Sarah Younie, Jon Audain, Irma Elf, Marilyn Leask, Richard Procter, Chris Shelton

ITTE/TPEA has been working for many years on the ways digital technologies can be harnessed to support ongoing professional development for teachers.

An international movement has developed of which ITTE/TPEA is a founder member and ITTE?TPEA has sponsored two international Global Knowledge Mobilisation Summits as well as scholarships to explore these issues. Some of the results of this work are being published in the coming months. Below is a summary of the rationale and the outcomes of ITTE/TPEA’s work:

Improving the quality of teaching is of major global concern:
UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4c in the Education 10
2030: Framework for Action calls for high quality teaching for all, in
both developed and developing countries. The OECD has also challenged
the education system to improve Knowledge Management.
ITTE/TPEA members have built on the ideas in the JET special issue on Translational Research
and Knowledge Mobilisation in Teacher Education which explored the 15
concept of ‘translational’ or ‘theory to practice’ research, new to the
education sector but well-established in medicine and supported by
major funders.

Five TR models have been identified from developmental
work with organisations in South Africa, Bangladesh,
Australia, Pakistan and the UK. These distinct TR models have 20
emerged from regional networks (university staff and teachers), professional
subject associations, specialist research units, an international
NGO working in crisis settings (needing a rapid response), and
from investigations into the release of knowledge from PhD theses.
While the models are distinct, they share common features which 25
form the emerging MESH Translational Research methodology introduced
in this article. Inputs to the models are similar: high quality
research reports, already validated and need from stakeholders.
Processes vary depending on the context. Outputs however are simi-
lar: TR publications e.g. research summaries such as MESHGuides 30
(www.meshguides.org) complement existing forms of publication.
A TR repository is part of the MESH knowledge mobilisation strategy
to give teachers quick access to summaries of the latest knowledge.
Contextualisation and translation to other languages are built into
the publication processes which include updating and refinement of 35
guides so as to accumulate knowledge. This article proposes the
MESH TR methodology as one affordable, practical and scalable
solution to the OECD and UNESCO challenges of keeping teachers
up to date and of making new knowledge accessible to teachers regardless of their locations.

The article providing details of the five models is being published in the Journal of Education for Teaching Special Issue due December 2018 published by Routledge/Taylor Francis. In time these will also be published on the MESHGuides website www.meshguides.org

The model developed with the NGO has resulted in materials being provided for parents and carers of children under 5 in the Rohingya Camps. See the Early Years MESHGuide on www.meshguides.org.

ITTE/TPEA is sponsoring another summit late in 2019. For information email enquiries@meshguides.org.