In the 2nd week of October 2024, we held a two-day Early Childhood Education training for Kamawornie teachers via video call. The training was structured to provide an immersive and practical learning experience, and Dr. Olawale Olubowale and Amie Perry expertly facilitated the training sessions.  
 

Summary - from the Develop Africa Sierra Leone Team 

The training began with an introduction of the five participating teachers, each sharing their teaching background and years of experience. This initial exchange fostered a sense of community and set a collaborative tone for the sessions.

Before diving into the content, participants completed a consent form and took a pre-test to assess their baseline knowledge. This approach gave facilitators insights into the teachers' starting points, enabling them to tailor the sessions to address specific needs.

Day One: Foundations and Developmental Insights

Day one comprised three structured sessions. The first session allowed teachers to reflect on their teaching experiences, which built rapport and emphasized the group's diverse expertise. 

 

The second session focused on Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP), underlining the importance of aligning educational approaches with children's developmental stages. Here, teachers were introduced to the concept of developmental milestones for preschoolers. Amie explained that developmental milestones are crucial indicators of a child's physical, cognitive, social-emotional, and language growth.  

By understanding these benchmarks, teachers can better support children’s progress and provide targeted help when needed. This session thoroughly explored the milestones typical of ages 3 to 6, emphasizing how early play and exploration build the foundation for future learning and social interaction.

The third session addressed essential Classroom Principles and covered the following:

1. The significance of nurturing relationships and creating a positive learning environment as foundations for effective teaching.
2. Children develop the interconnected domains of cognitive and self-regulatory skills through guided learning.
3. The vital role of play in fostering children’s learning and development highlights the importance of play as an essential educational tool.
4. Multiple factors influence the natural variations in children's development and learning.
5. Children’s active engagement in the continuous process of meaning-making.
6. How an affirming and respectful environment enhances children’s engagement.

Day Two: STEM and Practical Application

On day two, the focus shifted to STEM Education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Teachers engaged with both provided teaching materials and local resources, discussing how technology can enable young learners to create and utilize their own tools. A hands-on exercise involving a bridge-building activity encouraged teachers to explore ways of creating interactive, fun learning experiences that nurture creativity, teamwork, and critical thinking in young children. This activity illustrated how playful learning can help children grasp critical concepts effectively.

To conclude the training, teachers were asked to outline three actionable strategies to implement in their classrooms. This reflective task aimed to reinforce their learning and ensure the practical application of the concepts discussed. A post-training test and feedback session allowed teachers to share their insights and was a valuable tool for assessing their understanding and the training's effectiveness.

Summary

The training was an enriching experience, equipping Kamawornie teachers with crucial knowledge and strategies to elevate their practice in early childhood education. The training provided a solid foundation for fostering meaningful, developmentally appropriate learning experiences for young learners through collaborative sessions and practical exercises.

Summary - from Dr. Olawale Olubowale and Amie Perry 

Development  
The two-day virtual training for the educators in Kamawornie was planned to focus on Developmentally Appropriate Practice and curriculum planning. Materials to support and demonstrate important ideas were mailed in advance to the educators in Kamawornie. The materials were carefully chosen to ensure they were culturally and developmentally appropriate for the children.  
 

Day 1 
The first day of training started slowly as we met the educators and began to learn about where they were in their teaching practices. We also had initial communication barriers until Wale began to facilitate using Pidgin English, which continued for the remainder of the training. Upon the language switch, the educators opened up, asked questions, and engaged with the content and materials. Significant shifts in teacher thinking were noted by facilitators on the way, including notable shifts away from dependence on commercial education materials to materials already available to them in their community.

We discussed Developmentally Appropriate Practice, especially focusing on the developmental domains of young children so that educators could understand the children’s physical, cognitive, social, and emotional needs. We prioritized the educators' understanding and included plenty of time and space for educators to connect the information we were presented to their contexts and lived experiences. 

Despite starting the day far from utilizing developmentally appropriate practice, educators began to give us examples of how they could alter their teaching strategies to get closer to being developmentally appropriate. For example, they understood that a child who is unable to write legibly may need support in the development of muscles in the hand instead of viewing it as an issue of the child's cognitive development. 

We also included time for them to play with the materials we sent, allowing them to understand hands-on, minds-on learning. As we moved through our discussion, we were able to reference the purpose of some of the materials (e.g., clay for strengthening hands). There was also time to discuss the importance of observation and how observation guides our teaching practices. 

We discussed how we ask young children questions and how altering how we phrase questions can result in more meaningful and thought-provoking answers from young children. Educators practiced this skill by rephrasing yes or no questions to make them open-ended.

By the end of the first day, we had observed big shifts in thinking, evident in the teachers' ability to connect the content we had presented to their teaching practices. Teachers shared these reflections with us, and we found their revelations to be profound after only a few hours together.  
 

Day 2

The second day of the training focused on using STEM and Literacy to build a curriculum in the classroom. Amie provided a deep dive into STEM, and teachers engaged in a variety of hands-on and mind-on explorations. These explorations allowed educators to experience what we ultimately want for the children in their classrooms. 

Throughout the STEM training, teachers embraced the content's disequilibrium, especially in the math section. They also wholeheartedly engaged in the planned material experiences, which were beautiful. Educators were asked to utilize the engineering design cycle to build a bridge using the blocks sent in their kits. They took their time planning and building, and we could see them conversing with each other, working through disagreements, and persevering through disappointment when their plans did not work. 

The math section of STEM was especially new to these educators, as most of their experiences were rooted in the memorization of numbers, which is only a small part of what math is with young children. Again, the educators embraced the new information and connected the importance of allowing the children to experience math in their world with concrete materials that will allow them to build a strong foundation for mathematical reasoning. 

The training concluded by diving into literacy. There was a discussion about how we read books to young children and the ways that children learn how to read and write. Educators made connections to the content we had presented throughout the two days, again reiterating the importance of young children having experiences and interacting with materials in their world to build literacy skills.    

Following the content, educators were asked to identify three big goals for the young children in their classrooms and at least one concrete strategy to accomplish their goals. Educators worked diligently to reflect and write their thoughts in their notebooks and were excited to share their ideas with us. Each educator proudly read their goals and strategies. The strategies they shared were connected to the content we had presented over the two days and illustrated that the teachers had begun assimilating the information presented into their work with young children. 

Examples of goals included wanting children to learn how to count by singing songs and counting rocks, an excellent way to engage young children and utilize something already in the environment that provides a concrete representation of the abstract nature of numbers, therefore, providing a solid foundation of knowledge for the child as they explore more complex math in the future. There were also goals related to physical development, such as educators wanting young children to learn how to dress themselves by providing them with old clothes to practice. It was so joyful to listen to the ideas of the educators and see how they were able to connect the content to their work. 

Overall, this training provided a foundation for these educators to begin shifting their educational philosophy to one that is developmentally appropriate. This philosophy will ultimately impact the children by allowing them to learn through hands-on, mind-on experiences that are planned with consideration of their development and culture.  
 

Special thanks to all our donors that helped to make this possible. 

We are planning an in-person training session in 2025.  If you would like to support this or be involved, please send a message to hello@developafrica.org 

See photos: https://developafrica.smugmug.com/2024/Kamawornie-Teacher-Training-October-2024/n-L9RhB9