We will describe education inequalities in Turkey, such as inaccessibility of technology, resource imbalance between private and public schools, gender inequality, and challenges of immigrant and refugee kids. Our discussion will center on how teachers and other stakeholders collaborate to overcome these difficulties. In particular, we will focus on efforts that:
- leveraged teacher agency to help improve the learning experience for students,
- eased the transition to distance learning for all stakeholders, and
- provided lessons learned from the Turkish context on how such efforts can be generalized so all teachers and students across the world can benefit.
While much \ public attention has centered around the schools’ response in terms of digital content and access to devices, we have found that the role teachers play in supporting their students may have the biggest impact in successfully implementing distance education in Turkey. Before the pandemic, online, and face-to-face teacher training and conferences to share innovative educational practices were common to support teachers’ professional development.
The need for cooperation between teachers and stakeholders of education and solidarity amongst teachers and parents arose as another significant focus during the pandemic. Learning from the experiences of teachers who participated in the Teachers Network, a network of sharing and collaboration where teachers grow and empower themselves through meeting colleagues and people from other institutions and different disciplines. Teachers were able to do creative and extraordinary things because of the continuous support stemming from network collaboration and community interaction, fighting loneliness, and having a venue to think of new ideas. Moreover, many realized how traditional school models prevented them from being open to innovative and creative ways of teaching.
Some teachers also found they had increased agency that led to opportunities to do things differently from the traditional structures of school. They supported their students by leveraging technology in new ways and became innovators in their practice. For example, due to its wide usage in Turkey, many teachers used WhatsApp to communicate with their students. Some took it further and launched their own Youtube channels where they uploaded lectures, as well as stories, games, and activities to enhance emotional connection with their students
More info on the guests below the video
Episode Guests
Tuğba İnanç, CEO and Co-Founder of Da Vinci Learning Academy in Turkey
Tuğba is an education revolutionary who argues that education should be developed with a focus on learners. She has dedicated her life to transforming education in line with the requirements of the digital era and beyond. Like her role model Leonardo da Vinci, she sees beauty in the balance of opposition.. The da Vinci Learning Academy brings to life her passion to transform education.
Tugba studied Biological Sciences in Ankara University; she also holds 2 Master’s degrees. After teaching biology in high school, she worked as a projects coordinator. She successfully managed interdisciplinary K-12 projects in which she achieved STEAM education in different grade levels. She also trained teachers to implement Project Based Learning and STEAM education in their classrooms.
Tuğba is an award-winning instructor and certified project manager. She has received awards frp, prestigious organizations for her efforts in preparing high school students for the iGEM competition; which is one of the world’s largest synthetic biology competition held by MIT. Her team was granted this award three times in 2015, 2016 and 2018.
Fulden Ergen, Teachers Network Communications Expert
Being interested in understanding international politics ever since she knows herself, Fulden studied International Relations at Middle East Technical University. She developed curiosity in other areas of social sciences during her undergraduate studies thus, she completed a minor in Logic and Philosophy Program. To expand her knowledge and experience in political science, she studied Political Science at Philipps University in Marburg, Germany as part of the Erasmus program.
Her interest in social causes and her desire for a just life has led Fulden to advocate for various organizations in the fields of gender, human rights, social memory and digital communication. Accordingly, she decided to continue her professional career in civil society and started working at Checks and Balances Network (CBN) as Digital Communications Coordinator in 2013. To develop her knowledge and specialize in digital communications, she moved into Sweden for her master studies. She completed the Digital Media and Society graduate program in Uppsala University in 2018. Since then, she has been working as Communications Specialist at Teachers Network. Fulden is fed most with the passion to discover what is new. She always makes a room for reading, researching and producing on digital communications.