My first week in Prishtina in the Twinning Kosovo project is now completed.I was to identify and assess current models and practices for sharing experiences on teaching, and to recommend how to develop them in the context of the new Kosovo Curriculum Framework.
On Monday evening I wasn't expecting a lot from this week, but right from Tuesday morning the days have exceeded all my expectations. Visiting and assessing four schools, attending a Kosovo Pedagogical Institute teacher training for a day, and having other meetings with experts and ministry officials have shed light to my questions.
My special interest is how 21st century skills and ICT in education is implemented. Not much, I have to say. Excluding international projects like the ones led by USAID (see here), the Internet is not used by the pupils and students.
Collaborative knowledge creation and ICT use for knowledge retrieval during lessons is not a practice yet. It seems not to be a case of lacking in skills but in attitude. That poses some problems to be dealt with when the new curriculum framework is to be actuated.
It is imperative for the Twinning Kosovo project to understand the society, ie. the Kosovo situation in order to benefit from the very different approach of KCF compared to the previous national curriculum, particularly regarding the 21st century skills and competences.
Main issue impeding changes towards implementing the underlying ideology behind the new curriculum framework is the prevalent thinking that didactic wise there is no need for change, and when examples of new methods (like problem based learning & the students’ information retrieval from the internet) are introduced, in many discussions with the educators it was explained that “not here, not in Kosovo.”
I was glad that I met a lot of people and was able to identify schools, practices and people who had already experimented new pedagogy, and who were eager to try new methods if they got assistance - which so suitably is one of the tasks of the Twinning Kosovo project.
We are to collaborate with 107 schools in Kosovo, of which 6 will be chosen as pilot schools. I have found out that the "Innovation Leader" model that Diana Laurillard has presented suits to the situation here and to our projects goals. (see slides 10-12 of my presentation ICT in education: setting criteria for the pilot schools).
So, it's Saturday and I'm sipping wine while waiting to fly back home. Such a good feeling and great expectations towards the next trip here. It'll take place in the middle of July. For that I have to plan a two-day training for trainers on core curriculum areas and student assessment.
There's a Google Album having some more photos.
