Open Learning Network

Image CC-BY Natalie Eggleston, OLnet

Name

Juliana Bbuye

Project title

Skills for sustainable and successful use of OER: a case study of TESSA materials in use in primary schools of Uganda

Project Summary

Primary schools in Uganda are slowly but consistently taking up the use of TESSA OER in the teaching practice. Teachers who have taken up TESSA OER are gradually developing into facilitators rather than transmitters of knowledge. This is an important shift in an environment that has been dominated by the traditional teacher-centred teaching and learning taking place in classes with as many as 60-100 pupils. In this setting, teachers are encouraged to prepare notes for the whole term and then go to the classroom and deliver these notes. Moreover, teaching often takes place in contexts with limited resources and poor infrastructure. TESSA materials encourage learner-centred pedagogy rather than teacher centred approach. Materials are prepared to fit contexts with poor infrastructure and resources, and are intended to utilise local resources. To master and integrate the use of the TESSA OER,  teachers need to acquire skills for adapting the TESSA OER for use in classroom setting, i.e. preparation of a lesson based on TESSA OER and integrating use of  local resources and participatory learning methods. Teachers also need to acquire skills related to learner-centred teaching, what it is and what it involves, and also skills of identifying the right method to use in any particular classroom environment.

Juliana’s project hoped to investigate skills required for this pedagogical change from teacher-centred to learner-centred teaching approach using OER. She also wanted to find out how those teachers already using TESSA are going about it, how they are dealing with infrastructural challenges and how they are handling large classes using TESSA materials that encourage group work. The study was an action research utilising a number of methods i.e. documentary review of previous reports on use of TESSA materials, school visits to observe lessons by teachers making use of TESSA materials, questionnaires and interviews with teachers who use TESSA materials which also provided reflections of their practice and video clips to provide evidence and examples for other teachers to reflect on required skills as they start using TESSA materials.

Dates visited the UK

15 to 27 May 2011

Institution

Makerere University, Uganda

Biographical information

Juliana works as a lecturer in the Department of Open and Distance Learning, College of Education and External Studies at Makerere University. Her area of specialisation is distance education. She holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Distance Education from the Extension College London and has recently defended her PhD thesis where she looked at the development of learner support systems of private and public universities in Uganda.

She has previously held administrative roles at the university including heading the Materials Section in the Department of Distance Education and later on the leadership of the department.

Juliana remains active in this area and has conducted research in distance education and adult education. She was part of a working group on a World Bank project that sought to establish the impact of Non-Governmental Organisations in adult learning in Uganda. She also participated in the research carried out by the Commonwealth of Learning on Distance Education in non formal organisations.

Her interest in open educational resources (OER) is closely linked with her participation in the TESSA project at her university where she has been a keen participant. She got involved right from the beginning when the project was being introduced at the university. She has since participated as a user as well as in promoting usage within primary schools through a series of training workshops, and through action research project.

Main output

The main output of this research project is a report that identifies skills required for sustainable and successful use of OER among primary school teachers in Uganda

Other outputs

Posters and video clips showing and explaining the use of learner-centred methods in primary schools have been produced to be used as a motivation for schools that want to adopt learner centres approaches in primary schools. These resources are used in the workshops and also were presented during the DETA conference.

References

Kozinska, K (2011), "Juliana Bbuye: OLnet, TESSA, and the educators of tomorrow", olnet.org, 7 July [online], http://www.olnet.org/node/615 (Accessed 21 February 2012)

DETA pre-conference workshop

Juliana participated in the conference as a delegate and was also able to do a poster presentation of the teachers’ experiences in the various schools that have adopted TESSA resources depicting how they use TESSA materials in their teaching. She also met people and learnt from their experiences of how they have implemented the TESSA resources in their contexts. Additionally, the entire process of developing, using and assessing impact of the TESSA materials became clearer to Juliana as she was able to see how her institution can optimise the benefits of these resources.

Juliana made very useful contacts for her future work with OER at the university. She has continued to collaborate and share experiences with people she met and especially those who were in this fellowship program. They update each other on forthcoming events and publications, and she has future plan to involve them in her institution as reviewers of study materials, mentors for staff on the use of TESSA materials in schools and teacher training and in developing joint publications.

She met people representing organisations that have been funding OER initiatives i.e. the Hewlett Foundation and the Commonwealth of Learning and she is hoping to submit a proposal to seek funding for her dissemination activity. Her contact with SAIDE has resulted in her receiving regular newsletters.

Update since fellowship

The investigation is in progress and there are already some key findings. In the first instance, Juliana has established that teachers acquire the learner-centred methodology as they use these resources. Action research approach is such that teachers are engaged as they plan how they are using these TESSA OER, and then after teaching a lesson using these resources, they discuss their experiences. This is a learning process as they inform and learn from each other. In the process, they have formed a community of users.

Juliana has also been engaged in school visits where teachers invite her to carry out TESSA OER workshops. Together with her TESSA team, they have carried out seven workshops for teachers and head teachers in schools mainly around the university. In these workshops, they show them how to incorporate TESSA materials in their teaching.

The team has also worked with the National Curriculum Development Centre to incorporate TESSA materials in curriculum for primary 6 and 7.

Text extracted from pre-publication draft of report by Pauline Ngimwa, "Achieving impact in Africa through openness: OLnet TESSA Fellowships", March 2012. Full details of this publication will be available on this website when available.