Introduction

It is widely recognised today that the role of schoolteachers is changing at rapid pace. From classic top-down instructors, teachers are now becoming learning designers and facilitators. Pupils change, too. From receivers of knowledge, they are increasingly becoming active learners in the classroom. Yet, successfully adapting to these news roles also requires developing new skills and competences. Teachers need to learn how to cater for different learning needs and preferences among pupils; how to provide the latter with feedback and support towards learning goals; and how to work in multidisciplinary teams to design active learning strategies.

However, education systems cannot cope with the massive number of schoolteachers that needs to be trained in the new competences associated to this changing role. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) may be a potential solution helping to overcome this challenge, but they usually suffer from high drop-out rates. Additionally, using experts or trainers to assess the learning outcomes of participants is hardly compatible with the scale of MOOCs. This means that new – peer-based – ways to assess learning are needed that are feasible, reliable, and well valued by participants.

Teach-UP (Teacher Upskilling) is a policy experimentation which tests two different instructional design approaches in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and Continuous Professional Development (CPD) by delivering scalable online courses on new teacher competences in four areas: formative assessment, personalised learning, collaborative learning, and creative thinking.

The central aim of the experimentation is to measure the extent to which targeted personalised support impacts the participation and retention rates in online courses. It also looks at other dimensions pertaining to the challenge of training a massive number of teachers on their new competencies, such as a comparison between peer and expert assessments and their perceived value by online course participants.

After participating in the Teach-UP conference 2020, you will have a better understanding of how online teacher training can be effectively scaled up using personalised support schemes to drive participation and retention. We look forward to rich discussions with you and to drawing together lessons for the future from the experimentation results!

Attend the four webinars of the conference and earn a certificate of attendance!  

Join us and register today!