One of the UN Millennium Development Goals is to “Achieve universal primary education.”  If this goal is to have any real meaning in the digital, knowledge-based economies emerging today, universal primary education has to be defined to include ICT skills and ICT literacy.  ICT is pervasive in every aspect of our economies from traditional aspects such as agriculture and industry, to newly developing industries like information technology, and bioinformatics.  Each of the four countries participating in the Peer Coaching Program, India, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam, has recognized this reality and each is working to ensure that all students develop ICT skills and information literacy beginning in primary education.

Experience integrating ICT into education in these countries and around the world demonstrates that there is a huge difference between setting the goal of ICT literacy for all students and actually taking meaningful steps toward achievement of that goal.  For many students in these four countries, their only access to ICT is in schools, and that is often the only place where students can develop the ICT skills necessary in the 21st Century.  Research has demonstrated that access to ICT hardware is not enough to guarantee the students will actually have access to ICT.   At least half of all teachers surveyed in Korea, Singapore, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom report they aren’t comfortable using ICT in classroom learning activities.  If teachers do not have the skills and comfort to use ICT in classroom learning activities with their students, they simply don’t use ICT rich activities.  A number of stories circulate about ICT gathering dust in the back of classrooms or sitting in their original shipping boxes.  Unfortunately, these stories are not apocryphal, these scenarios are all too common. 

If access to ICT for students is critical, it ought to be clear that we need to rethink what constitutes access.  It must be defined in terms of physical access to the technology as well as access to well trained educators who have the skills, knowledge and comfort to use these tools in classroom learning activities.

If it is important for all students to have ICT skills and to be ICT literate, it is apparent we need a new approach to assure teachers have the skills, knowledge and comfort to use ITC in the classroom.  Why?  First, we have not provided enough professional development for teachers who want to use ICT.  Second, the methods we have used to help teachers develop ICT skills, comfort and knowledge to use ICT have not been effective.  This should not be too surprising.  Most after-school or weekend professional development classes show teachers the mechanics of a word processor or a spreadsheet, but fail to give them any clear ideas and help on how to use these in language, science, history or math class activities.  Many are far too busy to take the challenge of figuring out how to apply what they are learning.  Others try once, hit a stumbling block, fail and give up.  Other trainings may focus on ICT integration, but these programs do not provide schools what they need.  One or two educators from each school may have a chance to participate in intensive ICT integration classes where they develop the skills to integrate ICT into their classes, but they have not developed skills to help other teachers implement these same learning activities.  These classes have created isolated islands of excellence in schools, not systemic capacity.

When teachers are asked who they would look to for guidance and training on how to use ICT in their classrooms the vast majority of them say they would look to another teacher in their school.  Why?  They trust their peers and they know that help from this trusted source is there when they need it.  Peer Coaching recognizes teachers’ preferences and needs.  It trains teacher leaders to help other teachers at their schools with ICT integration, and stronger lesson design.  In short, Peer Coaching expands a schools’ capacity for its own professional development and gives the schools capacity to help every teacher in the school utilize ICT effectively in classroom learning activities. Education officials in India, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam all agree that every student needs to have ICT skills and ICT literacy.  Educational leaders in all four countries understand that teachers must have the knowledge, skills and comfort with ICT that ensures they can and will use these powerful learning tools in their classroom.  Leaders in all four countries recognize that Peer Coaching provides the training essential for the teacher leaders who take on the task of helping their peers to use ICT in the classroom. They have adopted Peer Coaching because it is proven to help schools build the capacity to assist every teacher to develop the skills and knowledge needed to integrate ICT.

What is Peer Coaching?  As practiced in these four countries, it is teacher leaders trained as coaches who are helping other colleagues in their schools to integrate ICT into classroom learning activities and improve lesson design by incorporating active, engaging learning strategies such as project-based learning.  How do coaches reach these goals? 

·         They provide just-in-time, just-enough training or resources.  They are just down the hall, ready to provide assistance other teachers need. 

·         Coaches help teachers plan ICT-rich learning activities. 

·         Teachers love to see a best practice modeled for them or to team teach with an experienced teacher, and coaches have the skills to do both. 

·         Finally, coaches often observe another teacher and provide feedback on the strength of the learning activity they observed and help a teacher reflect on ways they might improve it the next time they teach this lesson. 

While coaches seem initially to be the experts, they will be the first to tell you they learn as much from their peers as they coach.  As we will see, Peer Coaches are very effective at helping other teachers integrate ICT into their classrooms.

Each of these countries has had two partners to help in the adoption of Peer Coaching: Microsoft and the Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology.  Both of these partners have one role: To help each of the partner countries to develop the capacity to localize Peer Coaching to meet unique national needs and the capacity to implement the program independently.  These two institutions help partners to develop the skills and resources to scale Peer Coaching to meet needs and sustain it over time without the need for external assistance.   

The team from the Puget Sound Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology (PSCTLT) created the Peer Coaching program and Microsoft commissioned the PSCTLT as its execution and implementation partner to scale the program through partnerships at the country level.  The PSCTLT trained master trainers from each of these partner nations.  Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam participated in two training sessions in 2005, and launched their programs shortly thereafter.  In the spring of 2007, the PSCTLT trained staff from an Indian non-governmental organization, NIIT, so that it could train and support college faculty members in Maharashtra.   Later in 2007, the PSCTLT provided additional training for Vietnam’s cadre of master trainers and also trained faculty for additional colleges of education in Vietnam, Thailand and India as part of the training it provided for UNESCO’s Next Gen project.  

In addition to training, the PSCTLT offers guidance to partners on program start-up implementation.  It assists its partners to localize the program so that it reflects local circumstance and meets local needs.  There is no effort to rubber stamp an American program on the rest of the world.  Each of the four countries has spent considerable time and effort localizing Peer Coaching. 

Once the program is localized and master trainers are trained, the master trainers help facilitators develop the skills and knowledge needed to train and support coaches.  This cascading train-the-trainer model has proved very efficient in bringing the program to scale in these countries.  At this point each of the four nation’s Peer Coaching programs was self-sustaining, and each country assumed responsibility for funding and implementing Peer Coaching.  This is possible because the ongoing costs of implementation are relative low.  These only ongoing costs include training and supporting the facilitators and coaches.  Since each country has the ability to schedule and scale this training to meet their needs, the program is easy to expand and to sustain.

How is Peer Coaching meeting the educational needs in each of the four Asian countries?

Educational leaders in the state of Maharashtra, India have chosen to utilize colleges of education to bring ICT enriched learning to primary and secondary classrooms across the state.  By integrating Peer Coaching into the curriculum of each of the 530 pedagogical colleges of education they are insuring that all prospective teachers graduate with the skills and knowledge to use ICT in their classrooms.  As they move from the university into school classrooms, these new teachers will expand the impact of  the coaching program when they assist other teachers in their new schools to utilize ICT-rich activities in their classrooms.

Vietnam’s educational leadership wants every student in the country to be ICT literate and they are starting this campaign by focusing on the metropolitan areas with the resources and infrastructure needed to reach this goal.  Both teacher training colleges and K-12 schools play complimentary roles in this effort.  Pedagogical colleges in major metropolitan areas teach the Peer Coaching program to prepare pre-service and some in-service teachers to assist other teachers to use ICT in the classroom.  Local departments of education in these same metropolitan areas are training additional in-service teachers as coaches to broaden the reach of the Coaching program and make ICT integration more systemic.    

Local educational ministries across Taiwan have partnered with the university that is implementing Peer Coaching in that country to train and support coaches in a nationwide program to bring Coaching, ICT integration and strong lesson design into schools in every province.

Thailand’s Ministry of Education is spearheading educational reform in that country and has taken the lead in making Peer Coaching a part of that nationwide reform effort.  Ministry supported trainers work hand in hand with schools across the country as technology resources arrive in the schools.  They provide coaching training for local educators in these same schools.  The goal is to insure that every school in the country has technology and coaches who provide the schools’ teachers with the professional development they need to integrate ICT into learning activities.

A more comprehensive look at coaching in each country follows.

Maharashtra, India

Educational leaders in the state of Maharashtra, India know that it is critical that all students have strong ICT skills.  As Mr. A.M. Bedge, the Director of the Maharashtra State Council of Education, Research and Training, (MSCERT) noted, the “Main objective of the educational system is to prepare the child for his future life.  Children of coming generations will have to live in the environments where knowledge, computers and ICT will be needed in every field.  It is necessary to inculcate the knowledge and skills of ICT in children.”  These educational leaders knew that they were not meeting this need in part because they were not preparing teachers to use ICT in the classroom, and they knew they needed to meet the challenge.  To address this need, they wanted to provide pre-service teachers from across the entire state with the skills to integrate ICT.

As they looked at options, educational leaders in Maharashtra’s MSCERT and its State Board of Teacher Education (SBTE) realized they needed to do more than offer prospective teachers a class or two that taught ICT skills and a bit about integration.  They wanted more focus on integrating ICT into learning activities.  They also had to develop a strategy that would help the huge number of teachers already in schools across the state. These educational leaders understood that giving pre-service teachers coaching skills would have a multiplier effect.  The new teachers would have the skills to help other teachers in their schools to integrate ICT into their classrooms too. The cost of implementation was low and because of the multiplier effect, the return on the investment was huge.  Maharashtra’s educational leaders chose the Peer Coaching curriculum because it aligns perfectly with the government’s technology for education goals.  As Mr. Bedge observed, “This partnership with Microsoft further reinforces the commitment of the Government of Maharashtra in incorporating ICT into the state educational system.”

State educational leaders partnered with an ICT leader in India, NIIT, to lead the implementation of the Peer Coaching program.  The PSCTLT team trained NIIT trainers and in March of 2007, the state funded the ten NIIT trained Master Trainers, who are faculty at the state’s colleges of education.  Almost immediately these Master Trainers, who are sponsored by MSCERT and SBTE, began to train other faculty members in 438 of the state’s teacher preparation colleges to offer an enhanced version of Peer Coaching.  After the training, one faculty member at each of these 438 colleges began to offer a Peer Coaching class teaching the communications and collaboration skills that are critical for systematic innovation.  They help develop the lesson design skills needed to assist other teachers to integrate ICT into powerful 21st Century classroom learning activities.  They have enhanced Peer Coaching by providing additional activities that focus on helping new teachers to develop each element of an effective project-based learning activity.    

The initial response has been so enthusiastic that Maharashtra has added more than 60 additional education colleges to the Peer Coaching program.  Master Trainers will train another 500 college professors, one from each of the state’s teacher education colleges, between January and the end of March 2008.  At the conclusion of this training, most colleges in the state will have at last two faculty members offering the Coaching program.  These colleges report that 32,450 student teachers are currently enrolled in Peer Coaching classes and they anticipate that Peer Coaching will be offered to a total of 50,000 student teachers during the current school year.  They expect the number to grow to 100,000 student teachers per year in the near future. 

The state’s educational leaders are supporting coaching strongly for several reasons.  First, it works.  One of the professors involved in the program, Shri V.N. Shukla observed, “The Pre-service program of Microsoft…in Maharashtra has enabled the teacher student community to benefit from usage of ICT and Peer Coaching skills.  The Program teaches communications and collaboration skills that are very important for teachers.  The program will go a long way in changing attitudes and prepare student teachers for the 21st Century.”  As Dr. Mridula Ranade, another professor implementing the program notes, the “…[C]urriculum has changed the attitude of apprehension in usage of ICT amongst Diploma in Education (D.Ed.) teacher educators of Maharashtra.  It has led to evolution of education and helped bring about real change and improved prospects of Pre-service teachers.” 

The second reason why educational leaders continue to support Peer Coaching is because the program is scalable.  In less than one year, ten master trainers have already touched faculty at more than 500 colleges and these faculty members in turn have offered coaching training to over 32,000 student teachers.  Assuming each of them teaches 30 students next year, they will be helping nearly one million students integrate ICT into classroom learning.  And they will continue to help another million students become ICT literate for each year of their career.  MSCERT plans to continue to expand the program.  They can, according to Mr. Bedge, because the “initiative not only addresses the current student community, but is designed in such manner that it is sustainable and takes care of future students as well.”  Peer Coaching in Maharashtra is scalable in another way. Next year and in each succeeding year, these newly trained teachers can begin to coach others in their school, and these teachers in turn will touch the lives of millions of student each year.  

Third, Peer Coaching is sustainable.  The state of Maharashtra is committed to supporting the implementation of Coaching in the field.  The state government has trained state department of education officials from their regional DIET teams that conduct regular in-service training for teachers, to coordinate the program in the field, help with program implementation by lending support to the coaches, and ensure assessments of the program are completed.  The DIET coordinators have already joined with some of the faculty who offer Peer Coaching to form coordination committees to provide help and support to the various school districts that are involved in the program.  Finally, the government has created an assessment tool that will measure the impact of the program from the perspective of both the teacher educators (the college faculty) and the student teachers.  These assessments will be administered at the end of the current school year.  Clearly, Peer Coaching is seen as a powerful professional learning resource and a valuable and sustainable program that is effective at preparing today’s students for their future.  

Vietnam

Educators in Vietnam are also keenly committed to insuring their students have the ICT skills and literacy needed for success.  Vietnamese educational leaders recognize this will take time.  Many of the rural schools in the country lack access to ICT and often to electricity.  They are initiating a nationwide Peer Coaching program, which focuses first on those municipalities who are in strongest position to realize the benefits of Coaching.  They are developing and implementing models for ICT integration in urban and suburban population centers now that they can roll out to the rest of the country as the infrastructure challenges are addressed.  Since Vietnam’s Ministry of Education adopted Peer Coaching in 2005, Departments of Education and Training (DoET) in five provinces, Ho Chi Minh, Hai Phong, Hue, Quang Tri, Hau Giang, have assumed the primary responsibility for funding and implementing the Peer Coaching program in their schools.

Vietnam’s educational leaders have another goal for coaching.  They understand collaboration is at the heart of Peer Coaching and is a powerful tool for promoting educational change.  Modes of sharing of knowledge and skills among teachers are available, but have not been effective in Vietnam.  Like educators in many countries, there isn’t a culture of collaboration in the schools.  As one observer in Vietnam noted, “most teachers tend to keep it for themselves not realizing they will all grow and students will benefit more if they share everything each person knows.”  Educational leaders are using the Coaching program to encourage sharing and learning among teacher communities to encourage Vietnamese educators to integrate ICT effectively, to improve the quality of local education, and enhance human capacity to face short- and long-term educational challenges.  Hoang Thi Hong Hai, Director of the Tan Phu DoET, highlighted the important role Peer Coaching plays in encouraging collaboration that would help reach the department’s educational goals when he said the Peer Coaching program, “[E]ncourages the sharing and learning among teachers at schools. That would help to improve the quality of teaching and learning at school and above of all, ICT integration into teaching and learning or innovative teaching methodology application is not a big challenge to one teacher anymore because the supports from other teachers and management board are always be there.”  Working together, these educators possess sustainable solutions to address the country’s educational needs.

In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, K-12 educators did not enter into this project alone.  They partnered with three major pedagogical colleges or universities, Hanoi University of Education, Ho Chi Minh University of Education, and Hanoi College of Education, to reach their objectives for the Coaching program.  There are now 140 Master Trainers at these colleges who have trained 500 university lecturers to offer Peer Coaching.  These university faculty offer coaching classes to both pre-service teachers who will soon be joining the staff in schools and training to teachers who are already in K-12 schools.  Their work is a perfect complement to the coaching training being offered by the school district facilitators who are training coaches in K-12 schools.  The DoET’s and the colleges are training in-service teachers and the colleges are preparing new teachers with ICT Coaching skills. This coordinated approach dramatically broadens the reach of the Coaching program.

The role played by the pedagogical universities is a clear indication of the long-term importance of Peer Coaching in Vietnam.  Coaching is part of the formal training of prospective teachers today and it will be for generations of teachers to come.  Peer Coaching is systemic and sustainable because it has been adopted by the pedagogical colleges.

In the last two years, Peer Coaching in Vietnam has trained 800 coaches for 265 schools in the five provinces.  Coaches have collaborated with 13,000 teachers.  Most of the coaching occurs among educators who teach the same subject matter.  Math specialists, for example, come together in coaching sessions where they exchange ideas and discuss challenges in the teaching process.  They may also utilize forums and Web sites created to facilitate learning, sharing, and group discussion among teachers.  These teachers have started to utilize what they learned with their coaches in their classrooms and each year approximately 520,000 students have benefited by participating in classroom learning activities shaped by the partnership between coaches and collaborating teachers.

As one assessment of the Peer Coaching program noted the learning activities the coaches have helped teachers to develop, “create [an] exciting atmosphere at class.”  ICT-rich “lessons attract more students attention and involvement.”  This quote also illustrates that when integrated in an effective manner, ICT can facilitate the teaching and learning process.  Nguyen Van Hung, Headmaster of the Le Anh Xuan School also pointed out another value of coaching when he said, “Peer Coaching gives us the opportunity to make progress together. Now, we don’t have to find out the  way…by ourselves anymore, with the logic methods provided in the training, we can do it better and spread the knowledge of ICT integration more widely and effectively in our community.”  Bui Tu Ngoc, a classroom teacher and Peer Coaching Facilitator, also recognized the power of collaboration produced by the Peer Coaching program when she said, “The Peer Coaching program helped me…to build teaching and learning methodology innovatively and creatively…and build a professional community in my school and district as well. Our colleagues have leant how to share their ideas, how to teach and help student learn effectively.  The good results in students’ study…have been convincing our school leaders in supporting and encouraging teachers in their innovation.”  

Nguyen Hoai Chuong, Deputy Director of Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) also understands the power and impact of the Coaching program.  As he commented, “Microsoft Partners in Learning (MS PiL) has deep insight of our objectives and concerns …for promoting ICT integration into teaching and learning for a better education in HCMC.  Peer Coaching, which is one of components of MS Pil, shows a significant effect at large scale after one year of execution. The model “train the trainer” help to put more burdens on the trainees, identifying their roles and responsibilities to train and share what they have experienced in the training class with other teachers at the school. That means when one is directly trained by the program, then the other 10 teachers will benefit indirectly. That causes the spreading and extending of awareness and desire to experience innovative teaching and ICT integrated methodologies among teachers, at the same time to create a real community for learning together and sharing wisdom for a better future for HCMC education in particular and for Vietnam in general.”

The Vietnamese educators have assessed not only the strengths of Coaching, but also its weaknesses.  As a result of the evaluation, they have concluded that they need hands- on involvement of DoET leaders and school administrators in the Peer Coaching training.  Those leading the Coaching program believe this level of participation will facilitate stronger coaching plans for each school and improve coaching activities in schools.  Clearly, Vietnam has embarked on the path of making coaching a long-term, systemic program throughout the country.  

Thailand

Since the enactment of the National Education Act in 1999, Thailand has been addressing its educational needs through educational reform and decentralization. The act was premised on the idea that educational reform requires the involvement from students, teachers, principals, schools, and local stakeholders.  For more than two years, Peer Coaching has been part of that process of decentralization.  Thailand’s Ministry of Education endorsed the Peer Coaching program because: 

 ·         Coaching will help students to develop the ICT skills they need for their future, but it is more than just ICT skills;

·         Coaching is designed to encourage teachers to integrate ICT into teaching and learning activities that best match the local context; 

·         Coaching is not a “sit and get” professional learning experience.  Coaches are actively involved in learning how to integrate ICT into learning activities;

·         Coaching helps schools develop the capacity to meet its professional development needs and it builds the schools leadership capacity. 

Thailand’s Ministry of Education sees the fit between its goals and those of Peer Coaching so clearly that it hopes it will have coaches in every one of the nation’s 32,000 schools within the next five years. 

Thailand’s Minister of Education (MoE) has worked out a systemic policy for spreading Coaching to each school.  As Dr. Kasam Varavarn, Secretary General of the Office of the Basic Education Commission observed, “We have a very happy relationship with Microsoft…They’re always thinking one step ahead of us, anticipating our needs and stepping in to help…”.  Ministry leaders are focusing Peer Coaching on small schools, those with populations of 150 or fewer students.  Seventy-five percent of Thailand’s schools fit this definition.   As they equip schools to have one computer for every twenty students, the Ministry of Education also introduces Peer Coaching by having MoE facilitator’s lead regional Coaching workshops to train at least one coach for the school.  The Ministry provides other critical support for Coaching.  For example, it funds the schools’ Coaching programs by reallocating some national educational funding as well as some of the funding for the local educational agencies.  With this supplemental funding, schools have the ability to provide the resources a school needs to utilize ICT, time for teachers and coaches to collaborate, and management support for the Coaching program.  As of September 2007, more than 3,000 schools in Thailand were participating in Peer Coaching.

The Ministry continues to support Peer Coaching not simply because it matches Thailand’s educational goals.  They are supportive because the program is working in three important areas:  1) Teachers apply and integrate ICT to their teaching in various subjects (i.e. music, physical education, Thai, art etc.)  2) Students are more engaged with teachers and their class, and students have more fun in the new instructional strategies (group work, sharing with peers, etc.)  3) Educational leaders believe they see students’ achievement increasing when their teachers have attended the Peer Coaching program.

Thailand's Ministry of Education’s Facilitators have been productive and remarkably successful as they have travelled the country training coaches.  Clearly they will be even busier in the next five years.

Taiwan

Information Technology Education is one of the six main focus areas in Taiwan’s curriculum for grades 1-9. The goals of ICT Education are to help students develop ICT, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.  Key leaders at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) quickly concluded that Peer Coaching aligned perfectly with these goals and could be a powerful tool to help reach this curriculum goal.  As Professor Ching-Ting Lee, Dean of the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, NCKU, said, “Peer Coaching is an exciting and meaningful project. It helps reach the university’s goals by training teacher leaders to serve as peer coaches for their colleagues. As coaches, these teachers assist their peers in identifying ways to enhance standards-based instruction and to offer their students engaging as well as ICT- rich learning activities. We hope that Taiwan’s Peer Coaching team will continue to help teachers develop the necessary technology skills and instructional strategies needed to integrate technology into teaching and learning, thus improving teacher education in Taiwan.”  NCKU leaders quickly signed on as the national leader in implementing the Peer Coaching program in Taiwan.  

The provincial Bureaus of Education (BoE) in every one of Taiwan’s provinces quickly agreed with the NCKU.  Starting two and a half years ago, Peer Coaching has been adopted by the BoE in every province.  Coaching is being implemented in schools in cities and villages, and in rural and urban areas across Taiwan.  In just the first year, NCKU trained 90 facilitators, who in turn helped more than 800 teachers develop coaching skills.  Now in its third year, Peer Coaches have worked with more than 16,000 elementary, junior and senior high school teachers in every province in the country.

As in the case of the other countries implementing Peer Coaching, Taiwan has localized Coaching to make it better fit their country’s needs.  From the start, they planned to use the Peer Coaching curriculum and support from university professors to strengthen teachers’ abilities to use digital technology, to establish a learning community, and to construct an excellent digital learning environment for educators.  NCKU partnered with two other universities to create the program that met their needs.

The team at NCKU that is implementing Peer Coaching paired Peer Coaching with the use of Web Quests, an instructional strategy that integrates ICT into each learning activity.  NCKU staff collaborated with faculty at She-te University to adapt the Web Quest methodology for Peer Coaching in Taiwan.  The NCKU team also paired with online collaboration tools that are part of a best practice repository called PBL Net (http://pbl.linc.hinet.net/).  PBL Net was created for the Coaching program by National University of Tainan.  PBL Net is an online meeting place for the community of teachers that want to share both project-based learning activities and their experiences implementing them with the peers.  By 2007, there were more than 2,100 Web Quests on this site, 1,180 online courses had been hosted on PBL Net and more than 10,000 students have used PBL Net resources.

Like the other three countries, Taiwan continues to embrace and expand Peer Coaching because it works.  In 2007, the Taiwanese team added two more elements to their Peer Coaching program.  They began to offer Peer Coaching online to broaden its reach and they introduced Coaching to the country’s “School of the Future” program.   Another indication of the success of Coaching comes from the classroom. 

Mr. Ying-He Xu is both a teacher at Fu-Ji Elementary school in rural Miao-Li Country and a Peer Coaching Facilitator.  As he noted, “Compared with other areas in Taiwan, Miao-li County is an area lacking instructional resources…”  Still, he argues, the teachers are “full of passion and thirst for knowledge.”  Mr. Xu helped fill the needs.  He has offered coaching training to 858 teachers; 21% of the teachers in the county.  And he has shown great results.  In the national teaching materials design competitions in each of the last two years, “almost half of the prizewinners from Taiwan came from Miao-li County.”  Mr. Xu should feel gratified by these results.  Mr. Ying-Li Hsiao is a teacher at Chung-Wen Elementary School in Chia-Yi and also a Peer Coaching facilitator.  He wanted to help teachers use ICT and Web Quests, but he knew teachers are busy with teaching and do not have much time to “learn new information and change their teaching habits.”  “It is,” he commented, “tough work to promote integration information technology with teaching.”  But he did not give up.  Mr. Hsiao conducted several Peer Coaching training sessions, he helped teachers use the PBL Net and to design and implement Web Quests.  He helped create a collaborative learning community in his school, a community that focused on effective use of ICT and strong learning strategies.  Gradually, he noted, “[T]he teachers came not to reject or fear to design new curriculum anymore.  They also expanded their ICT skills and increased the frequency and ability of integrating technology into instruction.”  In 2007 Taiwan’s Ministry of Education awarded its TANET Outstanding Contribution Award to Mr. Hsiao. 

You can view a video clip that gives a few teachers and students their opportunity to share their thoughts about the value of Taiwan’s Peer Coaching program by clicking on this link:  http://myweb.ncku.edu.tw/~u3696107/2007interview.wmv.  Please note this video is intended to be used as part of the application process and is not to be published or posted to the Web for any other purposes without the permission of the authors.

After three years the team that is implementing Peer Coaching in Taiwan is still refining and revising the program to make it more effective.  But their conclusion about Peer Coaching is worth careful consideration.  “The Peer Coaching program is one of the best ways for teachers to do cooperative learning.”  And Michael Fullan who has spent more than twenty-five years studying systemic educational changes tells us that cooperation and collaboration are keys to systemic educational innovation. 

The Peer Coaching program is based on the idea that ALL students need ICT skills.  Digital literacy, understanding what ICT tools are best for the job, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of digital resources, are central goals of the program. 

The Peer Coaching program also works to integrate ICT into the full range of learning activities students participate in from the first year they enter school until they leave high school.  It does so because ICT can be a powerful learning tool.  A recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development underscored the importance of technology as a teaching and learning tool.  “An effective use of ICT in schools,” the OECD insists, “can have an immediate positive impact on the schools’ learning environments, for example, by creating more dynamic interaction between students and teachers, and helping students to control and monitor their own learning.” 

What is an effective use of ICT?  John Bransford, a preeminent learning scientist argues effective use means pairing ICT with strong and effective learning strategies, like project-based learning.   Used in this context, ICT can help students master the 21st Century skills like those outlined in India’s Holistic Education plan.  When paired with active, engaging learning strategies, ICT can help students “Develop logical thinking, scientific aptitude.”  It can be a powerful tool to help “Facilitate creativity, excellence.”  Both strong instructional strategies and ICT are critical components of this learning equation.  Matching technology with poor instructional strategy produces more expensive, poor quality learning.  Peer Coaching focuses on helping teachers adopt learning activities that are both best practices in the use of ICT and to utilize active learning strategies, such as project- based learning.

One of the great strengths of the Coaching program is the ease with which it can be replicated.  It is important to note that Microsoft makes the Peer Coaching program accessible to more than 100 countries already participating in its Partners in Learning program.  Other countries could join this program in the future. 

As a result it isn’t necessary for any organization to replicate the project, they can simply join.  Replication isn't so much a process of recreating the program as it is localizing the program to align with educational goals, needs and resources.

Organizations that have successfully partnered with Partners in Learning to implement the Peer Coaching program include UNESCO, teaching colleges, national and regional education ministries, and non-governmental organizations with a strong background in education.

Peer Coaching is designed to train teacher leaders to help other teachers use ICT in their classroom.  Each of the four partner nations adopted coaching to ensure its teachers were using ICT in classroom learning activities to help students develop ICT skills and literacy.  ICT plays a critical role in each aspect of Peer Coaching. 

Coaches have to determine if and how teachers are currently using ICT.  They help them plan ways to use ICT more effectively.  Coaches help teachers develop the ICT skills needed to carry out these classroom plans.  They model or team-teach the effective use of ICT in the classroom.  And they debrief and reflect after observing ICT related teaching activities their collaborating teachers are offering to their students.  This is a long term process.  A teacher who is just starting to use ICT in the classroom may have to create and offer many ICT rich learning activities before they can successfully use ICT in a strong, project based learning activities.  Coaching is no quick fix.  It is a long term process.  Each of the partner countries is approaching and implementing Peer Coaching from this perspective. 

ICT is the focus of the project. More specifically, helping students and teachers use ICT effectively, is the focus of Peer Coaching.