INFLUENCE OF COLLABORATIVE DISCUSSION FORUM PROJECT ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHING METHODOLOGIES AMONG TEACHERS IN PUBLIC PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN MOMBASA COUNTY, KENYA

Abstract

Educational projects are becoming common in helping organizations and governments to improve on the education standards and also respond to the emerging issues in education. Most of these projects seem to be focusing on teachers’ capacity building with an understanding of the central role that teachers play as stakeholders in the education sector. Strengthening Education Systems in East Africa (SESEA) is a joint initiative between Aga Khan Foundation and Global Affair Canada aiming to improve the educational standards in East African region. The AgaKhan Academy Mombasa implemented this program through several smaller projects including Collaborative Discussion Forum (CDF), which is the focus for this study. The CDF, unlike other projects was driven by the academy’s faculty through short courses and was mentorship programmed. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of Collaborative Discussion Forum Project on the improvement of teaching methodologies among teachers in public primary schools in Mombasa County, Kenya. The study had four objectives guided by the four in depended variables: learner centered approaches, ICT integration in teaching and learning, teacher lesson planning and teacher-learner communication and how they influence the improvement of teaching methodologies. The literature review demonstrates that these aspects actually contribute significantly in improving teaching methodologies. There however seems to be no much research focusing on short courses and even teachers mentoring others and how it could impact on their methods of teaching. The research aimed to fill this knowledge gap through this study. The study was conducted through a descriptive survey research design by sampling 10% of the 292 teachers who participated in the CDF training project. Questionnaires were used to collect data from the sample. To ascertain the reliability of the instrument, test retest technique was used with two randomly selected pilot schools from those that were not included in the actual sample size. The study found out that learner centered approaches influence the improvement of the teaching methodology among the CDF participants with a composite mean of 3 73 and a standard deviation of 0.78. The Karl Pearson’s correlation coefficient indicated a strong positive correlation between the two. The study also found out that ICT integration in teaching and learning and teacher lesson planning do influence the improvement of teaching methodologies.