2018 GSI STEM Teacher Professional Development

Jan 20, 2018

Gwango hosted the first of several GSI STEM Teacher Professional Development Workshops planned for 2018.  The first Workshop of the year, held in January included 8 teachers.  We selected (from different schools) two teachers for each STEM subject; namely Biology, Chemistry, Math and Physics.  The 8 are known as GSI STEM Experts.  They spent the better part of 3 days dissecting the ZimSec Syllabi into lessons.  You can see pictures and more information here: www.gwango.com/gsi

Their goal during the upcoming STEM Teacher Workshops is to work with teams of 5 teachers each to develop lesson plans which will be used in each of the 9 GSI Secondary Schools.  Our goal is to harmonize the pace of learning for all students and to enable ALL of the teachers in our area to teach Biology, Chemistry, Math and Physics with the help of the lesson plans.

Recall that 3 years ago, when we first establish the Gwango Schools Initiative (GSI), only 2 out of the 9 Secondary Schools were teaching STEM subjects.  Due to the brain-drain in Zimbabwe, many of the teachers assigned to schools in our area have never taught these subjects, or are not adequately equipped to teach STEM subjects (as they perhaps do not have a science degree).

I have to say, I was both encouraged and impressed by our team of 8 GSI STEM Experts.  They worked diligently in preparation for the upcoming Workshops and they’ve since remained enthusiastically connected via a whatsapp chat group, set up to allow an exchange of questions about STEM.

More on this soon...