“Technology is as destructive or constructive as the people who use it. So, if teachers, educators, and parents use technology with clear purpose, and model constructive behaviours, I believe it can have a positive impact on education.”

Nana Gulic spent a decade of working with government, schools, and teachers to help create a learning environment that supports children’s social-emotional needs as well as their educational needs. Now through SEed (Social and Emotional Education), an ed-tech start-up that empowers non-profits like schools, Nana implements character and leadership development programmes that help learners increase self-confidence, motivation, physical and mental health and build positive relationships with their parents and peers.

According to a report by UNESCO and the International Academy of Education, “Social-emotional learning, or SEL, is sometimes called ‘the missing piece’, because it represents a part of education that links academic knowledge with a specific set of skills important to success in schools, families, communities, workplaces and life in general.”

“By combining my B.A. in Child and Youth Care and M.A. in Social Justice and Equity Studies, I am able to identify innovative ways to empower my students in the classroom, and help them become active participants in their own lives and homes,” says Nana.

Using tech for parent & learner counselling during the pandemic

The critical role that psychosocial support plays in the learning environment was highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic. A report noted that it would not be enough for schools to simply reopen their doors after COVID-19. Students will need tailored and sustained support to help them readjust and catch-up after the pandemic. Teachers are being encouraged to incorporate remedial education approaches and social-emotional learning into their pedagogy.

This is exactly what Nana is doing in her school. After initiating online social and emotional learning workshops for students and their parents during the pandemic, she continues to host them now that schools have reopened.

“One of the biggest benefits of online counselling is that we can have group discussions, but then we can turn our microphones on mute, and have private internal chats between family members. You can’t do this in an in-person group setting. And there were some amazing things that came out of those private moments. Some major breakthroughs between parents and their kids.”

Technology can create a space for struggling learners to communicate

Teachers and child and youth workers can use digital tools to support the socio-emotional development of learners both inside and outside the classroom. “Technology doesn’t replace a good teacher or counsellor. It just adds an extra layer, it’s an extra tool that we can use to communicate with our learners.”

One of Nana’s roles is to help struggling students develop the skills they need to talk about, and deal with various challenges in their lives, like the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to a report on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education, “Many students felt lonelier, a vast majority, missed contact with their classmates, many were worried about how the disruption impacted their learning and will affect their future education.”

To help her learners process their experience of the COVID-19 lockdowns, she invited them to build their ‘ideal post-COVID world’ in Minecraft. Four 10-year-old learners from Canada and four from Croatia were tasked with working together to create a digital space that met all of their wants and needs.

“They might not have been able to verbally express how much they missed social interaction, but their Minecraft world clearly showed this,” says Nana. “It included a flying van to travel with family and friends, a portal that allows you to travel wherever you want, an amusement park, and a school cafeteria with lots of space to have fun and spend time with friends.”

Polls, YouTube, and instant messaging to develop ‘social and emotional literacy’

According to a report on social and emotional learning in education systems, the main purpose of ‘emotional literacy’ – a skill that involves being able to name and understand one’s own emotions and the emotions of others – is to improve relationships and facilitate more cooperative functioning between individuals, within communities and throughout society as a whole.

In the classroom, students are often afraid to reveal how they really feel in case they are ridiculed. So Nana uses an app to allow learners to respond to a digital poll anonymously. When the poll shows that “everyone” feels nervous on their first day of school, or over 90% of the respondents have anxiety about exams, it helps learners feel less vulnerable.

Nana has also created a fictional YouTube character called Dolly Ghostsmith who enlists the help of the students to track down four escaped ghosts called "Denialy", "Doubty", "Worry Anne", and "Fearan". The ghosts help Nana’s elementary school learners develop their social and emotional literacy by identifying their unique characteristics.

Research shows that by implementing SEL in schools, students can begin to recognise and manage emotions, develop caring and concern for others, establish positive relationships, make responsible decisions and handle challenging situations.

When it comes to encouraging learners to share their struggles, Nana has even turned to texting.

“Over the years, I’ve found that some students would rather communicate by typing than by talking. I really struggled to get through to them until I offered the option to text rather than to chat in person. Some of the learners even use a second language to express themselves emotionally.”

Using apps to give students with learning difficulties more independence

There are also several tools which Nana uses to help those with learning difficulties integrate into the classroom. For those with dyslexia, she uses text-to-voice apps and transcription apps which give learners who struggle to read and write more freedom to work independently.

For those with attention difficulties, Nana uses digital cognitive training apps together with in-person therapy sessions. One of her favourite tools is Lumosity which features games that are scientifically designed to help improve memory, processing speed, and problem-solving skills.

“Technology is such a natural environment for kids. It is a place where their voices can be heard, and where they can meet with other students around the world and engage with them.”

“In the future, I hope that we can all work together to build a teacher-led collaborative and empowering environment that focuses on sustainability, equity and social justice.”

Learn more about the #TeachersTransform campaign as part of the Transforming Education Summit.

Photo credit: Nana Gulic

By Carlos Vargas Tamez, Head of the Secretariat of the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 and Chief of UNESCO’s Section for Teacher Development & Anna Conover, Consultant.

This blog has been originally published by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) on April 22, 2022.

Unforeseen crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and violent conflict remind us that teachers and education systems need to be able to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances to meet the learning needs of children and youth. Capacity for innovation is one of the keys to building resilient education systems. Capitalizing on the many education innovations prompted by the pandemic, the Teacher Task Force chose “Innovation in teacher policy and practice for educational recovery” as the theme of its 13th Policy Dialogue Forum, which took place in Kigali, Rwanda, and online, 2-3 December 2021.

Some of the main insights documented during the Forum are presented below, including those related to innovations in teaching and learning, teacher education and policy. These have been compiled in the Forum’s Final Report, released recently.

Teacher autonomy is essential for meaningful innovation in teaching and learning

Teachers are best placed to assess the conditions of their own classrooms. Based on these, they innovate and adapt their practice, but their innovations often go unrecognized. The Forum highlighted the need to promote teacher autonomy and agency – that is, the capacity to act in an autonomous manner – to generate meaningful pedagogical innovation. However, they need training, sufficient resources, good working conditions, and support to develop the autonomy and agency needed to initiate, implement and evaluate new ways to teach that will improve student learning and wellbeing.

Emphasizing how teaching and learning are based on relationships, Forum participants shared innovative examples of how teachers collaborated with peers and parents during the pandemic. For instance, in response to school closures, Kenya’s Teachers’ Service Commission provided educators with guidance on how to support other teachers and offer psychosocial support to families and learners. By providing teachers with opportunities to discuss their teaching practices and exchange resources with each other and with students’ families, key lessons learned now inform Kenya’s policies to support online learning and teacher professional development.

Innovations involving digital technologies must be adapted to each context

The role of digital technologies in innovation was also explored during the Forum, emphasizing tailored and context-sensitive use of technologies rather than one-size-fits-all solutions. While the pandemic hastened the need for technology-assisted innovations, mechanisms to assess, scale up, and refine are also necessary to ensure these innovations meet the needs for equitable, quality, and inclusive education. However, it is important that digital technologies do not reproduce top-down, rote learning resulting in excessive standardization, but rather are designed and implemented using a range of approaches to help foster student-centered pedagogies and facilitate education transformation.

Teacher education must be part of purposeful career paths

Teacher professional development should be embedded in teacher career paths and be aligned to teacher standards and accountability systems. Forum participants explored how countries need to avoid innovating in a fragmented fashion that does not follow commonly agreed principles. This requires alignment across levels of education and between initial teacher education and continuing professional development. It also requires better alignment between existing curricula, teacher professional development and student assessment to strengthen student outcomes.

Based on lessons learned during the pandemic, teacher education should also include peer learning and mentoring programmes. In particular, teacher education needs to integrate inquiry and research skills which prepare teachers to be lifelong-learners, able to adapt their practice to changing conditions and meet their students’ evolving needs. Teacher training and educational research institutions have an important role to support this kind of continuous exchange, particularly to address challenges brought on by rapid transformations.

Innovation in policy making must be inclusive and collaborative

Teachers need to be part of decision- and policy-making processes. One example presented was the development of the Comprehensive National Teacher Policy (CNTP) in Ghana. This process was coordinated by the Ghana Teacher Task Force (GTTF) with contributions from the Ghana Education Service, development partners, and other actors. This collaborative process established a framework for social dialogue with teachers and their representatives at the local, district, and national levels.

Policy also needs to be informed by data which reflect realities on the ground. Grassroot-level innovation can be enhanced by teacher participation in data collection and analysis. With proper training, teachers and school leaders can use data to assess their own practices and address challenges in their own schools. An example of innovation in data use came from The Gambia, where schools develop their own indicators and targets through a process of consultation that involves teachers, parents, students, and their communities.

Policies must balance clear frameworks with flexibility to respond to local conditions

Innovations in teacher policy presented during the Forum included establishing new forms of partnerships with civil society organizations and funding agencies. For instance, an innovative workshop organized by UNESCO and the TTF brought together policymakers from various countries to inform the development of St Kitts and Nevis’ National Teaching Council. Rather than imposing a ‘one size fits all’ approach, this process allowed policymakers to explore different types of national structures and the roles played amongst a number of high- and low-income countries before establishing their own National Teachers’ Council.

Teachers are essential to the innovation necessary to ‘build back better’ in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, their professionalism needs to be recognized and supported, and experimentation and adaptation must take place within clear policy frameworks. Governments, teacher training institutions, and other actors must balance structure and flexibility to foster both bottom-up (grassroots) and top-down (system-wide) innovations, so that they can contribute to ensure equitable, inclusive, and quality education for all.

Download the Final Report from the Policy Dialogue Forum on Innovation in teacher policy and practice in education recovery.

Photo credit: GPE/Alexandra Humme