Effectiveness of teachers' guides in the Global South

Benjamin Piper · Yasmin Sitabkhan · Jessica Mejia · Kellie Betts

May 2018 · RTI Press

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About this ebook

This report presents the results of RTI International Education’s study on teachers' guides across 13 countries and 19 projects. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we examine how teachers’ guides across the projects differ and find substantial variation in the design and structure of the documents. We develop a scripting index so that the scripting levels of the guides can be compared across projects. The impact results of the programs that use teachers’ guides show significant impacts on learning outcomes, associated with approximately an additional half year of learning, showing that structured teachers’ guides contribute to improved learning outcomes. During observations, we find that teachers make a variety of changes in their classroom instruction from how the guides are written, showing that the utilization of structured teachers’ guides do not create robotic teachers unable to use their own professional skills to teach children. Unfortunately, many changes that teachers make reduce the amount of group work and interactivity that was described in the guides, suggesting that programs should encourage teachers to more heavily utilize the instructional routines designed in the guide. The report includes a set of research-based guidelines that material developers can use to develop teachers’ guides that will support effective instructional practices and help improve learning outcomes. The key takeaway from the report is that structured teachers' guides improve learning outcomes, but that overly scripted teachers' guides are somewhat less effective than simplified teachers' guides that give specific guidance to the teacher but are not written word for word for each lesson in the guide.

About the author

Senior Education Research Analyst

Education

MEd, Curriculum and Instruction, University of Texas at Austin, College of Education

BA, Psychology, Rice University

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Jessica Mejía is a senior education research analyst in early grade reading, teacher training, and teacher mentoring. She has almost 13 years of experience managing and supporting international education projects focusing on improving teacher literacy instruction by providing teaching and learning materials, training, and support. This has included developing curriculum and training materials, enhancing teacher mentoring programs and tools, and monitoring and assessment of reading instruction and reading outcomes. In addition, Ms. Mejía uses these experiences to improve on these same aspects for projects through research.

As a researcher, Ms. Mejía has supported multiple mixed methods studies to understand and improve early grade literacy instruction and implementation by designing instruments and collecting and analyzing qualitative data for internal RTI studies on teachers' guides, training, and teacher support. Most recently, she played a pivotal role in designing instruments and carried out qualitative data collection for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Learning at Scale study to better understand successful early literacy programs worldwide.

She has also provided technical assistance and oversight to projects focused on improving the quality of early grade reading instruction in East Africa and Latin America, including the US Agency for International Development-funded Tusome Activity, the Primary Mathematics and Reading initiative where she designed and oversaw the development of all teacher, student, and professional development materials for English and Kiswahili in Grades 1-3. She also provided technical and managerial support in several Early Grade Reading and Math Assessments in Egypt, Kenya, Nicaragua, Zambia, Ghana, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and Ethiopia. She also designed and implemented teacher training modules in Nicaragua and Honduras and organized high-level meetings at the World Bank’s and the International Reading Association’s Latin America and the Caribbean Regions Conference in Peru. Ms. Mejía has almost 20 years of experience in classroom work and research in elementary reading, both internationally and in the United States. She is fluent in English and Spanish.

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