In-service teacher training has been made one of key priorities for achieving quality education in Rwanda’s basic education. Research shows that teacher knowledge is constructed more in teachers’ classrooms as fields of reflection than in pre-service training. The Rwandan Ministry of Education established a School-based Mentorship Program (SBMP) to provide teachers with pedagogical support at the school level through continuous professional development (CPD) in an effort to continue to improve the quality of teaching and learning through English as a medium of instruction. The SBMP was first rolled out in 2012 and was restructured in 2015 in order to reflect new approaches and address challenges related to teaching English and through English. The U.S. Peace Corps volunteers simply work within this existing CPD framework to facilitate teacher Communities of Practice (CoPs) rather than attempting to introduce something new.

It is important to note that the Rwandan school system discourages situations where teachers are developed by “outside experts” who do not make reference to real classroom practice, but rather create “one size fits all” remedies. Such remedies often do not succeed because what actually works in one context, does not necessarily work in another (Lieberman, 2000).

The way CPD activities are organized at the school level are very similar to Peace Corps’ teacher Communities of Practice model. School-Based Mentors (SBMs) work closely with school leaders to design and facilitate regular workshops designed to improve English and teaching skills not only of English teachers but also teachers who teach other subjects in English. Each school has at least one SBM who acts as a focal English teacher and an employee of the school. The main role of the SBM is to work with school leaders to facilitate training sessions that focus on improving English and teaching skills of teachers of all subjects. Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) teachers are trained together with counterpart (CP) teachers and encouraged to work closely with SBMs to facilitate workshop style CPD activities in schools where they are placed.

Peace Corps staff design and provide the same training to PCVs and to CPs together. PCVs and CPs are expected to return to their work sites with action plans that they will implement within their school-based CoPs. CoPs are a space where both PCVs and CPs contribute improved instruction as they can—each contributing from a different perspective: the CPs know the community and the education culture and the PCVs contribute a familiarity with the practices taught and their benefits so that all benefit. Together they explore what they learned in training and then try it out in class to make it more effective, which encourages self-directed learning. Research suggests that in CoPs, members “learn together by focusing on problems directly related to their profession, often by sharing stories about their daily practice” (Vangrieken et al., 2017, p. 50).

Training areas staff focus on to prepare PCVs and CPs to facilitate school-based voluntary CoPs include but are not limited to the following:

• Co-planning and co-teaching;
• Creating teaching materials from locally available materials;
• Adequate use of available instructional materials (for example textbooks and ICT resources);
• Peer-to-peer observation and feedback;
• Sharing good teaching practices, instructional materials, teaching tips and so on.

Each year, a total of 75 PCVs and 150 CPs are trained to go out and teach together. CPs are selected because they co-plan and co-teach with PCVs. All PCVs are placed to teach in primary grades four, five and six, and secondary grades seven, eight and nine. When they return to site they more willing to volunteer to support one another in trying out and improving teaching techniques.

Peace Corps provided training also has the potential to benefit more than just English teachers. PCVs and CPs return to their schools with session plans and training materials that they are encouraged to share with teachers of other subjects. The main focus is on improving classroom English that they need to be able to facilitate learning through English, so again members of the school community support each other. PCVs and CPs trained together work closely with SBMs to cascade sessions and materials from workshop sessions to all English teachers to help them improve their abilities in English and teaching practices with smaller CoPs with English teachers or larger CoPs with teachers of other subjects.

Voluntary school-based CoP activities are by far the most practical way Peace Corps Rwanda can support the English language proficiency and teaching skills of teachers that work closely with volunteers to co-plan and co-teach lessons. Voluntary CoPs have potential to sustain collaborative teaching where PCVs and CPs meet regularly to co-plan and co-teach together. They provide a safe space where PCVs and their CPs meet to reflect on their classroom practices, learn from each other and identify areas that need more work to make teaching more effective. CoPs are more likely to succeed in improving classroom practice when teachers, in this case PCVs and CPs, take their own initiative and respond to their needs together with “like-minded professionals” and, as research suggests, “it is healthy for professionals to have an active role in their own development processes” (Mann, 2005, p. 104).

CoPs have potential to turn into effective bottom-up teacher CPD. This offers a wide range of benefits including creating a support network for members, sharing knowledge and building better practice, allowing instant feedback and collaboration, creating supplementary teaching and learning materials and, most importantly, striving for students’ better learning.

References

Lieberman, A. (2000). Networks as learning communities shaping the future of teacher development. Journal of Teacher Education, 51(3), 221-227.

Mann, S. J. (2005). The language teacher’s development. Language Teaching, 38(3), 103-118.

Vangrieken, K., Meredith, C., Packer, T., & Kyndt, E. (2017). Teacher communities as a context for professional development: A systematic review. Teaching and Teacher Education, 61, 47-59.