Abstract
This chapter describes how curious and reflective TESOL educators can engage in ongoing appreciative inquiry by participating in a unique global community of practice facilitated through an app called Mobile Teacher that also works offline. With the aim of recognizing and sharing the expertise of non-native English speaker TESOL educators who are primarily BIPOC and women working in the majority world, teachers are encouraged to watch short videos of colleagues' effective teaching practices, try out the practices with their students, and in turn share videos describing or demonstrating their own proven techniques. Through a case study of using Mobile Teacher with teachers in Ecuador, the author provides a self and group reflection guide based on the 4D appreciative inquiry framework to establish a definition and examples of effective teaching practice, and a video script template to complete in preparation for recording and sharing an effective teaching practice.
TopConcept
Mobile Teacher provides a global COP of passionate educators where all teachers can share and leverage best teaching practices to provide quality education to learners without barriers. They do this by submitting short video teaching tips and techniques to the Mobile Teacher app, watching videos submitted by colleagues, and implementing those ideas in their own classrooms with their students. They watch, teach, and share. Mobile Teacher's mission stems from a vision for the future, picturing an inspirational, ideal world: A world where all students benefit from a quality education. This vision is rooted in its three core values, highlighting the strength of teachers globally, the importance of contextualization, and the belief in the possibility of never letting technological barriers limit opportunity.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Working Definition: A self or group-expressed explanation or description that represents a shared understanding of a key term or concept to be used and may differ from an official definition.
Beta: A later state of product or software development representing the incorporation of feedback gained from the Alpha phase to refine and further develop it for field testing with real users.
Alpha: An initial state of a product or software development representing the first time it is usable in an exploratory testing phase often only internally without external users yet.
Effective Teaching Practice: Any teaching technique that an educator knows from experience works well with students because a goal related to learning is achieved; what makes a practice effective may differ by local context, culture, and standards.
BIPOC: An acronym common in the United States used to refer to Black, Indigenous, People of Color and when it is not possible to be more specific; this term centers the fact that these groups experience historic violence, cultural erasure, systemic racism, oppression, and discrimination worldwide.
Community of Practice (CoP): A formal or informal learning community where those with varying teaching experience engage with each other because they are interested in sharing and developing expertise, and this relates to their very identity.
Majority World: A more accurate and positive term used to describe what is more commonly referred to as the developing world, developing countries, emerging markets/economies, low and middle-income countries, the global south, the base of the pyramid, the next billion, etc when the exact names of the countries themselves cannot be used; the majority of the world’s population lives in developing countries.
User Testing: Common in product and software development when real people called users are asked to use or test the product or software so their feedback and experience can be observed and recorded about how they perform tasks under real conditions; developers use this data to then update and iterate the product or software.