Teach to Reach 11 Call for Partners

Why participate in Teach to Reach?

Global health

In global health, where challenges are as diverse as they are complex, we need new ways for health professionals to connect, learn, and drive change. Imagine a digital space where a nurse from rural Nigeria, a policymaker from India, and a WHO expert can share experiences, learn from each other, and collectively tackle global health challenges. That’s the essence of Teach to Reach. Welcome to Teach to Reach, a peer learning initiative launched in January 2021 by a collection of over 300 health professionals from Africa, Asia, and Latin America as they were getting ready to introduce COVID-19 vaccination. Four years later, the tenth edition of Teach to Reach on 20-21 June 2024 brought together an astounding 21,389 health professionals from over 70 countries. Discussion has expanded beyond immunization to include a range of challenges that matter for the survival and resilience of local communities. What makes this gathering extraordinary …

The Nigeria Immunization Collaborative what happened after just two weeks

The Nigeria Immunization Collaborative: Early learning from a novel sector-wide approach model for zero-dose challenges

Global health

Less than three weeks after its launch, the Nigeria Immunization Collaborative – a partnership between the Geneva Learning Foundation, the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), and UNICEF – has already connected over 4,000 participants from all 36 states and more than 300 Local Government Areas (LGAs). The Collaborative is part of the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030). In the Collaborative’s first peer learning exercise that concluded on 6 August 2024, over 600 participants conducted root cause analyses of immunization barriers in their communities. Participants engaged in a two-week intensive process of analyzing immunization challenges, conducting root cause analyses, and developing actionable plans to address these issues. They did this without having to stop their daily work or travel, a key characteristic of The Geneva Learning Foundation’s model to support work-based learning. Watch the General Assembly of the Nigeria Immunization Collaborative on 6 August 2024 What are health workers …

Experience-sharing sessions in the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030- A novel approach to localize global health collaboration

Experience-sharing sessions in the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030: A novel approach to localize global health collaboration

Global health

As immunization programs worldwide struggle to recover from pandemic disruptions, the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) offers a novel, practitioner-led approach to accelerate progress towards global vaccination goals. From March to June 2022, the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) conducted the first Full Learning Cycle (FLC) of the Movement for IA2030, engaging 6,185 health professionals from low- and middle-income countries. A cornerstone of this programme was a series of 44 experience-sharing sessions held between 7 March and 13 June 2022. These sessions brought together between 20 and 400 practitioners per session to discuss and solve real-world immunization challenges. IA2030 case study 16, by Charlotte Mbuh and François Gasse, offers valuable insights from these experience-sharing session: Download the full case study: IA2030 Case study 16. Continuum from knowledge to performance. The Geneva Learning Foundation. For every challenge shared during the experience sharing sessions, there was always at least one member who …

Why health leaders who are critical thinkers choose rote learning for others-small

Why health leaders who are critical thinkers choose rote learning for others

Global health

Many health leaders are highly analytical, adaptive learners who thrive on solving complex problems in dynamic, real-world contexts. Their expertise is grounded in years of field experience, where they have honed their ability to rapidly generate insights, test ideas, and innovate solutions in collaboration with diverse stakeholders. In January 2021, as countries were beginning to introduce new COVID-19 vaccines, Kate O’Brien, who leads WHO’s immunization efforts, connected global learning to local action: “For COVID-19 vaccines […] there are just too many lessons that are being learned, especially according to different vaccine platforms, different communities of prioritization that need to be vaccinated. So [everyone]  has got to be able to scale, has got to be able to deal with complexity, has got to be able to do personal, local innovation to actually overcome the challenges.” In an Insights Live session with the Geneva Learning Foundation in 2022, she made a compelling …

The limitations of expert-led fellowships for global health

How to overcome limitations of expert-led fellowships for global health

Global health, Theory

Coaching and mentoring programs sometimes called “fellowships” have been upheld as the gold standard for developing leaders in global health. For example, a fellowship in the field of immunization was recently advertised in the following manner. We will not dwell here on the ‘live engagements’, which are expert-led presentations of technical knowledge. We already know that such ‘webinars’ have very limited learning efficacy, and unlikely impact on outcomes. (This may seem like a harsh statement to global health practitioners who have grown comfortable with webinars, but it is substantiated by decades of evidence from learning science research.) On the surface, the rest of the model sounds highly effective, promising personalized attention and expert guidance. The use of a project-based learning approach is promising, but it is unclear what support is provided once the implementation plan has been crafted. It is when you consider the logistical aspects that the cracks begin …

How does peer learning compare to expert-led coaching fellowships

How does the scalability of peer learning compare to expert-led coaching ‘fellowships’?

Global health, Theory

By connecting practitioners to learn from each other, peer learning facilitates collaborative development. ow does it compare to expert-led coaching and mentoring “fellowships” that are seen as the ‘gold standard’ for professional development in global health? Scalability in global health matters. (See this article for a comparison of other aspects.) Simplified mathematical modeling can compare the scalability of expert coaching (“fellowships”) and peer learning Let N be the total number of learners and M be the number of experts available. Assuming that each expert can coach K learners effectively: For N>>M×KN>>M×K, it is evident that expert coaching is costly and difficult to scale. Expert coaching “fellowships” require the availability of experts, which is often optimistic in highly specialized fields. The number of learners (N) greatly exceeds the product of the number of experts (M) and the capacity per expert (K). Scalability of one-to-one peer learning By comparison, peer learning turns …

Teach to Reach 10 climate change and health

Become a Teach to Reach 10 Partner: Help amplify frontline voices at the world’s largest health peer learning event

Events, The Geneva Learning Foundation

The Geneva Learning Foundation is pleased to announce the tenth edition of Teach to Reach, to be held 20-21 June 2024. Teach to Reach is a massive, open peer learning event where health professionals network, and learn with colleagues from all over the world. Request your invitation… Teach to Reach 10 continues a tradition of groundbreaking peer learning started in 2020, when over 3,000 health workers from 80 countries came together to improve immunization training. 17,662 health professionals – over 80% from districts and facilities, half working for government – participated in Teach to Reach 9 in October 2023. Participants shared 940 experiences ahead of the event. See what we learned at Teach to Reach 9 or view Insights Live with Dr Orin Levine. Teach to Reach is a platform, community, and network to amplify voices from lower-resource settings bearing the greatest burden of disease. Teach to Reach 10 will …

Calculating the relative effectiveness of expert coaching, peer learning, and cascade training

Calculating the relative effectiveness of expert coaching, peer learning, and cascade training

Global health, Theory

A formula for calculating learning efficacy, (E), considering the importance of each criterion and the specific ratings for peer learning, is: This abstract formula provides a way to quantify learning efficacy, considering various educational criteria and their relative importance (weights) for effective learning. Variable  Definition Description  S Scalability Ability to accommodate a large number of learners  I Information fidelity Quality and reliability of information  C Cost effectiveness Financial efficiency of the learning method  F Feedback quality Quality of feedback received  U Uniformity Consistency of learning experience  Summary of five variables that contribute to learning efficacy Weights for each variables are derived from empirical data and expert consensus. All values are on a scale of 0-4, with a “4” representing the highest level. Scalability Information fidelity Cost-benefit Feedback quality Uniformity 4.00 3.00 4.00 3.00 1.00 Assigned weights Here is a summary table including all values for each criterion, learning efficacy calculated …

Movement for Immunization Agenda IA2030

Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030): grounding action in local realities to reach the unreached

Global health

WHO’s 154th Executive Board meeting provided a sobering picture of how the COVID-19 pandemic reversed decades of progress in expanding global immunization coverage and controlling vaccine-preventable diseases. In response, the World Health Organization is calling for action “grounded in local realities”. Growing evidence supports fresh approaches that do exactly that. Tom Newton-Lewis is part of the community of researchers and practitioners who have observed that “health systems are complex and adaptive” and, they say, that explains why top-down control rarely succeeds. However, top-down control and directive management appear to have been key to how immunization programmes achieved impressive results in previous decades. Hence, it may be challenging for the current generation of global immunization leaders to consider that enabling approaches that leverage intrinsic motivation, foster collective responsibility, and empower teams – especially for local staff – are the ones needed now. One example of an enabling approach is the Movement for Immunization …

A shared lens around sensemaking in learning analytics

Making sense of sensemaking

Theory

In her article “A Shared Lens for Sensemaking in Learning Analytics”, Sasha Poquet argues that the field of learning analytics lacks a shared conceptual language to describe the process of sensemaking around educational data. She reviews prominent theories of sensemaking, delineating tensions between assumptions in dominant paradigms. Poquet then demonstrates the eclectic use of sensemaking frameworks across empirical learning analytics research. For instance, studies frequently conflate noticing dashboard information with interpreting its significance. To advance systematic inquiry, she calls for revisiting epistemic assumptions to reconcile tensions between cognitive and sociocultural traditions. Adopting a transactional perspective, Poquet suggests activity theory, conceptualizations of perceived situational definitions, and ecological affordance perception can jointly illuminate subjective and objective facets of sensemaking. This preliminary framework spotlights the interplay of internal worldviews, external systemic contexts, and emergent perceptual processes in appropriating analytics. The implications span research and practice. The proposed constructs enable precise characterization of variability …