Research - Case Studies
Ethiopia Teacher Professional Development:
Children's Home Society and Family Services
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Project Overview
The Thinking Schools professional development model is structured on three areas of learning: Community Building, Reflective Practice, and Systems Thinking. The ultimate goal is to create a sustainable Thinking School and cohesive collaborative school community.

A goal of the initial professional development training from 24-28 August 2009 was to provide hands-on sessions with visual tools (cognitive visual maps), inquiry, community building, systems thinking with the whole education community, the physical classroom environment, and making decisions with intentionality.

Based on feedback during and after the five day professional development held in Addis Ababa during August 2009, the learning outcomes were achieved and surpassed. The video clip of Awol Endris, Ph.D. of UNESCO who participated in the five day workshop shares some of his observations of the outcomes and potential of the professional development (The video clip is in Quicktime). The reflections by participants throughout the week, and at the end of the five day training, revealed ‘belief systems change’ shifts in teachers and leaders encompassing:

  • teaching (pedagogy)
  • teaching with intentionality (systems thinking)
  • collaboration amongst teachers
  • understanding the impact of room environment
  • participatory professional development
  • strategies that embrace and enhance student prior knowledge
  • tools and methods to involve large class sizes in the learning process
  • participatory classrooms

The participants gained a deeper knowledge of learning strategies, tools, and methods to support an effective thinking and learning environment. From this experience there was high evidence of teachers moving from a top down understanding of the teacher to student relationship to a more effective and engaging method of learning in which the learning relationship is more level: the teacher as a facilitator of learning. (Video Clip of Participant Reflections in Quicktime).

The Children's Home Society and Family Services (CHSFS) Ethiopia schools and staff, physical facilities and professional video crew are well positioned to create a thriving high quality model laboratory school. This model would initially include the CHSFS schools, and ultimately expand to other participating schools and regions including the state (public) schools. The latter, incorporating state schools, was noted as very feasible by the UNESCO Institute of Capacity Building (www.unesco-iicba.org) director Awol Endis who participated in the week long Thinking Schools professional development in August 2009.

The learning areas are:
Community Building

  • Cooperative Learning models for the students and teachers
  • Community exercises to build community for the educators and for classroom use
  • Common ‘vocabulary’ of methods and strategies throughout the classrooms and schools
  • Visual tools (visual cognitive language) to use for organizing thinking, assessing understanding, and communicating
  • Research based strategies and methods

Reflective Practice

  • Collegial Coaching: teachers coaching each other (coaching the coaches model)
  • Regular Reflection: written, visual cognitive maps, sketches
  • Use of video (‘post-game’ analysis)
  • Low-tech media for self-reflection (e.g. writing, drawing)
  • Socratic Method: active and focused use of the inquiry process (use of questioning)
  • Intentionality – teachers establishing the habit of informed reflection on their teaching

Systems Thinking

  • Processes that support the whole community (students, teachers, leadership, and parents)
  • Implementation of methods that are consistent with students and classrooms
  • Professional development on-site (as a exponent of a Thinking School)
  • Collaborative technologies for communication and off-site professional development

For specific descriptive definitions of the professional development see the following webpages part of the Ethiopia Case Study:

The Case Study sections are accessible in the links below and in the upper left column menu on each page of the Ethiopia CHSFS Case Study.

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