0.005 < 0.05. It was concluded that, there is a statistically significant difference between the two means,    an indication that the change observed in the post-training mean was due to the professional development. This result was triangulated with the scores of lesson plans produced at the end of the professional development programme. Inter-rater Reliability Scores in each Construct of the Lesson Plans was measured using the Cohen Kappa’s coefficient. The outcomes indicated a better score than the posttraining results. It was highly recommended that: a) professional    development programme on OERs should be conducted based on the outcome of a training-needs analysis conducted with participants; b) participants should be given ample opportunity over an extended period of time to design lessons that incorporate OERs, implement them, get feedback, and improve on their practice; c) professional development programmes should provide an opportunity for peer support; d) the content of the professional development programme should be clearly structured, easy, appropriately sequenced and include activities that assist participants in the construction of new knowledge.