Lesson 3: CPD in Rwanda
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CPD is an umbrella term which covers professional learning over a teacher’s career, from initial teacher education onwards. Also, CPD can be on or off school premises. Off school premises, CPD generally takes place outside the school and is organized by the different training provider.
• Formal teacher training;
Official teacher training courses provided by various education partners, for example, REB, URCE, etc.
• Workshop;
A short active participative training course provided by various partners such as NGOs. Participants learn about practical activities to help them in their work. It is not limited to education, for example, HIV, environment, etc.
School-based CPD (SBCPD) takes place at school premises, is organized to address challenges that teachers face at the school and it is a custom-made professional development. It includes various forms of CPD activities which have already been introduced in Rwanda as follows;
• Peer lesson observation;
A peer is a colleague at the same professional level. Teachers watch a lesson taught by a fellow teacher and give feedback.
• School-based INSET (SBI)
Collaborative school-based L/T problem-solving activities among teachers. For instance, teachers collaboratively develop and adopt new instructional/learning materials.
• School-based Mentoring Program (SBMP)
Activities led by School-based Mentor (SBM) to assist fellow teachers. SBMs assist head teachers and deputy's head teachers to plan, implement and review CPD at a school level.
• Teacher Community of Practice (TCOP)/School-based Community of Practice (SBCOP)
Online (TCOP) and offline (SBCOP) communication among teachers and educators to discuss issues on education development.
• Lesson Study (LS)
Holistic lesson development and quality assurance practice among teachers. A demo teacher prepares a lesson plan, rehearses, conducts and assesses a lesson together with peers to find the best leaning & teaching approaches for learners.
SBCPD is the most important part of CPD that teachers themselves put effort into their lesson improvement and competences development. Common factors above SBCPD examples are 1) work collaboratively with peers and 2) learning from/through experience because competences are merely transferred from written documents.
This is the end of Lesson 3.