Chemonics at CIES 2024 .

Chemonics is proud to be a sponsor of the 68th annual meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), which is taking place online beginning March 6th and in Miami, Florida beginning March 10th, 2024. 

The theme for this year’s event is “The Power of Protest”, and we’re sharing our work on teacher professional development, combating stereotypes and stigmatization in program design, and the sustainability of foundational learning reforms.

Our education experts will be presenting during the following sessions:

March 10, 2024 – 1:30-4:30 pm (Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: Terrace Level, Orchid C):
Pre-Conference Workshop

Audrey Spencer, Chemonics’ global education practice lead, will be presenting “Implementation is Everything: How to Design for Small, Consistent Habits that can Create Big Change in Education Interventions.”

Don’t miss this session where we will review and frame the shared examples in Tajikistan, Rwanda, the DR, and India using the Plan-Train-Coach-Monitor framework before taking a deep dive into implementation design through an interactive workshop. 

March 11, 2024 – 9:45-11:15 am (Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: Third Level, Ibis):
Defying Assumptions: Cascade Teacher Education Models that Work

Sonia Arias, senior project management director at Chemonics, will be presenting “Dosage and Feed-Forward Information Loops: Maximizing the Effectiveness of Cascade Teacher Education in Uzbekistan,” and Fayziddin Niyozov, Technical Lead on the USAID/Tajikistan Learn Together Activity, will be presenting “Flip the Cascade: A Bottom-Up Approach to Teacher Education in Tajikistan.” 

This session will share the findings of a study on the effectiveness of the Uzbekistan Education for Excellence Program’s continuous teacher professional development cascade approach. Panelists will discuss some of the critical success factors that led to the effectiveness of their approach, while also exploring how the USAID/Tajikistan Learn Together Activity utilized a similar method to inform programmatic adaptations to further enhance sustainability. 

March 11, 2024 – 2:45-4:15 pm (Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: Terrace Level, Orchid A):
Pedagogies & Possibilities: Evidence from Literary Studies Across Contexts and Spaces

Audrey Spencer, Chemonics’ global practice lead for education, will be chairing this panel. 

This paper panel brings together four engaging presentations from various contexts, including South Asia, West Africa, and North America, that delve into pedagogies, evidence, and promising possibilities from a spectrum of different programs and studies. 

March 11, 2024 – 4:45-6:15 pm (Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: Terrace Level, Tuttle Prefunction):
Poverty, Migration, and Peace Building

Reham Jabbar, acting technical director on the Syria Education Programme, and Abdulkader Alaeddin, team leader and MEL expert overseeing the Syria Education Programme, will be presenting “Breaking Stigma: Reinforcing Empowerment and Accountability Trough Community Networks,” and “Navigating Complexity: Responsive Adaptation Through the Evaluation of Intersectional Lived Experiences.” 

The “Breaking Stigma” abstract presentation will highlight the influence of community empowerment and engagement on multiple levels of program design in Northwest Syria. In addition, it will provide a summary of the most important lessons learned in the process of combating stereotypes and stigmatization in an area where people, specifically children with disabilities, were highly stigmatized. Attend the “Navigating Complexity” session to explore an outline of the community network effect on program design and how the generated data and lessons learned can feed into future programming. 

March 13, 2024 – 9:45-11:15 am (Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: Fourth Level, Tequesta):
Business Meeting

Audrey Spencer, Chemonics’ global practice lead for education, will be attending this convening of the Global Literacy SIG.

March 13, 2024 – 2:45-4:15 pm (Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: Terrace Level, Gardenia A + B):
Empowerment Through Action: Preserving the Teaching Workforce and Indigenous Practices

Emet Mohr, principal advisor for Chemonics’ education practice, will be chairing this panel on expanding community capacity and strengthening school leadership. Jackson Wu-Pong, senior associate in Chemonics’ education technical practice, will be facilitating the subsequent discussion.

March 13, 2024 – 4:45-6:15 pm (Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: Terrace Level, Gardenia C):
The Power of Practice: Effective Practice-Based Teacher Learning Models

Audrey Spencer, Chemonics’ global practice lead for education, will be chairing this panel and presenting on lessons learned from The USAID/Malawi Next Generation Early Grade Reading (NextGen) Activity.

March 13, 2024 – 6:30-8:00 pm (Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: Third Level, Gautier):
Leveraging Behavioral Science to make Instructional Reforms Stick: Case Studies from Burundi, Liberia, Rwanda, and Zambia

Jennifer Swift-Morgan, senior advisor in Chemonics’ education and democracy and governance practices, and Edward Landreth, project director in Chemonics’ West and Central Africa and Haiti division, will present “Unlocking the Power of ‘Super Levers’ for Sustained Instructional Reform: Insights from a Behavior-Driven Study in Liberia.” 

This panel will discuss teacher and educator behavioral models derived from formative and participatory research methods in four African contexts, drawing on applications of the COM-B model (capability, opportunity, and motivation to change behavior), while outlining the ways in which interactions between teachers, schools, and the larger system impact teaching behaviors in the classroom. 

March 14, 2024 – 9:30-11:00 am (Hyatt Regency Miami, Floor: Third Level, Boardroom):
Community and Social (Re)Integration after Conflict and War through Education

Mary Beth Wilson, monitoring and evaluation director for the Syria Injaz program, and Dima Al-Shoura, technical director for the Syria Injaz program, will present on “Longitudinal Findings from Injaz’s Social Reintegration Pilot Program in Syria: A Rise and Regression in Wellbeing.” 

This panel outlines the findings of a study conducted to measure aspects of the four learning domains over time. Join us to explore the data broken down by four main points of disaggregation: Gender, Age Group, Reading Ability, and ISIS Exposure. 

For more information, visit: conference.cies.us