OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES TO SUPPORT TEACHER EDUCATION ACROSS CULTURAL CONTEXTS: FINDINGS FROM THE TEACHER EDUCATION IN SUB SAHARAN AFRICA PROGRAMME (TESSA)

This paper offers an emerging typology for the integration and use of the TESSA Open Educational Resources in a variety of university-led primary school teacher education programmes across Sub Saharan Africa. Through 2009 over 200,000 teachers will engage with the TESSA resources. The TESSA consortium ( 13 African institutions delivering teacher education across 9 countries of Sub Saharan Africa together with 5 international organisations) has collaboratively designed and produced an extensive bank of Open Educational Resources ( OERs) to meet the need for resources to guide and grow teachers ’ classroom practices in school-based modes of teacher education. The resources have been contextualization to take account of local conditions, needs and practices across the nine countries. Partner institutions are now using the resources in range of teacher education programmes. We suggest that the forms of TESSA OER integration and study across the TESSA partner institutions can be grouped as; highly structured; loosely structured and guided use. Characteristics and examples of each form are described and factors which influence these forms proposed. We suggest that consideration of these factors is relevant to effective use of OERS in other work based professional learning programmes