Evaluation Report of the KPerak E-Learning Cluster No.1 Pilot Project

Background:
The KPEC#1 project was a ten-week pilot to demonstrate the effectiveness of facilitated in-school and cluster based programmes in supporting teachers to increase their use of ICT in teaching and learning programmes, and in supporting their students to participate in more student–centred learning pedagogies.

The State Government of Perak identified education as one of the four key drivers in their vision of drawing on ICT as a foundation to re-make its economy and thereby improve the social-economic standing to achieve a fully developed knowledge state by 2020. The KPEC programme was designed to assist Perak in working towards their goal by using a proven approach to professional development to build the capability of teachers in their understanding and use of ICTs to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in classrooms.

The KPEC demonstrator pilot was intended to provide an opportunity for members of the Innovation New Zealand Education (iNZed) consortium to work with Malaysian education officials, principals and teachers to demonstrate the effectiveness, in the Malaysian context, of introducing strategies and resources represented in the identified priority areas to improve teacher capability in the use of ICT within their teaching and learning programmes.

Description:
The KPEC model was based on the principles that have underpinned the successful New Zealand professional development programme that has been underway since 1999. The over-arching characteristics of this programme are that it is; in-school, facilitated, and cluster-based, and that the programme promotes ICT integration, fosters reflective practice, and is supported by an online community of practice.

Evaluation of the pilot programme was based on data collected during the project, including: baseline and exit surveys, principal interviews, teacher interviews, facilitator observations, the record of online participation, and personal communications to facilitators. Evaluation of the following programme elements was undertaken;

• The operation of a cluster model, including the role of local facilitators, local mentors, onlinecommunities, and ‘expert support’.
• The nature of partnerships that have worked to make the project happen.
• Observations on the style of leadership that works in the Malaysian context, and for future development.
• The use of an online community of practice to enable the sharing of ideas and participation inprofessional learning activities.
• The contribution of specialist forms of online content to support curriculum programmes
• The benefits of using video & audio conferencing to overcome challenges of access to generaland specialist knowledge.

Key findings:
Facilitated in-school, and cluster-based models of professional learning can be successfully implemented in Malaysia, when national and state education infrastructures and local partners work together with school leaders and providers to meet the challenges of new ways of learning collaboratively (Refer to sections on decisions and support of federal and state officials). The programme’s online community and its access to international resources and teachers enabled teachers in the pilot to model global communication with their students, and be supported on a daily basis with their own learning.

The learning for teachers was an intensive process, often requiring them to examine their teaching and its impact on students much more deeply, to overcome anxieties about technical issues and move beyond their usual teaching approaches to involve their students in decisions about their learning (Refer to case studies of each teacher).

Teachers in this pilot project had individual needs in terms of their ICT use and capability, and this project worked with these needs as a priority, and supported them with well-paced and challenging learning activities (Refer to case studies of each teacher). The model allows for the generation of Malaysian leadership capability in new ways of working with teachers (Refer Leadership section).

The impact of the programme after 10 weeks was greatest for the group of teachers that began as the least confident in the use of ICTs for administration, or teaching and learning programmes. Teacher skills indicated significant increases across all of the ICTs measured. Those showing the greatest increases were in the use of the internet, telecommunications, multimedia and spreadsheet applications.

Student use of ICT’s in the same time period followed the same pattern as New Zealand research; the take up was slower in the early phases of implementation, as their teachers began to experiment themselves with the use of ICT as teaching tools. At the end of the programme, teachers reported using ICTs with classes less often just for motivation, and more often to support learning outcomes such as problem-solving, information processing and collaboration.

The project self-assessment rubric used with teachers proved effective in allowing teachers to understand their positioning and what they needed to achieve. By the end of the project all teachers were operating at the highest level in at least one assessment criteria, and four were operating at the highest level in all assessment criteria.