Project approach and activities
The main focus of the EFFeCT project was improving teacher-competencies through enhanced opportunities for teacher learning at all stages of their career.
Teachers’ collaborative learning occurs at all stages of teacher education and in multiple forms. The figure below provides a framework mapping the principal forms of collaborative teacher learning that policy actors at different levels are likely to be most concerned with. The triangles are to be understood as embedded in one another (the school level within the local level, etc.) To the right the main potential governance influences are listed, whereas within the triangle, the main forms and sites of collaborative teacher learning are summarised.
Figure 1: Levels, forms and governance of teacher learning
On the basis of partners’ knowledge, experience and good practices, which cover all main forms of teachers’ and teacher communities' collaborative learning at different levels, as the figure shows it, the project aimed to create a methodological framework for facilitating collaborative learning of teachers (MF for CTL) . The methodological framework inspires policy-makers and teachers and offers guidance and evidence-informed ideas on developing innovative policy measures and other initiatives at regional, local as well as institutional level for facilitating and enhancing teachers’ collaborative learning.
The development process of MF for CTL contained the following steps:
1. Research and development phase
- setting of a common criteria for seeking good practices
- identifying innovative practices from different countries
- establishing common assessment criteria for the analysis of identified good practices
- development of the draft methodological framework as guidelines for pilot programmes
- testing the draft framework through specific professional programmes
- reflecting on the draft framework through national workshops involving different stakeholders
- development of an evaluation methodology
- collecting the lessons learned in each partner country
- finalizing the methodological framework to a Guide for CTL (collaborative teacher learning)
Figure 2 The development cycle