GLXi Teacher Assessments Will Guide Open Books, Open Minds Training Program
“By providing quality control and timely monitoring, we can stay up-to-date with the necessary training of our teachers and address their needs immediately. This not only helps our program adapt in real-time to classroom needs, but it also helps the teachers feel a part of a supportive educational community.
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Imagine you are a third-grade teacher and a new student transfers into your classroom mid-year. How would you make the transition as seamless as possible for them? How would you assess their strengths and weaknesses and meet their needs, while also keeping the rest of the class on a forward track? What questions would you ask of the student’s previous teacher and how would that guide your educational strategies?
We posed this scenario to our teachers recently, as part of a broader assessment for those who have completed Global Learning Exchange Initiative’s teacher training program. The teacher assessments, which were voluntary, will help guide our ongoing teacher workshop program, “Open Minds in Action.”
This was our first year conducting assessments of teachers, and the results were impressive:
65 percent of teachers scored High, demonstrating they know and have mastered the Open Books, Open Minds (OBOM) program and can also propose their own teaching strategies.
26 percent scored Medium, demonstrating they know and have mastered the program.
Only 9 percent scored Low, demonstrating they know the program but need reinforcement with teaching strategies.
The results were also instructive for our program, showing strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvements.
“By providing quality control and timely monitoring, we can stay up-to-date with the necessary training of our teachers and address their needs immediately,” explained Jaime Vielman, Executive Director of GLXiⓇ in Guatemala. “This not only helps our program adapt in real-time to classroom needs, but it also helps the teachers feel a part of a supportive educational community.”
How Teachers Were Assessed
This first round of teacher assessments was developed by GLXi Guatemala’s Educational Director and Evaluation and Impact Coordinator, who oversee the teacher training program.
The idea was to establish a baseline understanding of how teachers are implementing the Open Books, Open Minds program, so that we can ensure the quality of our programming moving forward. The OBOM curriculum involves guided reading, independent reading, alphabet teaching, guided writing, and independent writing.
The assessments, which were held in January, were conducted entirely online. Over the course of 50 minutes, teachers were asked a series of direct questions, and were also evaluated based on case resolutions, following instructions and process exemplifications.
We evaluated teachers in the following areas:
Technical management and conflict resolution
Understanding of guided reading
Knowledge of reading assessment
Reading comprehension and fluency
Recognition of the primary OBOM objective
Application of Learning Corner for Reading
Identification of motivating elements in the classroom
Understanding of learning recovery
Tracking academic pace
Sense of connected words
Student interest in the classroom
Changes, progress, or setbacks in the academic cycle
Assessment Results
The overall results of the assessments – with 65 percent of teachers scoring High and only 9 percent scoring Low – shows a highly satisfactory result in GLXi’s teacher training process, and in how it is applied and implemented in the classroom.
All of our teachers and staff deserve a huge round of applause for their efforts.
But as we mentioned, these evaluations are also designed to look for vulnerabilities, to see where we can better meet teachers’ needs, and thus, better serve students.
One area where we identified challenges was in reading and writing. Specifically, teachers showed a need for improvements in the following:
Special Education (Ex. letter rotation, letter confusion, distraction, and sound substitution).
Methodology (Ex. How to adapt teaching strategies in the aftermath of the pandemic, or how to meet students’ needs when there is little or no support at home).
National Reality (Ex. low reading comprehension, grade promotion without core competencies, difficulty in verbal and reading fluency).
Educational Resources (lack of adequate teaching materials).
Nearly one-third of GLXi teachers said they experienced a setback in the 2023 academic cycle. But an almost equal amount saw positive changes, and 40 percent experienced significant progress. Those are good numbers.
Teachers were also able to communicate their desires for more training in specific areas – for example, in teaching to a child with dyslexia or in sign language. They also expressed a need for more support within each individual school.
As we continue to delve into the assessment results, we look forward to finding ways to improve our program and make sure it is providing teachers and students with the best possible educational experience!
You can help support GLXi teachers by donating here.
