Investigating active learning reform in the small state of the Maldives: what works and under what circumstances?

Abstract

Globally, national governments and donor organisations have endorsed pedagogical reform in their efforts to improve the quality of education, yet disparity between policy and practice is well-documented. In the small state of the Maldives, the UNICEF supported Child Friendly School’s project and the new National Curriculum both endorse active learning pedagogy, but implementation challenges have been widely acknowledged. The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate how teachers can enact active learning pedagogy in the Maldivian education system. It was conceived using design-based research, an interventionist methodology, which examines the conditions that influence how educational innovations work in real-life practice. The study was situated in an island school selected for offering optimum conditions for implementation of the pedagogical intervention, and was conducted over two phases: a contextual analysis phase; and an intervention phase. Using an adaptation of the World Café (J. Brown & Isaacs, 2005), a participatory approach to data collection, the contextual analysis was undertaken with members of the school community — parents, teachers and school leadership — to identify local priorities and perspectives of active learning. The results from this phase revealed features of active learning considered important in the school community: the active participation of students; the use of group work to aid learning; emphasis on the role of teacher as facilitator; the necessity for a friendly classroom environment; and the potential of active learning to cater more equally for all students. Embracing these features of active learning, a pedagogical intervention was developed in collaboration with teachers and school management, to support teachers’ enactment of active learning in the school. The intervention, an instructional model, was then enacted in the island school with two groups of primary teachers and studied over eight months. Data on the teachers’ use of the instructional model were collected through multiple sources that included, teacher recording booklets, questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations. The data revealed the factors that both supported and inhibited teachers’ use of the intervention. These were converted into design principles; an anticipated outcome of design-based research, highlighting three broad areas that revealed what worked in what circumstances, and represented the study’s key findings identifying the need to:develop a contextually relevant model of active learning that respects local priorities, fits with the circumstances of teachers’ work, and takes into account the available resources; and moves from conceptual ambiguity to operational clarity;  support teachers’ knowledge-practice refinement by creating space for reform, providing on-going classroom-based support and drawing on available resources; and  foster a change-welcoming school reform approach through an inclusive process that mobilises community participation. The conceptual framework of design principles that evolved from the study can potentially guide like schools and communities engaging with reform around active learning pedagogy. It is recommended that future research explores the transferability of these design principles to other contexts.