Building Local Capacity: Training the Trainers
When a teacher trained in CTL’s Progressive Science Initiative® (PSI®) becomes a PSI trainer herself, that teacher is able to bring invaluable insight to the work of training others. And for Roseanna Satterfield, who is leading the training in CTL’s work in South America and Africa, that perspective has never been more important.
Satterfield employs a “train the trainers” model where she teaches physics and Algebra I courses to teacher-learners in a manner that is similar to how their students will b taught, using identical online courseware and real-time formative assessment.
This approach allows trainers like Satterfield to model PSI’s pedagogical approach while teachers are learning the material - only at an accelerated pace over the course of a 10-day training cycle.
“In The Gambia, we met every day from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. to teach the first semester of physics,” Satterfield said. “The teachers actually took all the assessments that their own students will be taking,” she added, allowing CTL to collect data on how the teachers are performing on the content.
The teachers then teach the course, with the strongest performers selected by CTL become trainers, training other teachers in schools in The Gambia.
“This approach spreads quickly and builds local system capacity,” Satterfield said.
And she should know. Satterfield has experienced the process first hand.
Starting in 2007, through Teach for America, Satterfield started teaching 9th grade biology at Technology High School in Newark. At the end of her second year teaching, the school implemented the physics-first PSI® program.
“The principal pulled me aside and told me that she wanted me to become a physics teacher,” Satterfield recalled. “I had only taken six credits of physics in college so I was a little bit dubious.”
Nevertheless, Satterfield persevered and was a member of the first graduating cohort of the PSI® physics teacher training program. She went through the summer-long endorsement course and began teaching physics the following year.
In her fourth year at Tech—the first high school in Newark to offer the Initiative—she worked her way up to teach Advanced Placement Physics B. “I went through the entire cycle so I know what it takes.”
Because of her involvement in that program, Satterfield eventually was tapped to be a writer at CTL developing the PSI biology cours, Later, she came on board full-time at CTL to train other teachers from Perth Amboy to Argentina and Africa. Supported by other excellent CTL Project Managers who are teachers themselves, Satterfield has modeled the collaborative methods CTL encourages.
“I’m just one example of how our train the trainer model works. Institutionalizing a sustainable approach to build local system capacity is not only doable, but it’s being done,” Satterfield said.
##
Tags: News