By Merritt Frey, Executive Director
We are overjoyed to announce the results of the 22/23 school year Teacher Intensive work. Overall, our teachers’ skills improved by 29% as a result of Mali Rising’s training and support!
Mr. Coulibaly teaches an 8th grade English class at one of our partner schools. Teachers are really what makes a school a place of learning, so with our donors help we invest in teachers as a critical way to invest in our students.
Thanks to our generous donors, this year we provided two trainings and three peer meetings to more than 30 teachers from ten of our partner schools. At the beginning of the school year, we evaluated the teachers in their classrooms. The results were not great — 85% of the teachers received an F grade. We saw particular weaknesses in three areas: use of active learning techniques, utilizing small groups with students, and gender equity.
Based on what we saw in the classroom, we designed personalized training agendas and hosted 2 trainings for each of three sets of teachers. In between those trainings we hosted three peer meetings so the teachers could help each other implement what they learned in the trainings.
At the end of the year in classroom evaluation, we saw that the teachers had really taken the training on board. Exactly ZERO of the teachers received in F grade! In fact, the average grade was a C-, with grades ranging from D+ to B.
We saw the largest improvements in the three areas we focused on. Use of active learning strategies improved by 34% while use of small group exercises rose a whopping 68%! Meanwhile, gender equity measures improved by 33%.
While there is still room for improvment, we are amazed at the great strides the teachers made. While we provided the information, the teachers put in the hard work to make changes and improve their classrooms strategies.
Thanks to supporters like you, these teachers can now make better use of the classrooms Mali Rising donors built — making sure the promise of education is real in those schools!
