independent, interactive, internet-based Learning Objects
One of the ultimate challenges facing education in MENA is teacher capabilities (see box).
Current Situation
The MENA region is facing a chronic crisis in the capabilities of teachers and their pedagogical knowledge and practices. Addressing these challenges through direct training is impractical and non-scalable. Palestine for example, which is the smallest Arab country has over 60,000 teachers. The level of investment required to raise the qualifications so that a critical number of these teachers can provide high quality learning is so enormous that it would be virtually impossible to carry this out through the standard training approaches due to lack of sufficient resources across the board (human, financial, institutional, etc.).
To address this critical challenge at scale, CCE is proposing to develop an on-line version of the existing Experiential Learning Objects (xLOBs) described in the Annex. The on-line version will be called iLOBs (“i” for independent, interactive, innovative, internet-based).
They will follow the same pedagogical model of the face-to-face xLOBs, plus a range of on-line strategies that need to work in different contexts. The major structural difference between xLOBs and iLOBs is that iLOBs will be designed so that students can learn with them independently – without necessarily having a need for a teacher to direct the learning.
This means that iLOBs need to have significantly more details, numerous references to self-learning resources, self-assessments, etc. The research and development team will also have to build into the design a balance between providing students with enough instructions to remain engaged, drawn to learning and able to resolve problems and difficulties and at the same time enough space to be creative and independent learners. Another structural difference between iLOBs and xLOBs is that one iLOB will typically cover knowledge and objectives specified in several xLOBs. An iLOB is expected to cover topics in a chapter of a text book for example, rather than a section in a chapter (which is the case with xLOBs).
The importance of this component is that iLOBs will be extremely effective and scalable in any crisis mode, be it sudden like the current COVID-19, long-term as with armed conflicts and displacements or chronic, such as the failed educational systems in MENA. For example, had iLOBs been available today, schools would have been able to deploy them immediately, and that would have made a significant difference for children during the current COVID-19 crisis. For the millions of displaced and underprivileged children whose education has been forcefully disrupted (a significant percentage of whom are in MENA), on-line Arabic xLOBs will be invaluable for the children and their prospects for a decent future.
iLOBs will provide an immediate venue for people in MENA that are desperately seeking to find alternative quality learning pathways, be it students, parents, and teachers. The society is aware of the severe shortcomings of the educational system, but they simply do not have practical or affordable options for alternative quality education. iLOBs will provide a powerful means to reaching out to large numbers of students who wish to learn differently and don’t know where to go. The power of iLOBs is that they are fully synchronized with the school curricula. In other words, learning with iLOBs will result in meeting the requirements of the educational system (and much more) in a stimulating manner. While iLOBs are designed for student independent learning, CCE recognizes that students, especially school children need motivation, support and/or direction of a teacher or a mentor. Therefore, iLOBs will include an interface where teachers and tutors can facilitate learning with iLOBs so that they can be blended with classroom learning, facilitated by private tutors, student peers, community centers, etc.