New York University’s Global TIES for Children and afikra are pleased to announce the launch of "Inside the Arab Classroom," a new podcast series that explores education traditions and innovations within Arabic-speaking nations. The series tells stories from inside Arab classrooms - from how Arabic literacy is taught to who decides what constitutes ‘good citizens’ - and aims to provoke curiosity among learners of all ages and in all contexts about the challenges to and opportunities for learning and thriving in Arab classrooms.

We assessed the impacts of a teacher professional development program for public and private kindergartens in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. We examined impacts on teacher professional well-being, classroom quality, and children’s readiness during one school year. This cluster-randomized trial included 240 schools (teachers N = 444; children N = 3,345, Mage = 5.2) randomly assigned to one of three conditions: teacher training (TT), teacher training plus parental-awareness meetings (TTPA), and controls. The programs incorporated workshops and in-classroom coaching for teachers and video-based discussion groups for parents. Moderate impacts were found on some dimensions of professional well-being (reduced burnout in the TT and TTPA conditions, reduced turnover in the TT condition), classroom quality (increased emotional support/behavior management in the TT and TTPA conditions, support for student expression in the TT condition), and small impacts on multiple domains of children’s school readiness (in the TT condition). The parental-awareness meetings had counteracting effects on child school readiness outcomes. Implications for policy and practice are discussed for Ghana and for early childhood education in low- and middle-income countries.

We assessed impacts on classroom quality and on 5 child language and behavioral outcomes of a 2-year teacher professional-development program for publicly funded prekindergarten and kindergarten in Chile. This cluster-randomized trial included 64 schools (child N 1,876). The program incorporated workshops and in-classroom coaching. We found moderate to large positive impacts on observed emotional and instructional support as well as classroom organization in prekindergarten classrooms after 1 year of the program. After 2 years of the program, moderate positive impacts were observed on emotional support and classroom organization. No significant program impacts on child outcomes were detected at posttest (1 marginal effect, an increase in a composite of self-regulation and low problem behaviors, was observed). Professional development for preschool teachers in Chile can improve classroom quality. More intensive curricular approaches are needed for these improvements to translate into effects on children.