Palau education leaders understand that support for teachers’ professional learning, development, and evaluation needs to be part of an integrated strategy that promotes the use of effective instructional practices in the classroom. As part of their continued focus on planning a comprehensive teacher development strategy, leaders from the Palau Ministry of Education, Palau Community College, and a consortium of private schools are working with REL Pacific to enact a systems approach to 1) developing and evaluating teacher effectiveness, 2) promoting practices that increase educator retention, and 3) helping improve student outcomes. Together, the partnership envisions a teacher effectiveness system that distinguishes between expert and novice teachers and provides meaningful data to inform the preparation and development of teachers at all stages of their careers.
The core partnership members will provide expertise on education research, ministry- and school-level policy and practice, and Palau’s unique context, all of which will contribute to designing and supporting a strategic system to effectively attract, prepare, develop, support, and retain high-quality teachers in Palau.
Partner Organization(s): Palau Ministry of Education, Palau Community College, Belau Modekngei High School, Emmaus Bethania High School, Maris Stella Elementary School, Mindszenty High School, Palau Mission Academy, and Seventh Day Adventist Elementary School.
Current Projects
This applied research project aims to support education leaders as PCC gather data to help promote teacher quality and retention. Specifically, this study will describe the currently available pathways to earning an associate degree in education in order to become a certified teacher, the current utilization of those pathways at PCC, and the graduation success rates and completion times of teacher candidates enrolled within each associate degree pathway.
This project is helping address the need for sustained support and capacity building as schools transition from isolated coaching efforts to a comprehensive culture of data use. By integrating insights gained in prior partnership projects, REL Pacific aims to equip school teams, including principals, vice principals, and teachers, with support to facilitate a cohesive approach to data-driven decision making, ultimately enhancing teacher effectiveness and improving student learning outcomes in literacy. REL Pacific anticipates that at the end of this project, school teams will have developed guidelines aimed at supporting and institutionalizing a school-wide culture of data use.
Completed Projects
REL Pacific worked with private school leaders in Palau to create systems to develop, coach, and retain effective teachers. Private schools serve a large portion of the overall Palauan student population, so through training and coaching, REL Pacific supported private school leaders to identify meaningful indicators of effective teaching, collect data to measure each indicator, and use the data for decision-making and continuous improvement. The project goal was to help the schools develop structures that support the development and retention of a qualified, effective educator workforce well-positioned to improve student learning outcomes. REL Pacific facilitated four training and coaching sessions between August 2022 and April 2023.
Building on the SY2022/23 project that supported school leaders in identifying meaningful indicators of effective teaching, this project built participants’ knowledge and capacity to leverage data collected from their continuous improvement efforts—developed as part of the first Partnership project—to support coaching strategies (including classroom observation, collaborative inquiry cycles, peer-to-peer coaching) to drive change in practice and improve student literacy.