Designing a Tool for Teachers to Create and Share Lessons
An app-based platform that provides classroom materials and lesson plans for teachers in Tanzania.
SDG 4: Quality Education
Estimated number of teachers and their students in Tanzania to benefit from improved play-based lessons by end of 2028:
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The Challenge
Sub-Saharan Africa faces a critical shortage of qualified early childhood education teachers, including in Tanzania's Dodoma region, where inadequate training and resources hinder effective play-based learning, impacting children's cognitive, emotional and social development.
In Dodoma, one of the poorest regions in Tanzania, educators rely on rote instruction and teacher-led activities, but inadequate teacher preparation and training hampers effective lesson planning. Additionally, Government-issued curricula emphasise play-based learning, but many classrooms lack art and play materials. Children in Crossfire has an initiative in Dodoma that addresses educational challenges with innovative, low-cost materials, enabling better learning outcomes despite teacher shortages and overcrowded classrooms. However, the charity still needed a way to help teachers in creating customizable lessons for effective play-based learning with pre-primary school children.
The Innovation
The Design for Good team, with Children in Crossfire, created an app for teachers focused on preparation for lessons, freeing up workload and improving their practice.
"Outside the classroom but all about the classroom."
The team used that ethos as they thought about how best to make something teachers could use when they had time, but also be used to free up more time. The offline/online hybrid approach will result in improved:
Education quality for students.
Overall teaching practice and expertise for both existing and new teachers.
Educational material.
Knowledge sharing amongst the teacher community.
On-boarding experiences for new teachers.
The team made sure through research that teachers in the region have personal mobile devices capable of running the app. In addition, ongoing user testing with teachers will help them to better understand the efficacy. The app, generously being developed pro bono by Focentra, will be made available through the Google Play store.
The app is called ‘Rafiki Walimu’, which translates from Swahili as ‘friendly teachers’ or ‘teacher friends’. Based on proven educational practices, and aligned to government policy standards, the team believes the app will create the following benefits:
Be a collaborative tool for sharing teaching resources.
House content for onboarding new teachers.
Assist teachers in lesson preparation.
Free up teacher’s workload and improving teacher practice.
The Results
This project is still in development – check back later for future updates!
Help us make a difference
All our projects are open-source. Go ahead and use them to do good.