Open Educational Resources in Afghanistan 2016 - Afghanistan

Abstract
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The Darakht-e Danesh Library (DDL) is a young digital repository of Open Educational Resources (OER). Intended for use by school teachers in Afghanistan, it was developed on the premise that increased access to a growing collection of OER will improve teachers' subject matter knowledge as well as their teaching practice. This impact study sought to determine whether the OER accessed via the DDL would enable teachers' better use of supplementary educational content in their teaching practice; and, whether this content would positively impact the educators' subject knowledge and pedagogical practice. The study utilised a mixed methods approach in order to examine the behaviour and practices of a group of 51 secondary school teachers in the rural province of Parwan in Afghanistan. The study found that when the library was used, the OER in the DDL positively impacted teachers' knowledge and helped them in lesson preparation; however, many teachers stuck to using only the traditional textbook to prepare their lesson plans even after exposure to the DDL. Teachers also found the OER helpful in creating assessment activities for their students, but there was no observed improvement in teacher understanding or use of formative or summative assessments. There was limited understanding among the teachers f the exact meaning of "open", with most viewing OER as learning materials obtained from the internet, libraries, or simply from outside of their school; teachers made little reference to licensing or to the accessibility characteristics of OER.

Thus, while teachers who used OER appeared to benefit from these resources, the concept was new to them, representing a disruption to the familiar way of preparing and delivering lessons. For further diffusion of OER as an innovation in teachers' learning and practice, concerted actions will be required, focused on building the collection of OER available in Afghan languages, explicit support in how to integrate OER into teaching, and on ensuring accessibility in the context of limited internet access in rural areas and a teacher population with widely varying levels of proficiency in using digital technology.

Geographic coverage
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The interviews and survey data were conducted at four schools in one province in Afghanistan and are not representative of the country as a whole.

Analysis unit
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Individuals

Universe
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The survey covered educators in the four institutions involved in the study.

Kind of data
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Qualitative data [qul]

Mode of data collection
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Face-to-face [f2f]

摘要
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Darakht-e Danesh 图书馆（DDL）是一个年轻的开放教育资源（OER）数字存储库。旨在为阿富汗的学校教师提供服务，该图书馆的构建基于这样一个前提：通过增加对不断增长的OER集合的访问，将提高教师的专业学科知识以及他们的教学实践。本研究旨在确定通过DDL访问的OER是否能够使教师在教学实践中更好地利用补充教育内容；以及，这些内容是否会对教育者的学科知识和教学方法产生积极影响。该研究采用了混合方法，以考察阿富汗帕尔万省51名中学教师的行为和实践。研究发现，当使用图书馆时，DDL中的OER对教师的知识产生了积极影响，并有助于他们的课程准备；然而，许多教师在接触DDL后仍然坚持仅使用传统教科书来准备他们的教学计划。教师们还发现，OER在为学生创建评估活动时很有帮助，但在教师对形成性或总结性评估的理解或使用上并未观察到任何改进。教师们对“开放”的确切含义的理解有限，大多数人将OER视为从互联网、图书馆或简单地从学校外部获得的教材；教师很少提及许可或OER的可访问性特征。
因此，尽管使用OER的教师似乎从这些资源中受益，但这一概念对他们而言是新的，代表着对熟悉的教学准备和交付方式的颠覆。为了进一步推广OER作为教师学习和实践中的创新，需要采取协调一致的行动，重点在于构建阿富汗语言中的OER集合，明确支持如何将OER融入教学，以及在互联网接入受限的农村地区和技能水平参差不齐的教师群体中确保可访问性。
地理覆盖范围
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访谈和调查数据是在阿富汗一个省份的四所学校进行的，并不代表整个国家。
分析单位
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个人

总体
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调查涵盖了参与研究的研究机构中的教育工作者。
数据类型
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定性数据 [qul]
数据收集方式
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面对面 [f2f]