Graham Stanley April 2024

Collaborative expertise

In 2015, the educational researcher John Hattie stated in What Works Best in
Education: The Politics of Collaborative Expertise1 that ‘inspired and passionate
teachers and school leaders working together to maximise the effect of their teaching
on all students in their care’ is what has the greatest influence on student progression
in learning. This is at the heart of what Hattie calls collaborative expertise, and this
collective ‘long-term, coherent and focused system-wide attention on student learning’
is what Hattie calls for more of, rather than individual teachers working in isolation in
their classrooms.

In Uruguay, the experience of more than a decade of Ceibal en Inglés shows us that
collaboration is key when it comes to implementing large-scale complex education
reform projects. A recent evaluation of the programme2 (2024) commissioned by the
British Council highlighted the innovative nature of this collaborative expertise as well
as detailing the benefits.

To begin with, taking a long-term approach to educational challenges has enabled

the development of inclusive, quality teaching, learning and assessment of English. It
has given time to develop systems to improve quality and standards in Uruguayan
primary schools, to transfer insight and knowledge to educators and to take action to
reduce inequalities.

There are a number of examnples of collaborative expertise in the Ceibal en Inglés

model, but I want to focus on two in this article:-
• The local classroom primary teacher working in tandem with an expert
remote teacher of English
• The private sector language institutes working for the benefit of the public
sector education system.

1
Hattie, J. (2015) What Works Best in Education: The Politics of Collaborative Expertise. London: Pearson.
https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/corporate/global/pearson-dot-com/files/hattie/150526_ExpertiseWEB_V1.pdf

2 British Council (2024) Lessons learned from +10 years of Ceibal en Inglés. Available online:
https://americas.britishcouncil.org/programmes/ceibal-report
Graham Stanley April 2024

Other examples of successful collaboration in the programme include various

mechanisms that allow for international collaboration, the different elements of the
quality management / assurance system, the team of mentors distributed across the
country, and the actors who come together to ensure the design and implementation
of the national English adaptive test.

Collaborative expertise of teachers

The team teaching model developed for Ceibal en Inglés is one of the most
innovative aspects of the programme. Students receive 3 x 45-minutes of English
lessons thanks to the model. In the first lesson (lesson A), the focus is on
presentation of new language by the remote teacher. The follow-up lessons (lessons
B and C) give the children the chance to practise this new language together.

There are clear benefits to using technology to facilitate this collaborative expertise.
More than anything, the programme enables access to English for thousands of
learners who would not otherwise be able to learn the language. Working as a
pedagogical pair, the local classroom teacher manages the students whilst English
language expertise is provided by the remote teacher through videoconferencing.

The team teaching is facilitated by access to lesson plans, the innovative Little
Bridge materials, and a learning management system (Crea). Regular coordination
meetings are held on a weekly basis between the two teachers to ensure the
classroom teacher knows what is next on the learning agenda, and that the remote
teacher can make adjustments to suit the needs of the class, changing the pace of
learning, or revisiting aspects of the language that need to be reinforced, for
example.

Another aspect of this team teaching which is often overlooked, is the intercultural
exchange that occurs. This can be international, if the remote teacher comes from
outside of Uruguay (Argentina, for example), but even there are also beneficial
intercultural exchanges to be had between remote teachers from Montevideo and
students from other towns and cities in the country.
Graham Stanley April 2024

Finally, the recent evaluation report (British Council, 2024)

Private and public sector collaborative expertise

In Ceibal en Inglés, the collaborative expertise between public and private education
sector has gone a long way to solving the problem of a shortage of English teachers
in Uruguayan public primary schools. Currently, Ceibal has contracts with fifteen (?)
private sector organisations, offering benefits for both the public education system
and the participating language institutes.

As well as offering the private sector language institutes in Uruguay the chance for
their teachers to deliver lessons when traditionally there is low demand for private
sector classes (i.e. when schools are open during the Uruguayan morning or
afternoon). It also gives the organisations an opportunity to be part of an important,
emblematic education project that is both innovative and a source of considerable
national pride.

Institutional development and knowledge transfer between these partners happen as

part of the long-term relationships, with regular continuing professional development
being given to teachers as part of their participation in the project. Another benefit is
that the teaching quality of the teachers in these institutes improves due to the
rigorous attention to quality standards upheld by Ceibal.

This collaboration between private and public sector has been highlighted in the
Inter-American Dialogue (2017), whose 20173 report was inspired by Ceibal en
Inglés when it recommended countries ‘look to other learning opportunities, such as
private language institutions, universities, and technologies, to offer multiple learning
mechanisms’.

Another valuable benefit this collaboration gave private language institutes was
during the COVID pandemic. Those institutes involved in Ceibal en Inglés were
better able to adapt to different online teaching more rapidly than institutes who had

3 Cronquist, K. & A Fiszbein (2017) English Language Learning in Latin America. Available online:
https://www.thedialogue.org/analysis/english-language-learning-in-latin-america/
Graham Stanley April 2024

not had their experience. It became clear during this time, that the participating
institutes have learned a lot over the years about remote and online teaching.

When the private and public sector work in partnership to share educational and
international expertise to tackle challenges, it enables invaluable knowledge sharing
and innovations to be introduced. When these relationships are allowed to develop
and mature over time, with an effective system of monitoring and evaluation, then
opportunities for improvement can be identified and acted on year-on-year.

To summarise, Ceibal en Inglés is an example of a long-term educational reform

project in Uruguay which has largely solved the shortage of English teachers in the
country in part due to an effectively designed and implemented system of
collaborative expertise. Recruitment of teachers from the private sector has made its
rapid growth possible, and now, with almost all upper primary schoolchildren
receiving good quality English lessons, there is surely a lesson to be learned from
this implementation of collaborative expertise for other countries facing similar
educational challenges.