Three secondary school teachers implementing student-centred learning in Iraqi Kurdistan

Abstract

In Iraqi Kurdistan, the educational system is going through significant changes. The educational system influences the students’ attitudes, and one wants the educational system to support the young democracy. In this study, student-centred learning (SCL) is seen as a first step to learning, but also to participation and engagement as a citizen. Three secondary school teachers worked with researchers from Norway and Kurdistan to implement SCL strategies in their daily teaching. Teachers experienced changes in their roles when emphasizing the importance of students’ participation in the learning processes. They could not lecture most of the time; they needed to make more space for the students’ activities and allow them to become more active. They acted more as mentors for their students. The content of the teaching also changed. When the teachers lectured it was about their subject. When the students were expected to be more active, the teachers also had to teach the students how to be more active. The traditional way of furnishing the classrooms in Kurdistan has been rows of benches and desks for the children and a desk by the board for the teacher. This way of furnishing was described as a hindrance when organising for students’ participation. The teachers’ experiences were of main interest in this action research project. Their responses to interview questions were validated by classroom observations. Also, a group of researchers with very different cultural and scientific background collaborated. This was in itself an interesting side effect in this action research study.

Keywords:

• Student-centered learning
• participation
• school development
• action research
• Iraqi Kurdistan

Acknowledgements

The data were collected as part of a small-scale research and development initiative funded by the British Council’s Del-PHE programme (British Council, 2010. https://www.britishcouncil.org/partner/track-record/development-partnerships-higher-education). The project builds on a long-standing partnership between Buskerud University College, Norway and Duhok University, Iraq. The authors are grateful for the support of the principal investigator, Dr Lena Lybaek, and project members Niroj Ahmad, Adham Ismail and Nadia Zako for the data collection.

Notes

1. We will use the term ‘students’ whenever we are writing about the context in which the research was conducted, whereas we use the term ’learners’ to refer to the general theoretical concept.