The Challenge
Over the past several years, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has worked to improve early learning outcomes in developing nations through its Quality Education in Developing Countries (QEDC) initiative, among others. Through the QEDC initiative, the foundation has funded the implementation of 11 classroom-level teaching and learning interventions, and the evaluations of ten of those. The challenge now, is how to best disseminate the evidence captured in these evaluations into actionable lessons and resources for practitioners and their supporters (donors, researchers, policymakers, and advocates). The main risk involved with any project focused on dissemination, especially with a diverse set of consumers, is that the valuable content is shared but not used. This initiative’s full potential will only be reached when its target audiences don’t just engage with the data on a surface level, but actively use it to inform their future work.
The Opportunity
The rigorous evidence generated by the QEDC evaluations sheds light on what works to improve early grade learning. This valuable content, combined with R4D’s experience on the Center for Education Innovations analyzing and connecting education innovations, can better prepare education stakeholders at every level as they pursue improvements to early education learning outcomes.
Our Work
To achieve this synthesis and provide stakeholders with better analysis and tools, R4D will undertake the following projects:
1) Create a cohesive ‘Toolkit’ with sections for each of the promising early learning approaches identified through QEDC evaluations and R4D’s analysis (for example: activity-based learning, instruction based on individual children’s starting competency levels) Importantly:
- We will not only gather existing publicly-available tools, but crowd source from our vast database of implementers to make the tools they use available to others, facilitating concrete peer learning.
- The toolkits will be supplemented by briefs for donors and researchers on areas where further inquiry is needed or where there are relevant programs that could be partnered with for research.
2) Use the CEI website as a platform to organize and disseminate tools.
3) To proactively identify target users and promote their use of the Knowledge Hub for Early Grade Learning, R4D will conduct workshops for practitioners and other audiences that will include an introduction to the toolkit and facilitated sessions to identify relevant resources.
