Introducing the Blend ON! Guide

In an easy-to-follow, step-by-step framework, the guide offers providers of continuous professional development (CPD) for educators such as civil society organisations, universities and training centres, ministries of education and regional and global education networks that support government education systems to find the perfect “blend” of in-person and remote learning modalities for the most effective CPD.  

Created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic which led to the rapid adoption of technology in education and an exponential expansion of remote models of delivering CPD, the guide aims to inspire providers and help them successfully organise a blended CPD trajectory for educators that is cost-effective, scalable, and sustainable. We refer to educators in the broad sense, including teachers, school leaders, parents and local community members, government officials and experts at various subsectors in the education system.      

Our recommendations come from the professional learning communities within VVOB’s BLEND project, a project supported by The LEGO Foundation, which focused on strengthening blended learning approaches with teachers and school leaders in Vietnam and South Africa. 

The project provided continued responsive and engaging learning experiences to learners in uncertain times through blended professional development trajectories that embedded play-based learning approaches and sought to create guidelines on how to support teachers and school leaders with effective blended professional development. Input, collaboration, piloting and feedback led to the development of the guide and led to the guide being built informed through three sources of information:  

1. Review of recent existing guides and good practices: to obtain a summary of research evidence and insights into knowledge gaps.
2. Review of case studies on blended CPD by partners: all partners submitted an overview of blended CPD activities they had implemented, focusing on the application of technology, the learning experience and lessons learned. 
3. Professional Learning Community (PLC) sessions: during these sessions, partners reflected on their blended CPD trajectories. The PLCs were facilitated by VVOB and Beyond Borders.  

Our professional learning community (PLC) approach to developing the guide created a shared community of learning that fostered collaboration and knowledge sharing. In the BLEND PLC, partners shared good practices, expertise, and experiences about CPD. This led to the identification of strategies that could be effective and scaled up in different contexts. In this regard, all partners had a story to share from VSO’s Schools App in Rwanda which supported early childhood educators to StiR Education’s radio programme in Uganda which led to PLCs among teachers using WhatsApp. 

The BLEND PLC fostered collaboration not only among the project’s partner organisations but also from other experts in blended CPD including valuable contributions from Mary Burns (Education Deveopment Center), Tom Kaye (EdTech Hub), Saalim Koomar (EdTech Hub), Elaine Ding (World Bank), Tracy Wilichowski (World Bank) and Brad Olsen (Center for Universal Education, The Brookings Institution), and Peter Wallet (UNESCO Teacher Task Force).

Throughout the guide, we point to important cross-cutting themes when developing and implementing blended CPD, such as gender, diversity & inclusion, motivation & engagement, cost-effectiveness, sustainability and scalability.  

The decision to adapt a fully in-person or a remote CPD depends on the specific circumstances. In many instances, blended CPD can offer a higher quality of CPD by combining the benefits of in-person and remote CPD. With Blend ON! we want to help CPD providers find just the right blend, where participants are motivated and engaged. 

With the guide now developed, we’re onto the next stage of sharing it as widely as we can among our networks. Recently we shared it at the Educaid Connect&Learn webinar which took place online and in-person in Belgium on 2 April and we look forward to also introducing it at the Distance Education and Teachers' Training in Africa (DETA) Conference in Uganda in July 2023. 

To further explore the potential benefits and pitfalls of blended CPD, learn from our own shared practices, and receive helpful advice, visit our Blend ON! website and download our guide!