The teaching and learning of science and mathematics continue to be a challenge for both teachers and students. The lack of practical instruction, materials, and ineffective teaching techniques, leave students with little understanding, and many become disinterested in pursuing the field further. However, the importance of these areas in the development of every nation is fundamental.
The Practical Education Network (PEN) improves learning outcomes by building teacher capacity. The teacher training program PEN provides is infused with MIT-style, learning-by-doing to enable hands-on science regardless of resource constraints. PEN offers a series of workshops where West African STEM teachers learn, design, and share hands-on activities which complement the national curriculum and are created from low-cost and locally available materials. – The Practical Education Network (PEN) website.
To help enhance the teaching and learning of science and mathematics at OLAG, the Education Collaborative partnered with Practical Education Network (PEN), to organize a one-day workshop for OLAG’s science and mathematics teachers.
The workshop provided the teachers with hands-on techniques to make the teaching of science and mathematics fun and engaging. Additionally, the teachers received PEN’s low-cost activity box containing local and accessible materials for activity-based teaching to achieve stronger learning outcomes.
“This workshop is very unique in giving us easy and
accessible materials to use for our classes. We’ll be using the
techniques and materials learned here, and we urge the
regulatory bodies to adopt these materials for the teaching of
science and mathematics throughout the country’’ – Mr.
Thomas Nyereseh, Head of Science Department – OLAG
It’s exciting to see high schools and teachers embrace new methods of teaching to develop college-ready critical thinking students.