Reflections on collaborative approaches for quality and equitable education in Lebanon
Future Education is based on a collaborative and sustainable co-designing approach aiming to enhance teaching and learning opportunities for educators and students in Lebanon, from both refugee and host communities. Our research and programmes are based on close collaboration and long-term partnerships with academics, policy makers, educators and community members. Along with our partners in Lebanon we co-design and embed scaled up online and blended learning to address pressing educational and teacher professional development needs. Along with our partners including Jusoor, MAPs, The Lebanese University, the Lebanese American University, UNRWA, MEHE and CERD we have co-designed three Massive Open Online Collaborations.
The Future Education courses
Community Based Research: Getting Started! This MOOC features the basics of community based research using a participatory methodology, leading learners to construct their own research questions to find out community needs and how to meet them. Participants of the course develop research skills that enable them to carry out community research projects sensitively and ethically, using examples from Lebanon. Community based research is done by, with and for the community. This kind of research investigates what it takes to meet the needs and goals of the community. It is small scale and contextualised, and carried out by people who are not necessarily trained researchers. The MOOC uses examples showing how people in some of the most challenging community environments have changed the conditions of their daily lives. The MOOC requires three hours of study a week over three weeks and only requires a computer or mobile device with connectivity to complete. This MOOC was co-designed for community members who want to find new solutions for community problems. It's also suitable for community researchers recruited by NGOs, teachers who want to investigate relationships between school and the community, academic researchers, Citizen Scientists, students wanting to carry out community research, leaders of community research, trainers of researchers in NGOs or on academic projects, and even entrepreneurs who wish to investigate the community demand for their products or find out what the community needs. This MOOC was launched in February 2019 in both English and Arabic on two platforms: Edraak in Arabic and Future Learn in English. The MOOC has attracted more than 6668 participants during its two runs.
Transforming Education in Challenging Environments: This MOOC was co-designed with MEHE, UNRWA, and Syrian NGOs. The MOOC was launched in June 2019 on both Arabic and English Platforms. The MOOC was built to enhance the knowledge needed to teach children affected by difficult contexts, particularly contexts of mass displacement, where teachers play an important role in supporting vulnerable children and their communities. On this MOOC, the participants learn how teachers can make a difference to children from challenging contexts. They discover how to transform learning spaces and educational practices, and share their teaching methods and real experiences of teaching in crises with other educators. It has run 3 times now, with 24041 enrolments. This MOOC is also a research tool; it explores the potential of online learning in contributing to strengthening the quality of education in contexts of mass displacement. With this MOOC, during June and July 2019, we piloted a blended learning programme with the Lebanese American University, to embed the MOOC within campus-based course that took participants beyond what could be done in the MOOC alone. 30 Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian teachers working in various sectors took part.
Teaching online: be ready now! COVID-19 has meant that teachers in the MENA region, like teachers everywhere, have to move online with little support or preparation. To support teachers across the region, the RELIEF Centre along with colleagues from the Lebanese University rapidly co-designed a MOOC focusing on how to design teaching-learning processes online. The two-week Arabic language course was launched on 26th April 2020. Over 43,000 participants enrolled, from across the MENA region.
Partners’ reflections
Throughout our co-design and building partnerships journey, we worked closely with educators throughout Lebanon from various sectors. Our colleagues and partners reflected on their work with us and on the outputs that we have co-produced over the past four years.
Suha Tutunji, the director of the Jusoor Refugee Education programme, when reflecting on the partnership with RELIEF particularly during the co-design of the community research MOOC, said:
‘The amazing part of this partnership is that RELIEF engaged the community and asked for their opinions and feedback on the project. They also included the community in decisions that were being made and how to move forward. It was contextualized and from the community to the community’.
She added:
‘The partnership experience has been wonderful especially that there is mutual respect towards our teachers and the context they work in. The wonderful aspect about it is that the staff from UCL were also here to learn and listen to the teachers and staff and take their opinions and experiences into consideration. Definitely not one sided’.
Ms. Tutunji’s words were echoed by Dr. Samar Zeitoun, a professor at the Lebanese University, she said:
‘I consider the partnership with the RELIEF project very fruitful whether at a personal level regarding my participation to various projects they have launched in Lebanon or at the university level... I highly appreciate the persons I worked with. Besides being highly professional, they are reliable, honest, positive and empathetic’.
In terms of utilising the knowledge and skills presented in the community-based research MOOC, Ms. Tutunji added that the teachers use the knowledge and skills they gained through this MOOC to respond to the challenges that they are facing to the COVID-19 pandemic, she said:
‘Some of our staff members have continued to work on other projects such as the community based research on Teaching Online during COVID. The skills that they acquired for conducting the research and analysing the data are very helpful to them and they can use this skill even if they are relocated to a different country. At our centers we can also make use of the teachers who are working on this project to improve our data collection and analyse it for the M&E tool we have’.
Dr. Fadi Hallabi, the founder and director of MAPs, also reflected on the long-term impact of our partnership and co-designed programmes, Dr. Hallabi stated:
‘This collaboration strengthens MAPs’ research mission by providing training to students enrolled in our higher education platform’.
Ms. Tutunji provided us with ideas for innovative ways to use the MOOCs in times and contexts where resources are scarce and when internet connection is unreliable:
‘ We could not use the MOOCs in our context because of the lack of strong internet connectivity we have in the Beqaa. However, we were able to use the content in in-person trainings with the teachers. We mainly benefited from the sessions on: Whole School Setting Approach/ Teachers Approach to teaching in Challenging contexts and Barriers to bringing Change. Teachers still talk about them today and we used them to work on our theory of change, especially using the Challenging Situations workshop’.
Our three partners expressed their desire to continue our partnership and collaborative engagement in the long-term. Dr. Zeitoun said:
‘I hope to extend this partnership to all faculty and students in the CLSC (le Centre des Sciences du Langage et de la Communication) at the Lebanese university as the experience on the MOOC was very encouraging, so we might do something on a bigger scale’.
Similarly, Ms. Tutunji shared with us her hope that:
‘We will be able to continue learning and using the research that we are doing to improve the lives of our students. It would be great if we can have some work done on project- based learning in our context’.
Finally, Dr. Hallabi said:
‘Our aim is to engage refugee youth in thinking critically about local challenges and solutions. However, MAPs sees the MOOCs as the first step in a much longer training process: equipping refugees with the research skills required for engaged participation in the full research process will require additional hours and academic mentorship. We hope to continue our collaboration in participatory action research, particularly in building out a Refugee Research Network in which refugee youth can take an active role in designing and implementing research projects that have meaning to their lives’.
The research team reflections
The Future Education team’s own reflections on the last 3 years begin with our enormous gratitude for the expertise and commitment of our partners in this challenging programme of research. They have been so welcoming, and open to exploring ideas, and so generous with sharing their own expertise and time to support the research programme.
Our impact so far has been set out in our video. Our most difficult challenges are unchanging: the need to support universities, schools, teachers and students in acquiring the digital access they need; the difficulty of spreading the word about our courses to the teachers who need them most; and ensuring the courses are embedded as blended learning sessions within local university courses, and community events.