Success Story: Teachers Embrace Interactive Teaching, Fostering Love of Learning
With the training and resources available at the Wiawso Teacher Training College in the Western Region of Ghana, local teachers are engaging students and increasing excitement about learning. In the 2006-2007 school year, a Teacher for Africa volunteer worked with the Training College to upgrade its teacher resource center with a computer, laminating machine and photocopier.
The center serves both pre-service teachers studying at the College and in-service teachers from surrounding communities. The center is the site for workshops and classes on developing interactive lesson plans and creating teaching and learning materials, such as visual aids and games.
A group of 12 teachers at the Experimental District Primary and Junior Secondary School in Sefwi Wiawso are particularly enthusiastic about interactive teaching and learning and have noticed great improvement in their classrooms.
Mrs. Alice Barfi (pictured above, at far left), headmistress of the kindergarten at the school, noted that before participating in the workshops at the Training College, teachers at her school rarely used visual aids because they thought these materials would be too expensive to purchase or develop.
“Now we have learnt and know that we can prepare our material with locally available materials such as broomsticks, matchsticks, empty cartons, etc. With my colleague teachers, we now use the resources made by us to teach the children lessons in English, mathematics, and environmental science,” she explains.
Mrs. Barfi reports that the students are promoting the school’s facilities in their communities, and more parents have expressed an interest in enrolling their children in the school. 
The new approach to teaching has also improved school attendance; Mrs. Barfi writes that “…every class is filled up everyday with just one or two absentees.”
The headmaster of the Junior Secondary School, Mr. Edmund Bih-Ababio, was so impressed with the results that he has decided to establish a resource center at the school to further support the teachers in their efforts to engage the students through interactive learning.
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